Space Is the Place

Dressed in a futuristic pharaoh-like costume, the avant-garde jazz musician Sun Ra travels through time and the universe in his music-powered spaceship. After a mysterious disappearance, he lands on Earth with his crew to convince the African American community to free themselves from their earthly shackles and move to a utopian planet. To make this possible, he takes on The Overseer, a satanic godfather in the guise of a pimp, who he plays poker with to determine the fate of the Black community and the end of the world as we know it.

This science fiction story is mixed with documentary footage of a free jazz concert by Sun Ra and his Arkestra. The plot and design are absurdist, but the themes of Black identity, oppression and musical transcendence are very serious.

Sun Ra, who previously set out his ideas in a series of lectures entitled “The Black Man in the Cosmos” at UC Berkeley, plays himself. He advocates a new mythology utilizing art as a vehicle—in particular music. Released in 1974, the film is seen as the beginning of Afrofuturism and has since become a cult classic.