Shawn Okpebholo’s Songs in Flight Brings Untold Stories to Light

Cedille is excited for the upcoming release of Songs in Flight, a powerful work that responds to Freedom on the Move, a remarkable database from Cornell University of over 30,000 newspaper ads placed by enslavers to track down those who had escaped their captors.

With “Freedom on the Move” as a starting point, composer Shawn Okpebholo and poet Dr. Tsitsi Ella Jaji collaborated on this 12-movement song cycle. The work includes a poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tyehimba Jess and a series of haikus by poet Crystal Smith. The evocative text engages these ads in multilayered ways while also blending them with current events. The heartbreaking and violent murders of Ahmaud Arbery in 2020 and Trayvon Martin in 2012, along with the imprint of too many others to name, are embedded within the fabric of Songs in Flight.

Songs in Flight marks Okpebholo’s first full album on Cedille, one on which he also serves as producer, leading recording sessions, and working with Cedille’s primary producer, President, and founder Jim Ginsburg. Okpebholo comments:

“[It] shows humility, respect, creative freedom, trust. I’m so grateful to work with a label that allows for creative freedom and a dialogue because we have one goal: to produce great art.”

Joining Okpebholo for this album is an outstanding roster of artists, including Rhiannon Giddens, soprano Karen Slack, countertenor Reginald Mobley, baritone Will Liverman, pianist Paul Sánchez, and saxophonist Julian Velasco. Together, they give voice to the stories and struggles that are central to this project. The New York Times says the work “takes these murky, dehumanizing documents and illuminates them, shifting their perspective to reveal the person hidden in plain sight.”

Your support of Cedille has made it possible to bring these voices from history to the present, providing space for reflection, healing, and a deeper understanding of our shared past. Songs in Flight will be released in February 2025.