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For bands that rely on the energy of live performance, social distancing has been devastating / npr
Posted At : March 20, 2020 12:00 AM
Last year, Sons of Kemet were one of the standout acts of the Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, Tenn. This year, the festival is one of countless gatherings that has been cancelled due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus. For the music industry - and especially for bands like Sons of Kemet, which rely on the energy of live performance - the disruptions caused by social distancing have been devastating. To explain those problems, NPR's Rachel Martin spoke to Nate Chinen from member station WBGO and Jazz Night in America. Listen
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More sax please, we're Glastonburians / NME
Posted At : July 1, 2019 12:00 AM
"This is a one-off clash between two of the big current British jazz bands," Paul from Bristol explains to NME. He's standing at the back of the Wormhole, a dungeon-like room situated near the Park stage which holds maybe 100 people. Like the rest, Paul is here to see a sound-clash between Sons of Kemet and Ezra Collective, two of the UK's most exciting jazz acts, who each played their own sets this weekend. There isn't a body not dancing to the frenzied, pulsing freeform rhythms of the two bands on stage. "I've been coming to Glastonbury for 30 years," Paul says, "I've worked on the West Holts stage for a long time so I've seen a lot of jazz and the related music over the years at Glastonbury, [but] not quite in the same way as this."
The 2019 edition of Glastonbury features an incredible amount of jazz musicians. Though the focus may be on Kamasi Washington's Sunday evening set at the West Holts stage, the line-up of UK artists should also be heralded.
The four-piece group Sons Of Kemet played at the Park Stage a day after rising South London collective Steam Down. Ezra Collective, the in-demand five-piece band, played to a crowd of thousands at the West Holts stage; a reflection of what three-piece cosmic jazz group Comet is Coming similarly achieved on the first day. Kokoroko, who are slowly starting to earn their own plaudits, round out the acts alongside underrated keys player Joe Armon Jones heading his own trio. photo: Jenna Foxton
READ THE FULL NME ARTICLE
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Sons Of Kemet 'Your Queen Is A Reptile' makes COMPLEX '10 essential jazz albums by london musicians'
Posted At : March 21, 2019 12:00 AM
Chances are, at some point in the last year, you've heard, seen or read something about the new wave of UK jazz. Across the capital and beyond, a new generation of trumpet players, saxophonists and singers have revolutionised what we think of as jazz and how we think about the people who listen to it. No longer the preserve of older, middle-class audiences, London jazz embraces its youth, drawing on grime, dub, reggae, bashment, Afrobeats and more to create a vital new sound.
The response has been extraordinary, with acts such as Kamaal Williams landing Top 10 hits and Ezra Collective hitting the top of BBC Radio 1's Hype Charts. Whether it's Sons Of Kemet at the Mercurys, Moses Boyd's residency on BBC Radio 1Xtra or any of the countless shows that the UK's best talents have been playing across London and beyond, it's been hard to avoid the UK jazz revolution. Praised for its accessibility, for new listeners wanting to break into the scene, there's still a daunting amount of music to digest. That's no fault of the musicians making it-most of whom have been laying the foundations of today's renaissance since their early teens-it's just the nature of jazz, with bands and individual members constantly working on new projects.
2019 looks set to be the scene's biggest year yet, so we decided to collate the 10 essential London jazz albums to serve as a primer on the sound and its origins.
Sons Of Kemet are the elder statesmen of London jazz. Made up of drummers Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick, tuba player Theon Cross-who also plays in Kano's live band-and saxophonist/bandleader Shabaka Hutchings, the group are still in their thirties but have been making some of the most pioneering music in London-both together and on their own-for almost a decade. Your Queen Is A Reptile earned the group a Mercury nomination and a place on the iconic jazz label Impulse! Records.
Made up of a series of bombastic, high-energy tracks, each named after an alternative black queen-i.e. "My Queen Is Harriet Tubman"-it's a takedown of colonialism and monarchy that still slaps, despite the heavy subject matter. Jungle icon, Congo Natty pops up on "My Queen Is Mamie Phipps Clark" to lend some psychedelic dub flavour that will blow your speakers apart.
