Sons of Kemet’s 2018 album, Your Queen is a Reptile, still gives me the best kind of shivers upon listening to it. The passionate verse of opening track ‘My Queen is Ada Eastman’, proclaiming “we’re still here”, is a great introduction to the unique energy that this group bring to the jazz scene. Sons of Kemet fuse free jazz with music from around the world – elements of Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and more abound in their sound.
Formed in 2011, the London jazz group is led by famed saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings, who I’ve had the pleasure of watching several times in his other bands, such as The Comet Is Coming. His performances are always absolutely electric, and fused with the hypnotic percussive elements of Sons of Kemet’s Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick, you’re sure to be on your feet dancing throughout the whole performance.
The band are in high demand, having played an incredible show this past week at Glastonbury, on the Park Stage, as well as a collaboration with contemporaries the Ezra Collective. The Somerset House show will feature special guest and ‘one to watch’ Sampa the Great – who also played Glastonbury over the weekend. A collaboration with this Zambian-born rapper is not to be missed!
Tickets are on sale now for this incredible live experience. Get yours here before they sell out.
After a two year hiatus, Love Supreme is back, vibrant as ever. Since its inception in 2013 some have questioned whether a large scale jazz festival would survive, going so far as to label it a risky endeavour. The festival responded, casting its net far and wide to celebrate the…
Mud, music and melodies. Festival season is almost upon us again. Here at Rhythm Passport HQ we’ve been digging through the line-ups, and the Love Supreme program has some gems. Held close to Brighton at the beginning of July, expect treats for world music and jazz lovers. With big names…
Every month, we bring you a collection of the best world music-related videos. That’s our way to give value to too often overlooked, rich and diverse artistic expressions. Listen with your eyes! Watch the full playlist: TweetSharePin0 Shares
Every month, we bring you a collection of the best world music-related videos. That’s our way to give value to too often overlooked, rich and diverse artistic expressions. Listen with your eyes! Watch the full playlist: TweetSharePin0 Shares
Breakout is the title of Echoes of Zoo‘s debut album, on which animals literally break out their cages on a soundtrack made of adrenaline fuelled jazz infused with an eclectic range of western, oriental and African influences, made in Brussels. Album of the week on Radio Mukambo. We also listen to…
London-based jazz quartet Sons of Kemet are back with ‘Hustle’, featuring Kojey Radical. The song is the first single extracted from the band’s upcoming album Black To The Future, out May 14 via Impulse Records. “In ‘Hustle’, two dancers represent the duality present within any struggle to transcend internal…
Filming performances to be broadcast to viewers at home who can still feel somewhat part of the party is not novel. Boiler Room, the flagship online platform for underground acts to increase their exposure, tapped into a pre-existing appetite amongst the try-before-you-buy internet generation but that doesn’t negate the impact…
An inaugural festival is always going to be packed with risk and suspense, and after the downpour that Friday night experienced, a breath was held in anticipation of Saturday’s events. However, it is with sheer delight I report that the proceedings seemingly went ahead seamlessly. Saturday I have to jump…
The glorious Love Supreme returned to the prime Sussex pastures of Glynde for its seventh year, and what a return it was. With such a startling array of talent on offer, it was a mighty challenge to stay in one spot for too long for fear of missing out elsewhere….
At times, we are the first to lose track of how many exciting music events happen in London each month, so we have decided to offer you some sort of “public musical service”, meant for all the locals and passers-by, with the aim of suggesting where to listen to some…
The concept of an outdoor jazz festival hardly conjures images of glitter-filled Glastonbury excitement, a young hip crowd and dance-fuelled elation. However, previously exclusive jazz appears to be undergoing a fashion revolution and the grounds of Glynde Place hinted at this. Love Supreme, the UK’s only three-day greenfield jazz festival…
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…
Indulgent, complex, studied and immediate. Sons of Kemet’s criminally conceptual rhythms belie the overriding catchiness of a sound that dishes out hooks a plenty. Ominous lighting introduced the band who kicked things of with Tom Skinner and, newly cropped, Seb Rochford battering syncopated West African rhythms. This was tribal jazz…
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