Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Raby Professor John Szwed (Author) Considered by many to be a founder of Afrofuturism, Sun Ra aka Herman Blount was a composer, keyboardist, bandleader, philosopher, entrepreneur, poet, and self proclaimed extraterrestrial from Saturn. He recorded over 200 albums with his Arkestra, which, dressed in Egypto space costumes, played everything from boogie woogie and swing to fusion and free jazz. John Szwed's Space is the Place is the definitive biography