Lani B Supreme: Legacy

Lani B. Supreme: Legacy is a short documentary exploring the creative practice of interdisciplinary musician Lani B. Supreme. Through poetic visuals, narration, live performances and an orchestral score composed and conducted by the artist himself, audiences are introduced to Lani B.’s musical style and deep historical roots. 

Lani B. is a trumpeter, composer and educator born in New York City and raised in the New Orleans community. His music is dynamic, layered and embedded with the influences of his community. As a composer, he challenges notions of genre by moving fluidly between a variety of compositional approaches. As a performer, his clarion sound is reminiscent of the great trumpeters who have influenced him yet infused with his own unmistakable voice. As a teacher and orator, Lani B. uses his performances as an opportunity to highlight the personal and historical influences that drive his creative practice. 

Lani B. Supreme’s musical legacy begins with his great-great-grandfather James Brown “J.B.” Humphrey, known by musicologists as the Grandfather of Jazz. Following emancipation, J.B. Humphrey taught music to the children of African American sharecroppers, bestowing them with critical skills that they could use to earn a living as free Black people. J.B. had numerous children and grandchildren, but he only passed down the skill of trumpet playing to one of his grandchildren, Lani B.’s grandfather, Emery Humphrey Thompson. Emery would go on to become a celebrated trumpeter and would give Lani B. his first trumpet when he was only 5 years old. 

Lani B. Supreme carries on his family’s musical legacy, with an interdisciplinary practice that includes composition, performance and pedagogy. His compositions are drawn from life experiences, personal and historical. He uses music as a means of drawing present-day connections to significant moments in history and uplifting the people and lessons that have shaped him. Lani B. Supreme’s work is especially concerned with historical and contemporary Black athletes, from whose experiences he draws out universal lessons that encourage and uplift audiences.