Lordship & Bondage:
The Birth of the Negro Superman
Lamar is guided in this work by a desire for a new existential philosophy on, for, and from Black consciousness, which partakes of what Fred Moten calls “the black Radical tradition,” but which distinctively rejects and seeks a world beyond Christianity alongside and inseparable from white supremacist liberal capitalism.
With a libretto that draws from G.W.F Hegel’s "Lordship and Bondage” from Phenomenology of the Spirit, Friedrich Nietzsche's "Übermensch" from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Cornel West writing on Music and Sun Ra’s interviews and writings on discipline and freedom, this piece engages African Americans' experiences of enslaved and liberated consciousness. It is a melodramatic epic expressing and enacting a becoming of Black mind, body, and soul beyond the violence of both slavery and liberty.
Unfolding in nine movements, this piece continues M. Lamar’s juxtapositions of: a sub-genre among Negro spirituals which he call Doom Spirituals; sub- genres of black and doom metal; and contemporary opera and classical music. This work continues the rich investigations and compositions from his recent collaboration with Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, the theorist and composer of Transcendental Black Metal. The underground aesthetics of Goth and metal subculture are also central to the look and feel of this piece.
“The theatrical male soprano, pianist, and composer M. Lamar—whose quasi-operatic creations grapple with issues of race, violence, desire, and liberation—collaborates with the San Francisco-based guitar-and-percussion duo the Living Earth Show in a new song cycle, “Lordship and Bondage: The Birth of the Negro Superman.” Almost entirely without words, it is a visceral response to notions drawn from Hegel, Nietzsche, and Sun Ra. The music conjures the ghostly plaint of rural blues and gospel singers, Diamanda Galás’s thunderous end-times arias, and the nihilistic menace of Scandinavian black metal—often all at once. “
- Steve Smith, New Yorker
About M Lamar
M. Lamar is a composer who works across opera, metal, performance, video, sculpture and installation to craft sprawling narratives of radical becomings that “plumb the depth of all-American trauma with visionary verve” (The New York Times). Lamar holds a BFA from The San Francisco Art Institute and attended the Yale School of Art, sculpture program, before dropping out to pursue music. Lamar’s work has been presented internationally, most recently at The Meet Factory in Prague, The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, National Sawdust New York, The Kitchen New York, MoMa PS1’s Greater New York, Merkin Hall, New York, Issue Project Room New York, The Walter and McBean Galleries, San Francisco; Human resources, Los Angeles;Wesleyan University; Participant Inc., New York; New Museum, New York; Södra Teatern, Stockholm; Warehouse9, Copenhagen; WWDIS Fest, Gothenburg and Stockholm; The International Theater Festival, Donzdorf, Germany; Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York; Performance Space 122, New York; and African American Art & Culture Complex, San Francisco; among others. Mr. Lamar continues to study classical and bel canto technique with Ira Siff, and is a recipient of a 2016 NYFA Fellowship in Music and Sound and grants from the Rema Hort Mann Foundation (2015), Harpo Foundation (2014-2015), and Franklin Furnace Fund (2013–14).
"While I therefore cannot confirm or deny whether a Negro Superman was indeed born on Friday night,
I can say I’ll likely never forget Lamar’s challenging attempt."
San Francisco Classical Voice