Kamasi Washington Performs ‘Street Fighter Mas’ Live At The Apollo Theater

Today, Kamasi Washington released a new Amazon Music original concert film, Kamasi Washington Live At The Apollo Theater. The saxophonist/bandleader shared the performance of “Street Fighter Mas” featured in the film streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Washington’s February 2019 headlining performance at New York City’s historic Apollo Theater served as the focus of the Michael Garber-directed film. The movie intersperses interviews and behind-the-scenes clips with footage from the Apollo stage of Washington playing saxophone alongside his band, The Next Step and special guests DJ Battlecat and vocalist Dwight Trible.

“Street Fighter Mas” appeared on Washington’s sophomore album, 2018’s Heaven And Earth. When it was released that year as a single, Washington shared the following statement about “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.

Watch Kamasi Washinton performing “Street Fighter Mas” live at The Apollo Theater below: