Credit: Emanuel Wallace
About three years, local poet and activist R.A. Washington brought together the hip-hop/funk/indie rock act Mourning [A] BLKstar. The band put out BLK Musak on Blue Moon Records in 2016 and then followed it up with 2017’s The Possible.

Last year, the prolific band returned with The Garner Poems, a batch of songs from a suite Washington had written about police brutality and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

On April 6, the band will release Reckoning, an album based on a series of song sketches that Washington wrote last summer. In advance of the album’s release, the band has just issued a new music video for the dissonant track “Feels.”

The album can be preordered here.

Youtube video

This article appears in Feb 20-26, 2019.

Jeff has been covering the Cleveland music scene for more than 25 years now. On a regular basis, he tries to talk to whatever big acts are coming through town. And if you're in a local band that he needs to hear, email him at jniesel@clevescene.com.