Sons of Kemet

about

Sons of Kemet was a British jazz group formed in 2011 by Shabaka Hutchings, Oren Marshall, Seb Rochford, and Tom Skinner. Theon Cross replaced Marshall on tuba after the first album, and Eddie Hick replaced Rochford on drums after the third. The band disbanded in 2022. The group used saxophone and clarinet (Hutchings), tuba (Cross), and two drummers (Skinner & Rochford or Hick) to make their music and played a mixture of jazz, rock, Caribbean folk, and African music. The band released four albums during its lifetime and won Best Jazz Act at the 2013 MOBO Awards. These collaborative players have previously won major praise in celebrated acts such as Polar Bear, Hello Skinny, Melt Yourself Down, Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics, and Sun Ra’s Arkestra. Yet there’s still nothing quite like the ‘supergroup’ sound of Sons Of Kemet: eloquent, fierce, explosively funky – and thrillingly out-there. ‘I see Sons Of Kemet as a group that’s free to explore even more areas,’ smiles the genial 31-year-old Hutchings. ‘The music is driven by the band’s synergy, but it could go anywhere, and we’ve played everywhere from sit-down art venues to sweaty nightclubs and international festivals; we’re not forced into one direction. We can let our musicality take on a life of its own. When we play live, we know what the end result is: everyone in hysteria. But how we get there is anyone’s guess.’ Originally formed in May 2011, Sons Of Kemet had already forged a rep for incendiary live sets by t

top songs

albums

Your Queen Is a Reptile

Black to the Future

Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do

Burn

To Never Forget The Source

Hustle

My Queen Is Harriet Tubman

Burn (10th Anniversary Remaster)

My Queen Is Ada Eastman

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White On Black Vol 1

White on Black, Vol. 1

Your Queen Is A Reptile [Explicit]

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