Shabaka Shares New Single “Dance In Praise” Ahead of Of The Earth
- The Night Temple
- 22 hours ago
- 3 min read
On the eve of the release of his upcoming independent album Of The Earth, out March 6th via Shabaka Records, Shabaka returns with the third and final single from the project, “Dance In Praise.” Described by Shabaka as being “driven by unhinged dreams of diasporic Caribbean futurism,” the track offers a euphoric, forward-looking glimpse into the expansive, boundary-pushing sonic world of the album. It follows previous releases “Eyes Lowered” and the double lead single “A Future Untold / Marwa The Mountain,” which introduced the project’s philosophical and emotional depth.
Widely regarded as one of the UK’s most influential musicians and a defining figure in contemporary British culture, Shabaka has reshaped the modern musical landscape over the past decade, earning global acclaim for his immersive recordings and powerful live performances. Moving fluidly between worlds, he has redefined the language of contemporary jazz while working across experimental hip hop, alternative rock, and improvised music. Recent collaborations with artists as varied as André 3000, billy woods, and Turnstile reflect an approach rooted less in genre than in intensity, presence, and risk.
Of The Earth, the follow-up to 2024’s acclaimed Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, is written, performed, produced, and mixed entirely by Shabaka, marking his most personal statement to date. Developed in part during the pandemic, the album reflects a deepening engagement with beatmaking, sampling, and electronic composition. Working hands-on in DAWs and samplers, he approached the studio as a laboratory, building grooves from fragmented loops and self-sampled phrases, and drawing influence from the time-bending swing of J Dilla and the architectural sequencing of Flying Lotus. Drawing from jazz, electronic, spiritual, and diasporic traditions, the record balances rhythmic propulsion with reflective textures, with flute, saxophone, and voice treated as interchangeable elements within an evolving sonic ecosystem.
Rhythm sits at the core of Of The Earth, as Shabaka reconnects with the physicality of the music he grew up around, drawing from reggae’s pulse, soca’s kinetic lift, and the communal energy of Caribbean street processions. Those influences shape the album’s forward momentum and percussive drive, grounding its futuristic textures in something bodily and ancestral, where groove arrives before theory and movement becomes its own form of meaning.
Previous single “Eyes Lowered” opened the doorway into the album’s inner world, pairing meditative melodic lines with subtle electronic textures to create an intimate, reflective, and quietly propulsive sound. For the first time on record, Shabaka incorporates rapping as an extension of breath, rhythm, and phrasing rather than a departure from his instrumental language. Across the album, voice becomes another vessel for transmission, used to explore psychological pressure, digital saturation, and collective disorientation, as well as the possibility of recovery through stillness and awareness.
As a result, Shabaka sounds liberated. Though faint echoes of prior projects remain, they manifest as ancestral DNA rather than callbacks. Stepping forward as producer, vocalist, instrumentalist, and sonic architect, he refuses to let genre or expectation define his reach. Of The Earth feels less like a pivot and more like an unveiling: straightforward yet dimensional, rooted yet exploratory, vulnerable yet assured. He’s not trying to provide answers or present a fixed ideology. As ever, Shabaka remains in motion, chasing the future he hopes the music will become.
In support of the new album and following its release, Shabaka will embark on a run of live dates across the US, UK, and Europe this spring, kicking off in Philadelphia at Solar Myth on March 25th, with stops in New York, Knoxville, and Chicago before returning overseas.
Comments