Taken from the Heaven half of the record, this latest track was inspired by Washington growing up towards the end of the arcade era, before console gaming took over. Washington was raised in the turbulent neighbourhood of Inglewood in Los Angeles in the early ’90s, where a local video game arcade was the respite from all the madness and gang violence the city was experiencing at the time. Young people from all around would head there to play games such as Street Fighter, and while they were there everything was equalised and it was all about the game.
This unifying feeling of connection to the past, and the many ways we connect as people, is what Washington is reflecting on, and where the album as a whole is coming from. As a kid, he would daydream about having a song play as a themesong to his entrance into the arcade, like a boxer, as he turned up to battle the others with his well honed Street Fighter skills.
Heaven and Earth will be released on Friday June 22. Keep yourself up to date by following Kamasi Washington’s instagram here.
