ABSTRACT
Sun Ra (1914-1993) was a wildly prolic and innovative jazz bandleader, composer and pianist who became immersed in the mythology of ancient Egypt and ideas of space travel, declaring that ‘space is the place’ and that he himself was of extra-terrestrial origin. These themes pervaded all aspects of his music and onstage performances, from song titles and lyrics to set designs, record jacket art and costumes. This chapter will begin with an account of Ra’s life and career, with focus on his fascination with Egyptian mythology and outer space, and the amboyant ways in which he expressed these in his work. It will then be shown how these two themes form twin poles of Ra’s fundamental mythos, or what musicologist Graham Lock terms Ra’s ‘Astro Black Mythology’. Lock’s term refers to Ra’s deliberate formulation of a mythic future and past for African-Americans, which Ra presents in his work as an alternative to the Christian mythology that had shaped the worldview of African slaves. For Ra, Egypt signied an ancient Golden Age for Black people, while outer space represented an empowering image of the technological future and the prospect of very new possibilities for human beings. Ra’s imaginative Arkestra performances and recordings became sacred arenas, in which Ra could freely express and glorify his mythological vision. Following this discussion, it will be demonstrated how Ra’s Afrocentric mission is in some ways congruent with the beliefs of two Black Nationalist spiritual movements in America: the Nation of Islam (NOI), founded by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930, and the Nuwaubian Nation of Moors (NNM), founded by Dwight York in 1967. Finally, there will be an examination of the particular signicance of ufology, a powerful ‘invented’ or ‘ctional’ religious discourse, to Ra’s mythos and to the cosmological and eschatological narratives of these two movements. Where the NOI teaches that a UFO will destroy White indels, the NNM incorporate into their doctrine a developed apocalyptic scenario where members might be transported to outer space and later return to earth to save the planet.
