Listen To Kamasi Washington's Soaring Single 'Street Fighter Mas'

Recently wowing local audiences on his recent visit to New Zealand, US jazz figurehead Kamasi Washington has unveiled the latest tune from his keenly anticipated two-and-a-half-hour album Heaven and Earth, an action-packed instrumental titled 'Street Fighter Mas' inspired by the classic arcade game. You won't hear anyone yelling “Hadouken!” while button-mashing frantically, but you will hear electronic boogie basslines set against super funky drumming, soaring vocal chants and maze-like saxophone lines from the artist himself. The cinematic tune follows on from recent single 'Fists Of Fury', a re-imagining of the theme to the Bruce Lee martial arts film of the same name, suggesting that Washington knows how to get the most out of his downtime. Washington shared his thoughts around the new tune in a statement, read his words and stream it below, you can also watch a badass short promo clip for the track on his site here...

"When I was younger, I was in between the end of the arcade generation and the beginning of the console generation. We used to go to this place called Rexall to play Street Fighter. At Rexall, there would be different people from different hoods there playing the game. It was the one place that was like an equalizer. It was just about how good you were at Street Fighter…for the most part. In other places, you were afraid of these dudes; there, you would just play the game and it was what it was, you know? I was really good at Street Fighter, so where the song really came from was me jokingly saying I was going to have my own theme song so that when I showed up to play Street Fighter they’d play my theme song before I came in, like a boxer. In the context of the album, it was the connection that we got with those guys in our neighborhood. We used to call them OGs, the older guys that we looked up to."

'Heaven and Earth' is out Friday 22nd June via Young Turks / Rhythmethod