Preacher’s Coming / Gullah Geechee

Both as DJ and as musician, Detroit’s Theo Parrish has always been a uniquely talented tracer of African-American cultural links, and this is one of his most explicitly educational releases. “Gullah Geechee” reworks a clapping and poetry piece by Jovia Armstrong, Keith Beber, Carolyn Ferrari and Craig Huckaby that refers to the Gullah/Geechee people of the coast and islands of Georgia and South Carolina, and more broadly to the continuation of West African identity via creole languages, folk tales, songs and rhythms. “Preacher’s Comin’” loops an old-time gospel piano and – again – clapping, with a seductively insinuating woman’s voice repeating the title, and likewise tells a powerful story of how African stories and experience have been preserved in American rituals.