Listen to Love Life

New Album, Love Life, by Kurtis Lamkin out now.

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Love Life

Kurtis Lamkin

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Love Life

Kurtis Lamkin
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Kurtis Lamkin is a poet from Philadelphia who plays the kora and, on this album, the jinjin. As with the kora, the jinjin lends itself to gathering words and music into lyrics that speak to the destiny of the people, as well as what goes on in our hearts.

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  1. 1
    Love Life 2:43
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    Love Life

    Kurtis Lamkin

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  2. 2
    Yay You 2:29
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    Yay You

    Kurtis Lamkin

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  3. 3
    You 16 3:04
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    You 16

    Kurtis Lamkin

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  4. 4
    Red Bandana 4:30
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    Red Bandana

    Kurtis Lamkin

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  5. 5
    Swings 2:46
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    Swings

    Kurtis Lamkin

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  6. 6
    Make It Lovely 2:44
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    Make It Lovely

    Kurtis Lamkin

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  7. 7
    I Need My Woman So Bad 2:41
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    I Need My Woman So Bad

    Kurtis Lamkin

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  8. 8
    Mosquito Beach 1:56
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    Mosquito Beach

    Kurtis Lamkin

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  9. 9
    Bet On You 1:22
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    Bet On You

    Kurtis Lamkin & Kebe`

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  10. 10
    Welcome Home 4:24
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    Welcome Home

    Kurtis Lamkin

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Also available on Apple Music, Spotify, Soundcloud,  Amazon, and  in iTunes.

About the Album: 

Love Life is a tribute to all things worth loving. The songs are sung along with the jinjin - a 19-string version of the West African kora - in the tradition of the praise poem. In that tradition the key to praise is Sacrifice.  

The flow of life often asks us to give what we treasure to survive and this can be painful. So humbling that we bury how worthless we feel when we suffer a crisis.  

I remember a girl who survived a horrible school massacre who was asked what it was like during the ordeal. She answered, "Yes I was afraid. I was really afraid. But then I got brave." To go on with her life she may have to forget what it took to move from abject terror to courage. But praise holds that moment and the giving she had to do forever. Surviving humbles us so much that we can't imagine talking about it, much less bragging about it. Somebody has to do it, though. Otherwise, the sacrifice gets cut off from the beauty it was meant to be.  

Love Life is my way of praising everything I could get my hands on.

“Kurtis Lamkin is a singular talent of our generation entering his years of mastery. He is an innovator, a storyteller, a musician, a poet and a moral historian who has studied and mastered the kora, a West African bridge harp with twenty-one strings...And in the tradition of Homer he travels the country singing the truth of our history, the hope of our humanity, and the imagination of our community…” - Mark Nepo, NYTimes Bestselling Author of "The Book Of Awakening" and "Surviving Storms"

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Photos

 

 

I wish my love was here

I wish my love was here.

She would know what to do with such a day.

She would wipe the sun and sea from her shoulders

and rub them deep into my palms

and when the sand and salt were gone

she would kiss my hands and say "There."

 

I wish she was here.

 

I know she's inside me.

Even amid the crashing and foaming,

her tenderest sigh.

I am not alone

but I miss her, I miss her so much

and I don't know what to do.

She would know, my love, if she was here.

 

 

 

 

 

Quilts, Catherine Lamkin, Kebe`, Kurtis, Kora

“Kurtis Lamkin is a gifted poet and musician from Charleston, SC. He accompanies himself on the kora, a 21-string West African harp/lute built from a large gourd. The sound is rich and beautiful, like an earthy koto or a ukulele multiplied...” - Kathy Collins, actress, storyteller and radio personality at The Buzz 107.5 Maui

— The Maui News

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Unity Magazine article by Annie Scholl