Image via Pierrick Guidou
SEE TOP 10 COMPLEX PICKS
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John Coltrane, Sons of Kemet & Eric Bibb get 2019 Jazz FM Awards nominations / Radio Today
Posted At : February 15, 2019 12:00 AM
The nominations for the Jazz FM Awards 2019 have been announced ahead of an evening event at Shoreditch Town Hall on International Jazz Day. The shortlist includes Sons of Kemet, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Nubya Garcia, Poppy Ajudha, Leon Bridges, Makaya McCraven, Louis Cole, Eric Bibb, and Steam Down Collective amongst the acts. The Awards recognise the best emerging new artists, contemporary icons and established stars from across the worlds of jazz, soul and blues. The night, on April 30th, will also feature special performances from a host of celebrated artists, still to be revealed. 2019 nominees include;
Eric Bibb for 'Blues Act of the Year' John Coltrane – Both Directions At Once: The Lost Album & Sons of Kemet – Your Queen Is A Reptile for 'Album of the Year'
READ THE FULL Radio Today ARTICLE
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John Coltrane & Sons of Kemet make TREBLE - Best of 2018
Posted At : December 17, 2018 12:00 AM
TREBLE already shared their consensus lists of the Best Albums of 2018 and the Best Songs of 2018. Now here's each writer's individual top 10, along with some commentary where provided.
On March 6, 1963, John Coltrane and his Classic Quartet - McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones - recorded an entire studio album at the legendary Van Gelder Studios. This music, which features unheard originals, will finally be released 55 years later. Titled Both Directions at Once - The Lost Album, this is, in short, the holy grail of jazz.
Sons of Kemet third album - Your Queen Is A Reptile on impulse! / Verve features saxophonist, band leader and composer Shabaka Hutchings. The iconoclastic mix of tenor sax, tuba and double drums brings a genre defying approach that celebrates the restless exploration of identity within the Caribbean diaspora within the U.K. Your Queen is a Reptile was recorded in London with a host of guests spanning the breadth of the U.K. scene including jungle legend Congo Natty and poet Joshua Idehen.
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Shabaka Hutchings certainly has cause to feel confident / Evening Standard
Posted At : September 1, 2018 12:00 AM
Arriving at a small café in Kentish Town, Sons of Kemet's leader, saxophonist and clarinet player Shabaka Hutchings, greets me with a huge smile. "Do you want to listen?" he asks, immediately passing me a new pair of expensive-looking headphones he's just bought. Every textured note of a jazz composition filters into my ears with razor-sharp precision. I comment on the complexity of the sound, it not being dissimilar to the detailed, intricately layered music of his band's Mercury-nominated album Your Queen is a Reptile, released earlier this year. For Hutchings, the sound may be complex but the process of making it was anything but.
"It's not a science, it's not a complicated procedure," Hutchings says, laughing. "You write music and you record it: you just do it. I trust in my ability to write really dope s*** and I will do that consistently for as long as I can." His fellow band member, tuba player Theon Cross, is sitting listening on the adjoining table and laughs. He nods and smiles when I ask him if Hutchings is always this confident. "All we have is our confidence in ourselves," 33-year-old Hutchings beams. "You've got to have confidence or you're doomed."
Hutchings certainly has cause to feel confident. Together with Sons of Kemet and his other two projects, Shabaka and the Ancestors and The Comet is Coming, he's one of the driving forces behind a south London jazz scene so exciting that it's capturing imaginations on a global scale. "It's young people taking jazz music and making it something that's relevant again," Hutchings says, describing the movement. "It has nuanced integrity and is bridging the gap between the history of jazz and the sounds people need in modern spaces."
