Sons of Kemet was a British jazz group formed in 2011 by Shabaka Hutchings,… Read Full Bio ↴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 the time their debut album, Burn, was released in September 2013. That assured collection inspired passionate props across the board, from DJ/music connoisseur Gilles Peterson (who included Burn in his Worldwide Awards shortlist) to The Arts Desk (who pronounced it Album Of The Year), iTunes Best Of Jazz, and The Quietus. The band also scooped the MOBO Best Jazz trophy that year, which remains one of Hutchings’s proudest achievements: ‘It felt like lots and lots of work had actually paid off,’ he says, adding wryly: ‘Actually, I see Burn as quite a restrained album.’
Hutchings regards Sons Of Kemet’s hotly anticipated second album, Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do, as a vivid continuation of their debut work’s themes, rather than a complete departure. He also describes the latest collection as ‘a meditation on the Caribbean diaspora in Britain’.
‘The realisation dawned after I’d started writing these tunes,’ he explains. ‘I was thinking of my grandmother’s generation from the Caribbean, who came here to work incredibly hard, and also what it means to be a black person in Britain now, especially a generation of youth experiencing high unemployment, and those elements of society who are not always easy to see.’
A pivotal track on Lest We Forget… is the ‘earthy and ceremonial’ Afrofuturism, which takes the band’s explorations of Caribbean roots into new realms:
‘The bass rhythm on that track is based on a traditional Barbadian style called tuk, with a bass and snare drum; it’s similar to fife music from New Orleans, but there are also links to West African roots, and Western military band music. Barbados is quite a small island, and before the emancipation of slaves, there was nowhere for people to privately retain African cultural traits or beliefs – so they were finding ways to keep those elements in “acceptable” forms of music. I think it could be a Caribbean thing: to express something with deep meaning about society, that might come from having experienced trauma, within a form that might feel quite light-hearted. You get the same thing in calypso music.’
The expansive roots of Lest We Forget… also reflect Hutchings’s personal history. ‘I do see this as my baby,’ he admits. He was raised in Birmingham, but spent his years between the ages of 6 and 16 in Barbados, where he first picked up an instrument – in his school’s recorder group, aged 9. ‘I was quite staid,’ he laughs. ‘I thought I was going to be in an orchestra; it was all about classical and calypso bands for me. When I was in the Caribbean, kids my age saw jazz as music for old people or rich people.’
That perspective shifted radically back in Birmingham, when Hutchings befriended alto-sax and MC talent Soweto Kinch, at the latter’s weekly live jam sessions. ‘It was incredible to hear jazz being played live and mixed with hip hop by someone who was close to me and cool,’ he recalls. Hutchings began to delve into the jazz music catalogue at Birmingham library, while constantly sharpening his own skills, winning a place to study clarinet and then saxophone at London’s prestigious Guildhall School Of Music And Drama.
Just as Burn blazed through unpredictable atmospheres and effects, Hutchings incorporates far-reaching influences on Lest We Forget… These range from his relationship with classical concepts (Mo’ Wiser), to literary inspirations on tracks such as In The Castle Of My Skin (named after Barbadian author George Lamming’s 1953 novel about post-colonial identity) and The Long Night Of Octavia Butler, in homage to the award-winning African-American sci-fi writer. ‘When I read books I love, they kind of put a trance over me, and Octavia Butler particularly has that effect,’ says Hutchings. ‘I was thinking about her 1998 novel Parable Of The Talents; it presents a futuristic vision that is just close enough to normality to make you unsettled.’
Meanwhile, the album’s exceptionally resonant opening track reflects an unsettling modern reality; In Memory Of Samir Awad was written to commemorate a Palestinian teen killed by Israeli forces as he fled their gunfire in 2013. ‘We’re trying to immortalise an everyday youth, and an occurrence that is everyday in that region of the world, and to say that it is significant,’ says Huchings. ‘I wanted an intensity that continued throughout the piece. It’s a taut existence, and the low notes symbolise the bombings or eruptions in “normal” life under occupation.’
The album’s overall ‘restless and trancey’ energy is definitely a collective achievement, and Hutchings is full of enthusiasm for his bandmates’ powerful and intuitive dynamics. ‘All of the other members are composers of music in their own right, and I think that’s really important,’ he says. ‘I can give them the bare roots, and they’re thinking about the balance, how the grand structure of the piece hangs. Everyone’s focused, and I can dig into my own role.’
Sons Of Kemet have seeped this latest material into their irrepressible live sets over the past year and a half. Now it comes into its own, as Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do – and the possibilities are still exhilarating:
‘On some level, our duty is to give the audience what they want,’ says Hutchings. ‘On another, it’s to prise open those expectations and put something else in there – and on another level, it’s to forget all of that, and just create euphoria.’
Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do is released on Naim Jazz
The band disbanded in 2022 following their live shows that year.
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 the time their debut album, Burn, was released in September 2013. That assured collection inspired passionate props across the board, from DJ/music connoisseur Gilles Peterson (who included Burn in his Worldwide Awards shortlist) to The Arts Desk (who pronounced it Album Of The Year), iTunes Best Of Jazz, and The Quietus. The band also scooped the MOBO Best Jazz trophy that year, which remains one of Hutchings’s proudest achievements: ‘It felt like lots and lots of work had actually paid off,’ he says, adding wryly: ‘Actually, I see Burn as quite a restrained album.’
Hutchings regards Sons Of Kemet’s hotly anticipated second album, Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do, as a vivid continuation of their debut work’s themes, rather than a complete departure. He also describes the latest collection as ‘a meditation on the Caribbean diaspora in Britain’.
‘The realisation dawned after I’d started writing these tunes,’ he explains. ‘I was thinking of my grandmother’s generation from the Caribbean, who came here to work incredibly hard, and also what it means to be a black person in Britain now, especially a generation of youth experiencing high unemployment, and those elements of society who are not always easy to see.’
A pivotal track on Lest We Forget… is the ‘earthy and ceremonial’ Afrofuturism, which takes the band’s explorations of Caribbean roots into new realms:
‘The bass rhythm on that track is based on a traditional Barbadian style called tuk, with a bass and snare drum; it’s similar to fife music from New Orleans, but there are also links to West African roots, and Western military band music. Barbados is quite a small island, and before the emancipation of slaves, there was nowhere for people to privately retain African cultural traits or beliefs – so they were finding ways to keep those elements in “acceptable” forms of music. I think it could be a Caribbean thing: to express something with deep meaning about society, that might come from having experienced trauma, within a form that might feel quite light-hearted. You get the same thing in calypso music.’
The expansive roots of Lest We Forget… also reflect Hutchings’s personal history. ‘I do see this as my baby,’ he admits. He was raised in Birmingham, but spent his years between the ages of 6 and 16 in Barbados, where he first picked up an instrument – in his school’s recorder group, aged 9. ‘I was quite staid,’ he laughs. ‘I thought I was going to be in an orchestra; it was all about classical and calypso bands for me. When I was in the Caribbean, kids my age saw jazz as music for old people or rich people.’
That perspective shifted radically back in Birmingham, when Hutchings befriended alto-sax and MC talent Soweto Kinch, at the latter’s weekly live jam sessions. ‘It was incredible to hear jazz being played live and mixed with hip hop by someone who was close to me and cool,’ he recalls. Hutchings began to delve into the jazz music catalogue at Birmingham library, while constantly sharpening his own skills, winning a place to study clarinet and then saxophone at London’s prestigious Guildhall School Of Music And Drama.
Just as Burn blazed through unpredictable atmospheres and effects, Hutchings incorporates far-reaching influences on Lest We Forget… These range from his relationship with classical concepts (Mo’ Wiser), to literary inspirations on tracks such as In The Castle Of My Skin (named after Barbadian author George Lamming’s 1953 novel about post-colonial identity) and The Long Night Of Octavia Butler, in homage to the award-winning African-American sci-fi writer. ‘When I read books I love, they kind of put a trance over me, and Octavia Butler particularly has that effect,’ says Hutchings. ‘I was thinking about her 1998 novel Parable Of The Talents; it presents a futuristic vision that is just close enough to normality to make you unsettled.’
Meanwhile, the album’s exceptionally resonant opening track reflects an unsettling modern reality; In Memory Of Samir Awad was written to commemorate a Palestinian teen killed by Israeli forces as he fled their gunfire in 2013. ‘We’re trying to immortalise an everyday youth, and an occurrence that is everyday in that region of the world, and to say that it is significant,’ says Huchings. ‘I wanted an intensity that continued throughout the piece. It’s a taut existence, and the low notes symbolise the bombings or eruptions in “normal” life under occupation.’
The album’s overall ‘restless and trancey’ energy is definitely a collective achievement, and Hutchings is full of enthusiasm for his bandmates’ powerful and intuitive dynamics. ‘All of the other members are composers of music in their own right, and I think that’s really important,’ he says. ‘I can give them the bare roots, and they’re thinking about the balance, how the grand structure of the piece hangs. Everyone’s focused, and I can dig into my own role.’
Sons Of Kemet have seeped this latest material into their irrepressible live sets over the past year and a half. Now it comes into its own, as Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do – and the possibilities are still exhilarating:
‘On some level, our duty is to give the audience what they want,’ says Hutchings. ‘On another, it’s to prise open those expectations and put something else in there – and on another level, it’s to forget all of that, and just create euphoria.’
