40th Anniversary Album
LISTEN & BUY
SONGS FROM THE ALBUM
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UN DU AKERST (AND YOU PLOW)
FEATURING LA MANGA AND LAVENDER LIGHT GOSPEL CHOIR
FEATURED VIDEO
The Klezmatics featuring La Manga and Lavender Light Gospel Choir - Un Du Akerst (And You Plow)
The Klezmatics at 40: A Mini-Documentary on Four Decades of Music and the Celebration Ahead
ABOUT THE ALBUM
The Grammy-winning Yiddish band, The Klezmatics, announce their new album We Were Made For These Times, due out May 1 via Shamus Records, label arm of TRO Essex Music Group. Acting as their 40th-anniversary statement and produced by Danny Blume, the project is a sweeping, cross-cultural collaboration rooted in protest, resilience, spiritual endurance, and radical joy. More than an album, it is a gathering of voices across borders and traditions that weaves Jewish, Black gospel, Latin American, Crimean Tatar, and avant-jazz musical traditions together to form a vibrant and diverse tapestry of art. In times of rising nationalism, war, and cultural division across the world, The Klezmatics have returned with an album that forms a critically important musical language of solidarity.
‘We Were Made For These Times” is arguably the highlight of The Klezmatics’ rich and vibrant 40 year history,” explains founding member and trumpeter Frank London. “It ties together our passion for singing songs to make the world a better place with our love of collaborating with different artists. This is quintessential Klezmatics: social justice Yiddish music, rooted in our history, in three languages, with a universal message. It is an inspirational, radically positive statement in these difficult times.”
To accompany the announcement, The Klezmatics shared the lead single + video, “Un Du Akerst” (a worker’s anthem whose title translates to “And You Plow”) featuring La Manga & Lavender Light Gospel Choir. With words by Jewish political and cultural philosopher Chaim Zhitlowsky inspired by a poem from 19th-cent. German revolutionary Georg Herwegh, the track is a resistance-fueled Yiddish workers protest anthem that, while in line with traditional klezmer sound, exemplifies the cross-cultural solidarity heard throughout the project with the help of La Manga and Lavender Light Gospel Choir. Inspiring both action and solidarity, “Un Du Akerst” comes to a powerful refrain in which all the voices unite to exclaim “We deserve a living wage, Let the bosses feel our rage, Unified our pow’r is great, We’ll fight until we all are free!,” a sentiment relevant today, and always.
“Thanks to Frank for his new setting of this old workers anthem - I think Zhitlowsky would approve,” says band member, vocalist, accordionist, guitarist, and pianist, Lorin Sklamberg. Lavender Light Gospel Choir adds “the song holds both testimony and vision. It captures the urgency of this moment amid rising violence and national hostility toward our communities while grounding us in ancestral strength.”
The video, filmed in the studio as the song was recorded, captures the united and collectivist energy evoked while The Klezmatics, La Manga, and Lavender Light Gospel Choir come together to amplify workers everywhere.
Drawing from protest songwriters such as Woody Guthrie, Holly Near, Dovid Edelstadt, and Chaim Zhitlovsky, We Were Made For These Times addresses migration, labor, war, belonging, and collective responsibility. Its title track, inspired by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Letter to a Young Activist During Troubled Times, carries the album’s central affirmation: do not lose heart, we were made for these times.
Joining The Klezmatics on the album are Argentine vocalist Sofía Rei, gospel powerhouse Joshua Nelson, the pioneering Lavender Light Gospel Choir, Crimean Tatar guitar virtuoso Enver İzmaylov, jazz visionaries William Parker and James Brandon Lewis, Janis Siegel of The Manhattan Transfer, and the Colombian percussion collective La Manga. Together, they create a sound that moves fluidly between Yiddish song, Black gospel, Latin American rhythms, avant-garde jazz, and diasporic memory.
The visual language is integral to the project. The album artwork adopts a bold protest-poster aesthetic inspired by hand-carved linocuts, centered around symbolic hand gestures — reaching, resisting, blessing, building. Each single extends this visual vocabulary, creating a cohesive body of work where image and music reinforce one another. The result is not only a recording, but a unified artistic statement.
🌟 Featured Guest Artists
🎤 La Manga
Afro-Colombian Vocal & Percussion Collective
La Manga is a women-led powerhouse from Colombia’s Caribbean coast, blending traditional rhythms with protest and poetry. Their fierce, grounded energy brings a powerful cross-cultural dimension to the album.
🎤 Joshua Nelson
The King of Kosher Gospel
Joshua Nelson fuses Black gospel soul with Jewish liturgy in a style that is wholly his own. Joyful, soulful, and powerful—he brings deep emotion and spiritual fire to this collaboration.
🎤 Lavender Light Gospel Choir
NYC’s Black LGBTQ+ Gospel Choir
Lavender Light has uplifted generations with their rich harmonies, spiritual depth, and legacy of pride and protest. Their voices bring sacred power to The New York Sessions.
🎤 Janis Siegel
Grammy-winning jazz vocalist
Janis Siegel is a Grammy-winning American jazz and pop singer, best known as a longtime member of the vocal group The Manhattan Transfer. Renowned for her rich tone and versatility, she has also built a successful solo career, collaborating with top jazz musicians worldwide.
🎤 William Parker
A towering figure in avant-garde and spiritual jazz.
William Parker has spent decades reshaping the language of improvisation. His grounding presence, fearless creativity, and deep sense of purpose add powerful resonance to this collaboration.
Together with Frank London, they appear on the album’s opening track, “Elegy for the Innocents.”
🎤 Sofía Rei
Argentine Experimental Folk Vocalist
Sofía Rei blends South American folk, avant-garde jazz, and modern electronics into a dynamic and expressive sound. Her voice brings power, range, and unexpected magic to the music.
🎤 Danny Blume
Grammy-winning producer.
Danny Blume returns to The Klezmatics 20 years after co-producing Wonder Wheel, the only Klezmer album to ever win a Grammy. A versatile musician and sonic storyteller, Danny has toured and recorded with artists like Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Iggy Pop, Jewel, Medeski Martin & Wood, and Lisa Loeb. From his custom-built studio in Woodstock, NY, he brings decades of genre-crossing experience, deep musicality, and fearless creativity to We Were Made for These Times.
🎸 Enver Izmaylov
Crimean Tatar Guitar Virtuoso
Enver Izmaylov’s signature two-handed tapping technique fuses jazz improvisation with Eastern European and Turkic musical traditions. His playing bridges cultures with every phrase.
🎤 James Brandon Lewis
A leading voice in contemporary jazz.
James Brandon Lewis is known for his deeply expressive tenor saxophone sound that bridges free improvisation with gospel, hip-hop, and avant-garde traditions. His playing channels both urgency and spiritual depth, bringing raw emotion to this project.