On Your Queen Is a Reptile, their third album, Hutchings directs Cross alongside drummers Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick. Traditional jazz shapeshifts alongside everything from Afrofuturist beats, dub, calypso and hip hop to jungle, spoken word and rap via New Orleans, the Caribbean, the Middle East and London.
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Shabaka Hutchings is Le Guess Who? guest curator / The Quietus
Posted At : August 25, 2018 12:00 AM
We meet up with Jazz superforce Shabaka Hutchings in Utrecht and at Worldwide FM and a Steam Down in London, to discuss signing with the acclaimed Impulse! label, album themes and his curated program at Le Guess Who?. "It feels like signing with Impulse has given validity to the way I've perceived my music act" he says. "The lesson Sibusile Xaba has taught me is that music is supposed to be about joy, rather than fun. It's supposed to be a joyous celebration."
This year's Le Guess Who? takes place from November 8-11, and as with recent years, Utrecht's Le Guess Who? festival will this year invite a handful of people to guest curate parts of the line-up. Shabaka Hutchings is one of those people and the festival has highlighted his work via a new video portrait. WATCH via The Quietus
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Sons Of Kemet nominated for Hyundai Mercury Prize / Jazz FM
Posted At : July 27, 2018 12:00 AM
The first major label release from electrifying contemporary jazz ensemble Sons Of Kemet has been shortlisted as one of 12 nominees for this year's Hyundai Mercury Prize. Since its release on Universal's impulse! Records in March this year, Your Queen Is A Reptile has received critical acclaim for both its musical and political stand points, with The Wire naming it "jazz that's best heard at maximum volume". Comprised of Shabaka Hutchings on saxophone, Theon Cross on tuba and double drums from Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick, Your Queen Is A Reptile addresses the British Monarchy, rejecting the idea that some are born better. Instead, Hutchings presents nine alternative and personal queens ranging from Doreen Lawrence to his own Great-Grandmother.
READ THE FULL Jazz FM ARTICLE
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Shabaka Hutchings interview with Rhythm Passport
Posted At : July 25, 2018 12:00 AM
Sons of Kemet are no longer a fresh faced new group on the London music scene. After five years and two successful albums, their name has spread far-and-wide becoming a sought after act. Their music is more eclectic and harder to define than ever, but that doesn't prevent it is enthralling. In fact, their fanbase grows after every performance.
We had the chance to enjoy the band's latest gig in London at Battersea Arts Centre during Borderless Festival and we seized the moment to have a chat with Shabaka Hutchings, founder member of the project and one of the most inventive saxophonists of the UK jazz community. After five years of Sons of Kemet, we asked Shabaka to take stock of the experience. How has the band's approach to music changed? READ THE Rhythm Passport INTERVIEW
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Sons of Kemet and Melissa Laveaux, set for Millennium Park / Chicago Reader
Posted At : June 24, 2018 12:00 AM
Sons of Kemet play the Pritzker Pavilion, Millennium Park, This Thursday June 28
Jazz-related music rarely gets any sort of mainstream hype these days, and it's gratifying when one of the figures attracting wide attention outside of the jazz press actually deserves it. British reedist Shabaka Hutchings, a dynamo rooted in jazz, is an agile and curious musician who spreads his soulfully biting improvisation across wildly disparate projects. Last year he made his local debut at the Chicago Jazz Festival, playing in a band led by veteran South African drummer Louis Moholo-Moholo, where he extrapolated dancing solos sparked by free-jazz exploration and fueled by kwela melodies. This week marks his first Chicago show with Sons of Kemet, the group that's proven his most fruitful and exciting platform to date. Earlier this year the quartet's third album, Your Queen Is a Reptile, got a global release on Impulse Records. The powerful recording captures the ensemble's infectious hybrid of funk and various Caribbean styles while the leader unspools probing lines steeped in vintage Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane. Born in London, Hutchings spent most of his childhood in Barbados before returning to his birthplace for high school, but this early immersion in reggae, calypso, and soca made a deep impact. Those styles still run through his veins, so his jazz approach sounds unlike anything that would come out of the U.S., even though it wouldn't be possible without the American jazz tradition. In this band he's formed an indelible bond with tuba player Theon Cross, as shown when they team up for a firestorm of contrapuntal riffs or engage in freewheeling call-and-response, or when the tubaist is puffing fat bass lines for Hutchings to wildly run over. Meanwhile the group's tandem drummers (Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick) produce a tight-knit feast of polyrhythmic joy that shares nothing with postbop apart from a magically elastic sense of time. The music possesses a fiery undercurrent of protest, rejecting the hereditary privilege of the English monarchy and celebrating nine women who've made powerful contributions to the world, among them.
