NOW DIG THIS
If you’ve cheated and you’re reading this first to find Best Of recommendations, then may we suggest the Marshall-Allen compiled primer In The Orbit Of Ra (Strut/Art Yard), Gilles Peterson Presents: To Those Of Earth… And Other Worlds (above, Strut, 2015) and the glorious 2-CD Singles compilation (Evidence, 1996). Biography wise, there is John Szwed’s groundbreaking Space Is The Place (Canongate, 2000) Paul Youngquist’s deep-dive exploration A Pure Solar World (University Of Texas Press, 2016) and William Sites’ masterful Sun Ra’s Chicago (University Of Chicago Press, 2021). Film wise, there is of course Afrofuturist sci-fi oddity Space Is The Place (John Coney, 1974) and Robert Mugge’s revelatory 1980 profile A Joyful Noise, but we are still waiting for the definitive modern documentary; and no, that shoddy BBC4 effort doesn’t count.