Ben Harper in revolt in his new album Bloodline Maintenance

Ben Harper continues to create surprise, nearly thirty years after the release of his first album, Welcome to the Cruel World. Now 53 years old, the American has just released an excellent record, Bloodline Maintenance (Chrysalis/Pias). A great explorer of traditional North American repertoires, from blues to rock passing through the folk, Ben Harper today delivers a real soul fire, very marked by the news of his native country. “I think it’s time to leave Americahe lets go of us. I’m part of a generation that thought things could only get better. However, the movement Black Lives Matter showed us that we still hadn’t settled the drama of theslavery and its consequences. The present times are full of challenges to be met.”

We had not known the singer so committed since Like a Kingwhich denounced, in 1994, the police violence that had occurred two years earlier, during which the young African-American Rodney…