Ursula Rucker’s Supa Sista Presents series comes to the Kimmel Center tomorrow

For the past couple years, the Kimmel Center has opened its doors for the free monthly jam session Sittin’ In, joining together names from across the spectrum of Philly’s music community — jazz to rock to electronic pop.

Tomorrow night’s installment brings long-running Philly poet and activist Ursula Rucker and her periodic Supa Sista Presents series to the Kimmel in collaboration with local production collective Plush Lords (featuring DJ / beatmaker and Key contributing writer John Morrison). Rucker appeared on Plush Lords’ recent EP 1 mixtape earlier this year, and over the weekend could be seen onstage at the Sylk 130 reunion concert at the TLA, as well as at the Back2Basics afterparty at Silk City. (She also celebrated a birthday in there as well.)

You’re probably most familiar with Rucker, even if you don’t realize it, via The Roots’ mid-90s trifecta of incredible albums: Do You Want More?!!!??!, Illadelph Halflife and Things Fall Apart all closed with her poems, recited over expansive jazzed-out playing from the band. You could also hear her in a couple cuts on 2002’s Phrenology. Rucker has an impressive solo discography as well, launching in 2001 with the remarkable Supa Sista LP; lately she’s been doing a lot of collaboration with psychedelic / experimental guitarist Tim Motzer, working on her sixth solo album and readying her first book.

So this gig tomorrow with Rucker and her band, as well Plush Lords and DJ Sonny James, could be anything and everything — which is kind of the point of Sittin’ In — and I’m totally on board to see what happens. The free show begins at 8 p.m., more information can be found here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXqFx_PamJc