Blues-rock newcomer Benjamin Booker has teamed up with director James Lees to create “The Future is Slow Coming,” a short film featuring two of the tracks from Booker’s 2014 self-titled debut album: “Slow Coming” and “Wicked Waters.” The extended music video proves to be a dreamlike meditation on the climate of racial tension still at work today in our nation, and the ways in which we seem to be repeating the mistakes and injustices of the past.

Booker stars in the video, using his powerful presence and evocative, soulful rasp to explore feelings of frustration, anger and sadness, sentiments echoed again and again amongst a new generation of singer/songwriters. “We’ve all got iPhones and are talking about taking people to Mars,” Booker told NPR’s Ann Powers, “but look at how much we haven’t changed. The “future,” a time when all this violence and hatred is looked at as barbaric seemed so far away to me.”

Watch the video below, and follow the link here to read NPR’s full Q&A with Booker about the project.