Releasing two albums on BBE Music as Mega Jawns, the transatlantic duo of Will Brock and Sumsuch have been musical partners and the best of friends for almost a decade now. ‘Don't Know Where I'm Going' is the first track to be released from a series of studio sessions which took place in West Philly during May 2022, after the pair had been separated for a couple of years. Picking up right where they left off with deep music and even deeper conversations, this song came into being after an intense discourse on home, ancestry, and what those words mean when you're black in America.
"We were in the studio writing and I was fully in my captive bag" says Will Brock. "When I'm in the fully creative space and free to express myself, I tend to be squarely in the centre of all of the pain and sorrow that western culture puts on Africans. See, home, to a conscious African in America, is longing. A wish. And we've never known it. But we know it ain't here."
"Coming from Europe" says Sumsuch "I think a lot of us take for granted knowing where our ancestors lived and worked, and being able to visit those places, comforted by that deeper sense of home. The generational trauma caused by the uprooting of a people is hard to fathom if it's not your lived experience, but it's so important that we listen and try to understand, as tragically this trauma is still being enacted, day-to-day."
After laying down a demo version, the pair passed it over to poet, rapper, writer and friend, Kameelah Waheed, who laid down a show-stopping spoken word verse in one take. Deep in the Philly scene for decades, Kameelah got her break writing for Bunny Sigler on Philadelphia International Records, going on to collaborate with Larry Gold on BBE, and most recently with Honey Dijon on album ‘Black Girl Magic', released in 2022 on Defected Records.
"The significance of this song" Kameelah writes "is my experience of feeling lost, and when I think about the deeper roots of my origin it is a constant life of searching wondering, of being a detective. But at the same time it is exciting discovering your people, their talents and gifts to the world, and how you are connected."
Fresh from the release of his brilliant album ‘Anywhere Here' on Nordic Trax, Irish producer Gavin Boyce turns in a pair of timeless Deep House reworks of ‘Don't Know Where I'm Going'; a mournful yet smooth-grooving main mix, and a drastically different dub, laced with intricate percussion and evocative chord-fragments.
Cover artwork and photography by Zoe Childerly, as part of her project ‘Beneath The Waves'. More information at: zoechilderley.co.uk
Release date: April 28th 2023.
