Long before he reinvented himself as the visionary Afrofuturist Sun Ra, Herman Poole Blount grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, an industrial city deeply shaped by racial segregation and known as “The Magic City”. It is within this landscape of contradictions that the documentary traces the origins of one of the twentieth century’s most singular musicians, constructing a dual portrait of an artist and the city that shaped him. Blending collective memory, archival material and imagination, the film reveals how an apparently hostile place gave rise to some of the most radical musical and philosophical visions of its time.