Home In America

Album: released as a single (2021)

Songfacts®:

  • The Brooklyn rapper Masta Ace guests on "Home In America," where he asks the question, "What is home?" The song is a look at the history of racism in America up to the Capitol Insurrection on January 6, 2021.
  • Almost all the sounds on the record were recorded originally in one Analog Players Society three-hour recording session at the Bridge Studio in Brooklyn. The band consists of four A-list New York City jazz musicians: tenor saxophonist Donny McCaslin (David Bowie Blackstar), pianist Orrin Evans (The Bad Plus, Captain Black Big Band), bassist Dezron Douglas (Ravi Coltrane, Black Lion), and drummer Eric McPherson (Fred Hersch Trio). Producer Ben Rubin only asked them to play two standards, Antonio Carlos Jobim's "One Note Samba" and Thelonious Monk's "Epistrophy." Not only did the tracks from this session end up on "Home in America," they also birthed two other records, the cut-up instrumental record Soundtrack for a Nonexistent Film and three full takes from the band on TILTED, both released by Ropeadope Records in 2020.
  • Before it was "Home in America," an earlier instrumental version of this song was called "Starry Night" and appeared on the record Sountrack for a Nonexistent Film. Once Masta Ace got involved and wrote the lyrics, it became clear what the song was about and thus the new name. "I was trying to avoid writing songs for my album during 2020 because I knew my emotions and strong feelings about the political climate in this country would unavoidably come out in the music," says Masta Ace. "The opportunity to collaborate with Analog Players Society gave me an outlet to voice some of my angst and give a sound to my thoughts from the past year."

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