His ambitious new work The Greatest: Muhammad Ali will mix music, poetry, narration and dance into what he calls “a 90-minute opera-rap-oratorio mashup”. “I wanted Ali’s life story to be the gateway to the bigger picture, which was his relationship to the most important things of the time: race, war and spirituality. The eight-minute piece – a 70s jam called Float Rumble Rest – was recorded quickly and released to benefit the Ali Center. In the closing section I hear tantalising fragments of Muhammad Ali’s famous words as the music builds to a climax. “It doesn’t matter – white or black, we are all influenced by Muhammad Ali’s story.

Source: The Guardian November 02, 2017 14:26 UTC