Flying Lotus has shared a tribute to late collaborator Ras G.
Steven Ellison spoke of his "dear friend and ally in the sonic warfare," "Ras Genius," on Gilles Peterson's latest show. The show was dedicated to the Los Angeles producer, real name Gregory Shorter Jr., who died last week. Flying Lotus also played an ambient track the two collaborated on called "Black Heaven," which he has since uploaded to SoundCloud.
"The last time I saw G was really special to me, and there was something about the timing I just felt was really urgent to go see him," Flying Lotus said. "I had this idea for a movie, and I really wanted Ras G to be a consultant on it because of some of the subject matter in the film... He even gave me the title for it, in the end, called 'Black Heaven.' And I thought, That's a great title."
Flying Lotus continued: "That same night at Spacebase, we started messing around with some music, and I pulled out my little keyboard from my backpack, and I just started playing some stuff and told him to record it. And he was saying, 'We don't even need to record no drums, you just play that stuff. It sounds like movie scenes. It sounds like scenes in your mind'... The next day, he sent me something back, and it was titled 'Black Heaven.'"
Listen to "Black Heaven."
Photo credit: Renata Raksha