Miles Ahead: The legacy of Miles Davis at 99

ON May 26, 2025, the world would have marked the 99th birthday of Miles Dewey Davis III. A man who redefined the very structure and soul of modern music. Born in Alton, Illinois in 1926 and raised in East St. Louis, Davis was far more than a jazz trumpeter.

He was a cultural icon, sonic philosopher, and the shapeshifter of the 20th century’s musical identity. His story is not only that of an African American master but also a global force. A voice that continues to echo in the hearts of generations from New York to Lagos, from Paris to Johannesburg.

I have long held a deep admiration for Miles Davis. His art, audacity, and relentless evolution resonate with the type of curiosity and boundary-pushing spirit that artists and thinkers must aspire to. My affection for him deepened further when I began to see his connection to Africa.

Not through cliché or abstraction, but through intention, rhythm, and revolution. That connection is reflected, too, in my friendship with Hugh Masekela, South Africa’s jazz prophet, who knew Miles not only through influence but through encounters.

As we breathe in what would be his centenary, it is worth pausing not only to remember what Miles Davis did, but to ask what he means today. In this moment of global political fatigue, cultural flux, and youthful restlessness, what lessons can we draw from the man who once said: “I’ll play it first and tell you what it is later”

The Reluctant Genius

Miles Davis was not a man to explain himself. He played, and we listened. His genius lay in his ability to intuit what the times required musically, and to deliver it before the rest of us even knew we needed it. From his early bebop collaborations with Charlie Parker, through Birth of the Cool, Kind of Blue, Sketches of Spain, Bitches Brew, and into his later funk and fusion experiments, Miles never repeated himself.

He led, often in silence, with sunglasses on, back turned to the crowd, allowing the music to be the only sermon preached.

He understood music as motion. “Don’t play what’s there, play what’s not there,” he said once. A mantra that could well be applied to social transformation and leadership. Miles believed in the becoming of things. That spirit of resistance to stasis is what makes him feel more alive today than most of the artists working now.

The revolutionary without a banner

Unlike some of his contemporaries, Miles Davis never positioned himself as a spokesman for Black America, yet his entire being was a refusal of subservience. He carried his dignity with an unyielding confidence, one that infuriated white America’s expectations of Black deference.

He dressed impeccably and challenged journalists, demanded equal pay, and lived large. He expected greatness and returned the favour by delivering it.

His presence in the civil rights era and later during the Black Power movement was more symbolic than vocal. Still, his art thundered louder than most speeches. Albums like On the Corner and Dark Magus were sonic revolts, full of dissonance, distortion, African polyrhythms, and urban edge. Prefiguring hip-hop, Afrobeat, and much of contemporary protest music.

In an era where artists are asked to use their platforms more responsibly, Miles Davis’s legacy urges them to understand that sometimes the most radical thing one can do is to refuse limitation, to make uncompromised art that challenges, confronts, and uplifts all at once.

The African connection

Although Miles Davis never physically set foot on the African continent, Africa pulsed through his work. From the modal compositions of Kind of Blue to the Afro-futuristic landscapes of Bitches Brew. His music mirrored the spirit of African improvisation: fluid, rooted in call and response, and resistant to strict Western forms.

In conversations with Bra Hugh, it became clear that Miles’s influence on African musicians was immense. Hugh often recalled how Miles encouraged him to find his sound, to stop trying to mimic the American jazz idiom and instead blend it with South African traditions.

That advice birthed masterpieces like Stimela and Grazing in the Grass. In this way, Miles did not merely influence Africa from afar, he catalysed a whole generation of African sonic self-determination.

Today, one hears echoes of Miles in the works of artists like Fela Kuti, Khaya Mahlangu, Manu Dibango, and even contemporary Afro-jazz and amapiano fusionists. His boundary-blurring sensibility fits perfectly with the spirit of Africa, where tradition and futurism walk hand in hand.

Lessons for the present

As we stare into the fog of modernity, with algorithms dictating taste, culture succumbing to trend cycles, and musicians often commodified before they are even seasoned, Miles offers crucial lessons:

• Evolve or Perish: Miles was never afraid to shed his skin. Artists, thinkers, and leaders alike must resist the temptation of nostalgia and embrace growth, however uncomfortable.
• Master Your Craft: He practised relentlessly. Miles reminds us that genius is not divine accident; it’s discipline, obsession, and listening deeply to the world.
• Silence Is Power: His pauses were as profound as his notes. In a world of noise, his restraint teaches the value of considered expression.
• Be Unapologetically You: Davis never pandered. He didn’t dilute his identity to please anyone. That kind of sovereignty, artistic and personal, is rare and urgently needed today.
• Mentor the Next Wave: From John Coltrane to Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter to Marcus Miller, Miles surrounded himself with brilliance and helped others soar. He knew leadership meant creating room for others to lead.
• There was a mysticism about Miles. He walked like he was from another realm. His raspy voice, his cryptic interviews, his love of painting, boxing, and silence, all made him something of a philosopher-artist.

He believed that music could heal, disturb, elevate, all in one phrase. His trumpet was an oracle. And for those of us who came to jazz through African ears, Miles was a griot of the future, reminding us that freedom isn’t a final destination but a constant state of improvisation.

The Miles ahead

What would have been his 99th birth year, we are called not merely to remember Miles Davis but to hear him anew. We are invited to pick up our own pencils, trumpets, literal or metaphorical, and say something true, something new.

Miles Davis never chased approval. He chased sound, feeling, and truth. For Africa and the African diaspora, his life stands as proof that we do not need to ask for space. We can create it.Let us honour him not by imitation, but by innovation. Let us be, in our own ways, always… Miles ahead.

Dedicated to the memory of Miles Davis (1926–1991) and the spirit of Hugh Masekela (1939–2018), whose echoes still guide us.