SEE Chicago Reader ARTICLE
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Sons of Kemet hurtles through swerving Caribbean rhythms and echoey dub on - Your Queen Is a Reptile / Los Angeles Times
Posted At : June 8, 2018 12:00 AM
There may be no better soundtrack as our nation comes down from whatever high a royal wedding provides than a thick-grooved album roiling with a blend of London's many diverse voices led by tenor saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings. Recently signed to the storied jazz label Impulse!, Hutchings is backed here by two propulsive drummers and, crucially, a tuba, as he hurtles through swerving Caribbean rhythms with touches of echoey dub, U.K. grime and anthemic Afrobeat, most infectiously on the blazing first single "My Queen Is Harriet Tubman."
SEE THE FULL Los Angeles Times PAGE
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Shabaka Hutchings wants a revolution / JazzTimes
Posted At : May 30, 2018 12:00 AM
Shabaka Hutchings' new album is about what you think it's about. Its title, Your Queen Is a Reptile, is not a metaphor or an allegory: The record's goal is to challenge what Hutchings views as the mythology of the monarchy. Instead of a lizard Queen Elizabeth-a queen who "does not see us as human," as he describes in the liner notes-Hutchings, alongside his band Sons of Kemet, proposes a list of black women he'd be OK with bowing down to: Angela Davis, Mamie Phipps Clark, Harriet Tubman. For the lattermost, his tribute takes the form of an almost six-minute jam that's half rhythm (drummers Eddie Hick and Tom Skinner) and half contrapuntal harmony (Hutchings and tuba player Theon Cross). It has the danceability of soca, the angularity of grime, the abrasive textures of punk and-somehow-the freedom of jazz.
READ THE FULL JazzTimes ARTICLE
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Sons of Kemet release the best British jazz album in some time / Under the Radar
Posted At : May 11, 2018 12:00 AM
If you spend enough time in London, avoiding the overtly upper-class locations and just take in the atmosphere and culture of the city at large, you can begin to understand the inspiration behind its music scene. The most marginalized genre this side of country, for a current millennial generation, is undoubtedly jazz. Drop that term into a conversation at a party and you're undoubtedly going to be hit by raised eyebrows and unimpressed glances before finding yourself surrounded by considerably less people than before you brought it up. But, as with grime over the last few years, jazz has enjoyed a significant overhaul in public image, to the point where (whisper it), it may even be considered "cool." Kamasi Washington's exploits on albums with Kendrick Lamar, Run the Jewels, and Thundercat can be to thank for this from an American standpoint, but for British listeners, it's pretty much been GoGo Penguin and a great album from The Comet Is Coming-another band lead by Shabaka Hutchings, the principle force behind Sons of Kemet-to shout about for a while now. Thankfully, with the release of Your Queen Is a Reptile, Sons of Kemet can now be considered in similar breathes to all of these artists, having released the best British jazz album for a considerable amount of time.
