Rocket #32

After the nuclear accident at Three Mile Island in 1979, the artist-performer-composer-visionary-eccentric Sun Ra become very concerned about the advancement of nuclear technology. As the 70s turned into the 80s and the cold war dragged on, Ra recorded the tune “Nuclear War”—a solemn look at the existential threat of technology and pollution, and perhaps one of the first examples of a “protest rap.” Convinced that he had a hit song on his hands, Ra walked into Columbia Records and pitched it. Columbia however wasn’t won over, concerned about its language and length (8 mins) they would not consider it for a release. It was eventually released on the British Label Y Records, as an obscure 12” single aimed at DJs and never reaching mainstream ears. Fast forward to October 2013, Lady Gaga releases a song called “Venus,” the song contains the sample “Rocket #9 take off to the planet venus”, from electronic duo Zombie Zombie’s cover of Ra’s song “Rocket #9.” Since the hook was penned by Sun Ra that means he has a writing credit for the tune, and so he finally made it into the charts as the song reached #32 on the Billboard Hot 100. I like to think of it as poetic justice for Sun Ra. In 1971, Sun Ra was the artist in residence at the University of California, Berkeley and taught a class called “The Black Man In The Cosmos.” The lectures are very whimsical and lysergic, with words and ideas blurring and bleeding into each other creating Ra’s distinctive poetic cosmic slop. One of the lectures can be found on the excellent Ubu Web along with a collection of other interesting recordings, including a collaboration between him and John Cage http://ubu.com/sound/ra.html And while we are here let’s hear the evolution from Sun Ra’s, “Rocket Number 9,” to the Zombie Zombie cover, to Lady Gaga’s “Venus.” Sun Ra—Rocket Number 9 Zombie Zombie—Rocket Number 9 Lady Gaga—Venus Lastly, here is an awesome clip from the Afrofuturist sci-fi movie, “Space is The Place” featuring Sun Ra. In the clip, Ra is the interviewer at the “outer space employment agency,” and candidates walking in have to engage with Ra and his rhetorical wordplay. Like everything he does, the film is a genius fusion of the happy and the sad, the serious and the mundane, high art, low brow, life & death, comedy and seriousness. In short, the whole of the human experience.