Bruce Lee fan jazz saxophonist: Who is Kamasi Washington?

In the 1971 movie Fists of Fury (The Big Boss), after learning that almost all of his relatives were killed, Bruce Lee sits on the bank of a river and says to himself, “I came here dreaming of the good things I would experience. But now, I have nothing left. "I lost everything I loved," he says. He then promises that he will make Hsiao Mi, the boss of the ice factory where he works, responsible for what happened to him, pay for it, no matter what it takes. In the finale, he raids Mi's mansion alone and takes his revenge on her.

Kamasi Washington is a jazz musician and saxophonist from Los Angeles; After working with names such as Kendrick Lamar, Erykah Badu, and Snoop Dogg, he made a solid entrance into the music market with his album The Epic in 2015. He also proves his maturity with his 2018 album Heaven and Earth. One of the leading roles of the album belongs to the opening song, Fists of Fury. The song, which includes the lyrics "We have come to the end of the days when we were remembered as victims / We will not ask for justice from now on / We will punish ourselves", is inspired by the soundtrack of the movie and completes the missing pieces of the puzzle with its lyrics. For Washington, who said, "I know I don't look like that, but I love kung fu," this song is a tribute to Bruce Lee.

Kamasi Washington (born February 18, 1981) is an American jazz saxophonist. He is a founding member of the jazz collective West Coast Get Down. Washington was born in 1981 and raised in Los Angeles, California. He is a graduate of the Academy of Music of Alexander Hamilton High School in Beverlywood, Los Angeles.

The American musician, who salutes combat sports in the album's hit song Street Fighter Mas, makes references to the famous console game in the video he shot. Washington, who says that he played Street Fighter at a master level when he was a child and says, "The world to which my mind belongs can only live in my mind," tries to create a whole from the moments engraved in the depths of his mind in this album, where he reflects his identity even more. He succeeds...

Washington's first album contains a similar metaphor. Just like Fists of Fury, The Epic's first song, Change of The Guard, is a reflection of the 37-year-old musician's mind. In an interview with The Guardian, Washington describes the feelings represented by the song with the following words:

“I had a dream while recording. There was a group of warriors living in the mountain village; They were trying to overcome the pass at the top of the mountain, which was guarded by a guard, but one by one they were all defeated by the guard. Until the last warrior... He was strong enough to cross the gate and the guard noticed this; Besides, the warrior was a good-hearted man and his time had come. Anyway, the guard's main duty was to protect the music and defeat people who could harm it, until someone who could do this came along..."

We do not know whether Kamasi Washington, who said in another interview, "If you have the power to change the world, why wouldn't you do it?" and who did not put down Malcolm X's autobiography in his early youth, is really that powerful. However, some lines in Florence + The Machine's songs Big God and 100 Years, in which he sings with his saxophone in his latest album High As Hope, may inspire us at this point...

Even though he had to build his career from the bottom, life was not that difficult for Kamasi, who grew up in a caring family. At least he didn't suffer from fatherlessness like his father, Rickey.

Rickey Washington first saw his father in his teenage years. In their first and only meeting, his father promised him the world, but he never got the new bike, travel, and basketball game tickets he talked about. And Rickey's life, who always felt this deficiency, changed with the news from his father, whom he tried to reach after the birth of his son Kamasi...

“I needed someone to help me sort things out at the time. So, I tried to reach my father, but what I learned was the news of his death. That day, I faced a reality; You can understand what a good parent Rickey is by watching his son's 2015 Boiler Room performance. For Kamasi, who greets his father at the end of Re-Run, he is a real and true role model.

Rickey's page, which has the phrase "Jazz saxophonist / Composer / Marathon runner / Poet" on his Instagram account, is full of photos of his son and unsuccessful aphorisms. And if we put the aphorisms part aside, Rickey draws a very good father profile.

Kamasi Washington, who came to the fame he deserved late, is currently busy resurrecting the allegedly dying jazz music and continuing the legacy of Malcolm I guess this is our chance...