READ THE FULL Under the Radar Mag REVIEW
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Do you like parties? Sons of Kemet would like to invite you to one hell of a dance-off / ITDJENTS
Posted At : May 4, 2018 12:00 AM
Do you like parties? Sons of Kemet would like to invite you to one hell of a dance-off. Are you mad about Brexit, and the sense of isolationism closing minds and borders across the globe? Shabaka Hutchings and company feel your pain. Got a soft spot for history? Right this way, there's so much to learn. You say Your Queen Is A Reptile? Fear not; there's a nonet of new matriarchs who don't need any damn divine ordination to reign. All of the above? Then listen up: this album is the groovy, giddy, ferocious, buck-nasty aural essay you've always needed, but would never have known to ask for.
READ THE FULL ITDJENTS REVIEW
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Your Queen Is A Reptile comes dressed in a trickster?s puffer jacket / The Quietus
Posted At : April 25, 2018 12:00 AM
By celebrating great black women across history, by crowning Angela Davis, Harriet Tubman, Albertina Sisulu and Doreen Lawrence, Sons Of Kemet begin a new myth-making and bring afrofuturism down to earth with a beautiful bang.
Your Queen Is A Reptile comes dressed in a trickster's puffer jacket. It's the punchline to a joke at the end of a long night, complete with David Icke lizards and references to conspiracy videos in all the eeriest corners of the internet. Opening with ‘My Queen Is Ada Eastman' - a tribute to bandleader Shabaka Hutchings' great grandmother - we amble along on Theon Cross's tuba before being carried away by the dual pacing of Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick on drums. Hutchings enters the fray, a Cheshire Cat grin spilling out of his horn. The rhythm slows, a snake-charmer groove holding you before you realise you're on a sharp descent into hell - Cross's master tuba pounding with new intensity all the while. Joshua Idehen's voice erupts, as though from Hutchings' horn, unleashing the sonic assault of a lifetime. Of lifetimes. The joke's not funny anymore, but then again the afterlife of slavery has never been a laughing matter. Photo by Guidou Pierrick
READ THE FULL Quietus ARTICLE
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Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile. 55 minutes of ecstatic insurgency / exclaim!*@#
Posted At : April 21, 2018 12:00 AM
With an upcoming royal wedding to be shoved down our collective throats, and a cultural climate of rebellion and resistance, Sons of Kemet's third album (and first for the newly re-launched Impulse! label) couldn't have been timelier.
While tearing apart the façade of blind adulation that surrounds the royal family isn't new, British-Barbadian tenor saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings and company offer nine testaments to iconic women from throughout the African Diaspora whose actions, not bloodlines, demand reverence with an absolutely potent musical backdrop that fulfills the promise of the quartet's previous offerings.
The nimble interplay and fist pumping drums that drive "My Queen Is Angela Davis" makes it the set's standout. Your Queen Is A Reptile, is 55 minutes of ecstatic insurgency.
READ THE FULL exclaim!*'# REVIEW
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Sons of Kemet - Your Queen Is a Reptile. Caribbean themes, rhythms & jazz / Jazz right now
Posted At : April 17, 2018 12:00 AM
My now deceased stepfather once said this to me after he picked me up from the local precinct after being arrested my one and only time. This message rings in my head quite often in my adult life, and I feel like a lot of American listeners might feel that way after listening to the Sons of Kemet masterpiece Your Queen Is a Reptile. Combine Caribbean folk themes and rhythms with Jazz and get Sons of Kemet.
Definitely acknowledge that Shabaka Hutchins, Zara Macfarlane, Theon Cross, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Kokoroko, and Camilla George are changing the way we view the location, the gendering, and influential power of Jazz today.
Mention Impulse! Records and its legacy? Is that important in this moment or just helpful to give wider access to the creative abilities of this Afro-Genius?
READ THE FULL Jazz right now ARTICLE
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7 UK jazz musicians, liberating the genre / The Guardian
Posted At : April 9, 2018 12:00 AM
Shabaka Hutchings is easily one of the most interesting bandleaders of the past decade. He deals in shape-shifting sax and clarinet, but it's his carefree approach to other genres that's established him as a musical outlier who's rattling rigid jazz traditions. His three projects, Shabaka and the Ancestors, Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming – the latter a nominee in the Mercury's "token jazz category", he jokes – are peppered variously with calypso, dub, Afrofuturist beats and hat-tips to Sun Ra, Miles Davis and sweat‑soaked New Orleans party music.
