Leave It For the Children

Leave it for the Children: A Visual History of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra blends new and archival images and ephemera to highlight the ongoing legacy of the internationally renowned community jazz organization.

Leave It for the Children: A Visual History of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra explores the sixty-plus years of the legendary Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra, the community music ensemble formed in Los Angeles by Horace Tapscott. Through a deep and sustained relationship with a wide range of visual material connected to the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra—personal and sourced photographs, album covers, poster art, music sheets, international newspaper clippings, concert flyers, documentary and feature films, and collected ephemera, this publication traces the history of The Ark, its ongoing iterations, and speaks to Los Angeles’s shifting social and political landscape. Punctuating these sourced materials will be a series of commissioned texts from musicians, poets, historians, writers and artists. These contributions will take various forms—from poetry and essays to interviews and first-person reflections, creating a visual document based on, and serving as a testament to, The Ark’s sixty-plus year living history of music and community art.

Samuel Lamontagne lives in Los Angeles anis a writer and Assistant Professor in the Departments of Music and Black Study at UC Riverside. His research traces the histories of hip hop and Black music, exploring how they generate critical knowledges and connect to broader Pan-African imaginaries. He is also the co-director of the documentary film In the Hour of Chaos: Hip Hop Art & Activism with Public Enemy's Chuck D (2024). Lamontagne's work has been featured in the Los Angeles Times, NPR’s The World, and international outlets such as RFI and EFE. Beyond his scholarship, he collaborates with community-based organizations including dublab radio, KAOS Network, and the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra.

Darol Olu Kaye is an artist and filmmaker from and based in Los Angeles. His practice combines narrative, documentary, and experimental filmmaking to explore Black American life and culture. Kae’s highly collaborative and research-based approach often draws inspiration from local community histories and the legacy of creative Black art forms, like jazz. His work challenges conventional cinematic forms by blurring the lines between fact and fiction, pushing the medium to render the full complexity and profound lyricism of Black experience visible on screen. Kae’s films have screened at festivals and institutions worldwide, including Sundance, SXSW, Locarno Film Festival, MoMA, and the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). In 2020, his short film i ran from it and was still in it won the Pardino d’oro for Best International Short Film at Locarno and received a Special Jury Recognition for Poetry at the 2021 SXSW Film Festival. Recognized as one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film” in 2022, Kae is a 2024-25 Creative Capital Awardee and an inaugural 2025 Black Film Project Fellow at Harvard University. He is currently writing his feature film debut, Without a Song, and is starting production on his documentary feature Message to the Messenger.

• Publisher: Angel City Press
  
• Publish Date: September 29, 2026
  
• Pages: 232
  
• Language: English
  
• Type: Hardcover
  
• EAN/UPC: 9781626400504
  
• Dimensions: 11 in H | 8.5 in W | 0.06 lb Wt
• BISAC Categories: Music, History