Lani B. Supreme: Legacy
Lani B. Supreme: Legacy is part of In The Making, a documentary shorts series from American Masters and Firelight Media follows emerging cultural icons on their journeys to becoming masters of their artistic disciplines.
Director Statement from Sabaah Folayan
Lani B. Supreme: Legacy, is a short documentary exploring the creative practice of interdisciplinary musician Lani B. Supreme. Through poetic visuals, narration, live performances, and an orchestral score composed and conducted by the artist himself, audiences are introduced to Lani B.’s musical style and deep historical roots.
Lani B. is a trumpeter, composer, and educator born in New York City and raised in the New Orleans community. His music is dynamic, layered and embedded with the influences of his community. As a composer, he challenges notions of genre by moving fluidly between a variety of compositional approaches. As a performer, his clarion sound is reminiscent of the great trumpeters who have influenced him, yet infused with his own unmistakable voice. As a teacher and orator, Lani B. uses his performances as an opportunity to highlight the personal and historical influences that drive his creative practice.
Lani B. Supreme’s musical legacy begins with his great-great grandfather James Brown “J.B.” Humphrey, known by musicologists as “The Grandfather of Jazz.” Following emancipation, JB Humphrey taught music to the children of African American sharecroppers, bestowing them with critical skills that they could use to earn a living as free Black people. J.B. had numerous children and grandchildren, but he only passed down the skill of trumpet playing to one of his grandchildren, Lani B.’s grandfather, Emery Humphrey Thompson. Emery would go on to become a celebrated trumpeter, and would give Lani B. his first trumpet, when he was only 5 years old.
Lani B. Supreme carries on his family’s musical legacy, with an interdisciplinary practice that includes composition, performance, and pedagogy. His compositions are drawn from life experiences, personal and historical. He uses music as a means of drawing present-day connections to significant moments in history, and uplifting the people and lessons that have shaped him. Lani B. Supreme’s work is especially concerned with historical and contemporary Black athletes, from whose experiences he draws out universal lessons that encourage and uplift audiences.
Lani B. Supreme attended the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, a performing arts high school renowned for its notable graduates. He then studied at Berkeley College of Music where he honed his skills as a trumpeter, multi- instrumentalist and composer. After graduating, Lani B. lived in Doha, Qatar for several years, traveling, performing and teaching music across the Middle East and Europe. Currently, he is pursuing his doctorate in musicology at the University of Miami, where his research explores the life and impact of his ancestor J.B. Humphrey on the legacy of Jazz.
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