KASSA OVERALL
Kassa Overall is a Grammy-nominated musician, emcee, singer, producer and drummer who melds avant-garde experimentation with hip-hop production techniques to tilt the nexus of jazz and rap in unmapped directions.
On his first two studio albums GO GET ICE CREAM AND LISTEN TO JAZZ and I THINK I’M GOOD, Kassa layered virtuosic drumming, meticulous production techniques, and incisive lyricism to establish himself as a rhythmic innovator and visionary poet, using his voice to address the injustices of the carceral system, the pharmaceutical industry, and anti-black racism, while wrangling with the perils of his own mental illness.
On ANIMALS, his Warp Records debut out May 26, Kassa pushes his kaleidoscopic, subversive vision further. He layers Roland 808s against avant-garde drumming in the vein of his mentors Elvin Jones and Billy Hart, the latter of whom he studied with at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Virtuoso musos appear alongside rap poets, including Danny Brown, Wiki, Lil B, and Shabazz Palaces. Top-flight jazz improvisation weaves in and out of orchestral string arrangements by Jherek Bischoff. The album’s diverse, all-star roster of collaborators includes several of his close friends, like vocalists Nick Hakim, Laura Mvula, Francis and the Lights, and jazz stars like Theo Croker and Vijay Iyer.
ANIMALS pushes Kassa’s message further too, the title a loaded metaphor for the paradoxes of his life as an entertainer and as a black man in America. ANIMALS is the sound of an artist aware of the cost of embodying one’s natural self in the public eye, a deep reckoning with the two-sided truth that to perform one’s freedom for an audience can mean succumbing to life inside a cage.
dragonchild x Sunken Cages
Conceived by Ethio-American saxophonist D.A. Mekonnen–– co-founder/leader of the widely celebrated Debo Band– the solo project dragonchild is a culmination of decades of musical experimentation, embodied spiritual practice, and critical thinking. Danny Mekonnen is a Boston-based musician and the founder of the widely celebrated Debo Band, whose self-titled debut was included on NPR’s 50 Favorite Albums of 2012. Growing up in Texas as a first generation Ethiopian-American, Mekonnen often heard traditional Ethiopian instruments and vocals, later seeking out master Ethiopian musicians to learn to play the traditional instruments of his heritage. The groundbreaking Debo Band combines those influences with American Jazz, Soul and Funk and the instrumentation of Eastern European brass bands.
Sunken Cages is the moniker of Indian-born drummer/electronic music producer Ravish Momin, originally an acoustic drummer/percussionist, who has worked with a wide array of musicians, from pop-star Shakira to legendary Jazz musician Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre (of the AACM) in addition to leading his own innovative global groups Tarana and Turning Jewels Into Water (with Haitian electronic music pioneer Val Jeanty) on international stages for the past 15 years.
Together, they create an exciting new global music that draws from their respective cultural backgrounds as well as contemporary electronic dance music.
Sunken Cages plays electronic and acoustic drums, triggers melodies/textures and generates loops in real-time, while dragonchild shifts between saxophones and cymbals/gongs.