Trumpeter and Gondwana label boss, Matthew Halsall, calls Hutchings "the Kamasi Washington of the UK jazz scene" and it's easy to see why. Hutchings – who is from Birmingham by way of Barbados, where he lived till he was 16 – is a similarly gifted brass player, has a commanding presence, and comes with a penchant for all things cosmic. He is also as ubiquitous, having played with the likes of mid-00s breakthroughs Melt Yourself Down, Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke and Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood, on the latter's soundtrack for Paul Thomas Anderson's film The Master.
The fact that Hutchings has "never been completely comfortable with jazz" figures. "When I was younger, I struggled with how to play jazz as the great art form," he says, which is why his music pulls from so many different places instead. "I might be in a regular jazz quartet, and I might want to write something that's complex, [but I'll] rack my brains and come out with something more simple – and maybe that's a bashment bassline." There's plenty of the latter on the new Sons of Kemet album, Your Queen Is a Reptile, which explores dual Caribbean and British identities. Its songs, named after lesser-heralded influential women from history, reject the monarchy, finding new "queens" to celebrate instead – such as Angela Davis and Doreen Lawrence – with Hutchings's sax and clarinet tangled with Theon Cross's tuba and guest MCing from junglist Congo Natty.
READ THE FULL Guardian ARTICLE
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Sons of Kemet 'Your Queen is a Reptile' is TREBLE: Album of the Week
Posted At : April 3, 2018 12:00 AM
To understand where the future of jazz is, it's best to follow where Shabaka Hutchings is going. Few figures in contemporary jazz have covered as much ground in such a short time as the Carribean-born, London-based saxophonist/clarinetist, who has performed with the likes of Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Ethio-jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke, and logged about six-dozen recording credits in the past nine years. As impressive as the volume of his work might be (including some of the best jazz records of the past couple years), it's the vibrancy and versatility that's made those credits worth chasing down, from the sprawling spiritual jazz of Shabaka and the Ancestors to the eschatological space jazz of The Comet is Coming, as well as having contributed to the short-lived, transcendent funk fusion project Yussef Kamaal. His musical world is an ever-expanding one.
The path Hutchings takes on Your Queen Is A Reptile, the third album by his Afro-Carribean jazz ensemble Sons of Kemet, involves taking a long journey through Black history. It's the group's first release for Impulse! Records, a label that changed the shape of music through groundbreaking releases from artists such as John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Pharoah Sanders, and there's a similar sense of boundless creativity in the nine tracks here. There's also an activist spirit coursing throughout these tracks; the title of the album is a shot fired against the British monarchy (and perhaps Prime Minister Theresa May), "financed by taxes, which in turn validate the injustice of class and race discrimination in Great Britain," as a statement accompanying the album states. And so Sons of Kemet offer an affront to the British figurehead by invoking the names of history-changing Black women from Harriet Tubman and Angela Davis to Hutchings' own great-grandmother, Ada Eastman.
There isn't that much about Sons of Kemet that's traditional, outside of the Black activist tradition they honor and build on-as well as the Impulse! Records lineage they're now a part of. Yet outside of some key moments of Shabaka Hutchings' other releases, Your Queen Is a Reptile has a unique sound built on contrasts and counterpoint, one whose influences are transparent but by no means cliche or obvious. It's angry and inspirational, funky and furious, a jazz album that not only sounds of its time but reflects and blows back at the tumult in the world surrounding it. To quote another great jazz iconoclast: It's a motherfucker.
