Kamasi Washington Shares New Single ‘Street Fighter Mas’

Kamasi Washington is set to issue his 16-track sophomore album Heaven And Earth on June 22 via Young Turks. The saxophonist/bandleader has shared the record’s latest single “Street Fighter Mas.”

Washington released the below statement regarding “Street Fighter Mas”:

When I was younger, I was in between the end of the arcade generation and the beginning of the console generation. We used to go to this place called Rexall to play Street Fighter. At Rexall, there would be different people from different hoods there playing the game. It was the one place that was like an equalizer. It was just about how good you were at Street Fighter…for the most part. In other places, you were afraid of these dudes; there, you would just play the game and it was what it was, you know? I was really good at Street Fighter, so where the song really came from was me jokingly saying I was going to have my own theme song so that when I showed up to play Street Fighter they’d play my theme song before I came in, like a boxer. In the context of the album, it was the connection that we got with those guys in our neighborhood. We used to call them OGs, the older guys that we looked up to.

In a lot of ways, for me, video games was the way I connected with them because I was never affiliated with any gangs, but I knew them and I was cool with them and that was mainly through the video games. At an older age I thought how amazing would it be if the OGs could just play the game and solve their problems that way. The meaning within the scope of the record is a connection to the past and all of the many ways we can connect.

Washington recorded Heaven And Earth at Henson Studios in Los Angeles with his band The Next Step and members of The West Coast Get Down. Among those appearing on Washington’s follow-up to his 2015 debut triple LP The Epic and the 2017 EP Harmony of Difference include Thundercat, Terrace Martin, Ronald Bruner Jr., Cameron Graves, Brandon Coleman, Miles Mosley, Patrice Quinn, Tony Austin and others.

Watch a trailer for the forthcoming “Street Fighter Mas” video directed by A.G. Rojas below:

Stream “Street Fighter Mas” here:

https://open.spotify.com/track/4zcG9UC60lWbaKr1qj8WNP?si=mZukn4asRBSGXi2YLt_6KA

Heaven And Earth Tracklist

I. Earth

1. Fists of Fury
2. Can You Hear Him
3. Hubtones
4. Connections
5. Tiffakonkae
6. The Invincible Youth
7. Testify
8. One of One

II. Heaven

9. The Space Travelers Lullaby
10. Vi Lua Vi Sol
11. Street Fighter Mas
12. Song for the Fallen
13. Journey
14. The Psalmnist
15. Show Us the Way
16. Will You Sing