Physical copy of the sheet music mailed to you.

Composer: Marcus Norris

Year: 2022

Instrumentation: Strings, 2222 winds, 4231 brass, timpani, two percussionists (suspended cymbals, glockenspiel, crotales), celesta.

Duration: 12 minutes

About the Work:  

There Can Be No More Kings: A Hood Fantasy  is inspired by not letting the past or present dictate your future. As I wrote it, I thought a lot about being a kid. When you're young, people tell you that you can be whatever you want to be when you grow up. You can be president or a lawyer, you can be a sports star, you're a king…. But when you grow up, you learn that kings don't really exist anymore. Similarly, for many people from our communities, the odds are equally stacked against you for even the seemingly more reasonable aspirations. Once you get older and learn how the systems in place are designed, you realize that, for many, the odds of getting to law school might be equally as low as becoming a literal king, just because of the time, place, and situation of their birth, all of which aren’t in their control.

I was also reflecting and reminiscing on what some of my favorite stories and movies were as a kid. Two that come to mind that I replayed constantly were The Nightmare Before Christmas  (1993) and Alice in Wonderland  (1951). Analyzing in hindsight, both deal with escapism and this idea that you can make your world into whatever you want it to be. You can do or be whatever you want, free from the restricting forces of your surroundings. I think I latched onto those stories because I subconsciously needed to. I know I wouldn’t be where I am without that mentality.

I want to share that message with the people that come where I'm from, especially the kids. I call it a “Hood Fantasy”, because the hood deserves fantasies too. We deserve magic, epic adventures, and whatever else we want, rather than exclusively trauma. We deserve to hear and see ourselves in triumphant and bombastic art.

The systems and people that oppress you will always be unapologetic in doing so. They will tell you “There Can Be No More Kings”, but this piece is your invitation to be unapologetic in your thriving, preferably in their faces.

-       with love, Marcus Norris.