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READ THE FULL TREBLE REVIEW
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Sons Of Kemet - Your Queen Is A Reptile is ferocious / musicOMH
Posted At : March 30, 2018 12:00 AM
Your Queen Is A Reptile, the new release from Sons Of Kemet, is ferocious. This tightly crafted album is an apparatus for robust political dialogue, as band-leader and composer Shabaka Hutchings weaves a narrative of revisionist black history. Addressing the British Monarchy, the Sons reject the notion that some are born better, and the idolatry of the British Queen. Instead, Hutchings here presents an alternative: his own Queens.
With their inclusion of rap and elements of dub, it is easy to see why Hutchings and the Sons Of Kemet are feted well beyond the contemporary jazz scene. The unique instrumentation, cross-genre exploration and agile thematic expression are bracing. It makes you want to dance, mourn and hold a political protest all at once, and it seems entirely fitting that for their third album, the group has joined the legendary label Impulse, known for names such as Charles Mingus, John Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders, creators who reaped benefits from fearless experimentation.
READ THE FULL musicOMH REVIEW
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All communal groove and fiery purpose on Sons of Kemet - My Queen Is Harriet Tubman / SPIN
Posted At : March 22, 2018 12:00 AM
Sons of Kemet is a quartet led by Bajan-British saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, one of the leading lights of London's resurgent contemporary jazz scene. He surrounds himself with an unorthodox lineup-two drummers and a tuba player-and draws heavily from the rolling polyrhythms of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora, both in his hometown and across the ocean. New jazz can be a daunting prospect for casual fans, and though Sons of Kemet have a pedigree that winds through the genre's headier corners, they are also keenly attuned to the power of dance music. "My Queen Is Harriet Tubman," an advance single from the Sons' forthcoming third album Your Queen Is a Reptile, is an ideal introduction to their sound for those who haven't been following thus far: all communal groove and fiery purpose, the kind of jazz record you could contemplate in headphones or throw on at a raucous block party without killing the vibe.
READ THE FULL SPIN REVIEW
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Sons Of Kemet 'My Queen Is Harriet Tubman.' An incendiary blast of soca and skronk / Pitchfork
Posted At : February 21, 2018 12:00 AM
A recent post from Shabaka Hutchings' Instagram shows the jazz artist playing a clarinet over Dizzee Rascal's "Space," and right behind him loom portraits of Malcolm X and the saxophonist Dexter Gordon. The brief video is a great triangulation of the Barbados-raised, London-based multi-instrumentalist's interests: He's deeply immersed in the bebop tradition, well-versed in trenchant political thought, and very down with UK grime. In Sons of Kemet, Hutchings' quartet with the tuba player Theon Cross and the drummers Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick, all these strains burst forth.
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The first single off their Impulse! Records debut, Your Queen Is a Reptile, "My Queen Is Harriet Tubman" is an incendiary blast of high-energy Caribbean soca rhythms and skronking jazz uplift. READ THE FULL Pitchfork REVIEW
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Shabaka Hutchings, spearheads 'We Out Here' compilation / NPR
Posted At : February 13, 2018 12:00 AM
The U.K.'s jazz scene is flourishing these days thanks, in part, to the young artists pumping it with new life. We Out Here, the latest compilation project from DJ and producer Gilles Peterson's indie label Brownswood Recordings, is a fitting proclamation of ownership from the contemporaries who are adding color to the landscape. The project's nine tracks were recorded in August 2017 over a three day period. Smooth and concise, this compilation is spearheaded by saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, who is credited as musical director, and features sounds from Hutchings, Maisha, Ezra Collective, Moses Boyd, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia, and more. Each song has a story of its own, but they all manage to flow together as if one surmounting jam session. "Pure Shade" by Ezra Collective seems to finds its foundation in Afrobeat, and there are accents of bossa nova in "Abusey Junction" by Kokoroko. Shabaka Hutchings' "Black Skin, Black Mask" rides a rhythm defined only by an untamable clarinet.
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We Out Here is a window into a world of London's ripe jazz renaissance, one that will only spread to new shores as the year goes on. PHOTO: Brownswood Recordings/Courtesy of the artist
READ THE FULL NPR ARTICLE