Lest We Forget What We Came Here To Do is released on Naim Jazz
The band disbanded in 2022 following their live shows that year.
Tiger
Sons of Kemet Lyrics
We have lyrics for 'Tiger' by these artists:
637godwin Don't make me laugh (Saba you so icy) In the stu…
ABBA The city is a jungle, you'd better take care Never walk…
AKU We're so hung up Like tiny pictures Sentimental Remember whe…
Aku Orraca-Tetteh We're so hung up Like tiny pictures Sentimental Remember …
Alex Heart Look what you've done You're not the one Who can have my…
Alice Jemima Is this the start of something? Something so bittersweet A …
Amari When my eyes fell upon that old picture, I realized that y…
Anabel & The Rock-a-Bells I was cursing your name, I've been dealt in your…
Angelic Milk Would you would you call me Your sweet little queen Do you…
Audio Environments & Co. Where's that tiger! Where's that tiger! Where's that tiger! …
Bim & Bianca ""NOIS TOCA OS ROBÔ DESCE E SOBE AS LADEIRA VEM DA A…
Bob & Jimmy Hold that tiger Hold that tiger Hold that tiger Hold that ti…
Chair Model Let me explain everything that I'm about to do Got an…
Christopher Sander Tiger låt det gamla dö Du är så dyster nuförtiden Har du…
Cole Paula Where do I put this fire This bright red feeling…
Colliding With Mars I hope you get eaten by a tiger I wouldn't…
D-Push He been out in the field, earnin' his Tiger Stripes. Shiny…
Das Kope Awaken, so vacant And the telephone A message, the passage W…
Dave Sitek We're so hung up Like tiny pictures Sentimental, remember …
Dawns Eye of the tiger Heart of a lion Even though you walk…
Don Diablo Vs. Survivor Risin' up, back on the street Did my time, took my…
Emeli Sandé Drop all the pills Doctor told us to take They say…
Ends With A Bullet You are the meaning in my life You are everything that…
Fabian Hey, lumpa sugar, you look kinda sweet Cuter than a baby…
Fafaq Break the fucking house down Break the fucking house down…
Fleetwood Mac Hey, lumpa sugar, you look kinda sweet Cuter than a baby…
Ganz Schön Feist Ich sitze an der Theke und ich schmiede einen Plan Wie…
Gentleman Caller ....... her lips sipping her tea, today the headlines read…
Gregory Isaacs & Tiger The calm before the storm Everything wrong The way it's supp…
Greylag I’m surrounded by "I-love-you’s" but I don’t believe them It…
Guano Apes I know the coolest cat She's living high on a mountain Here…
Hollowblue I like to play with you where stars are closer…
Hurriganes Hey little sugar you´re so kind and sweet Cuter than the…
Hurriganes - 25 Golden Hits Hey little sugar you're so kind and sweet Cuter than the…
Izzy Bizu White, white tiger You know you're my Ooh, ooh, ooh, la da…
Jo1 荒い息を吐き出して 先見据えてる 頂上はすぐそこに 目の前に広がってる You better run, run awa…
Joana And The Wolf Bitches gonna fuck niggas Are gonna hate It ain't there faul…
John Barry & His Orchestra Hold that tiger Hold that tiger Hold that tiger Hold that ti…
JOON MOON Who's creeping round the corner? Who's never up to good? Who…
JPNSGRLS Easy tiger // take a swim and your skin will…
Julian Wassermann & H.B.C. Dimmi cosa non faresti per due like in più Sempre in…
K. Ragnstam Come in, honey Make yourself comfortable Do you want some? …
Kevin Gates This luck that I had with my best friend The boiled…
life and time How you gonna get up if you ain't never been…
Lil Ghost Tiger... Tiger... Tiger... 亚 虎亚 唉 虎亚 虎亚 唉 Tiger我打破所有框架 再次听着…
Lily Mao The Resonaters I'm a sensitive boy Tears like a crocodile But she brings me…
Man-Fred! Good kid, bad brains Livin' for whatever Tight rope, no chai…
Maximum Balloon We're so hung up Like tiny pictures Sentimental Remember whe…
Maximum Balloon (feat. Akon) We're so hung up Like tiny pictures Sentimental Remember …
mii4uu Bad Bad Bad bitch in mi Crib I'm lit For the whole damn time…
Min T My mama told me: just be a tiger Just rip and…
Mirei Touyama You know what, boy? Listen up ソファの上 マスカラのついた顔 散らばったポテチはまるで私…
MO'SOME TONEBENDER ノイズまみれ (そこで) 耳の穴 (タイガー) 中身を全部 (対) ほじくり出せ (デーモン) 何て言ってるか (夢の中…
Mofa Risin' up, back on the street Did my time, took my…
Mr. Tyger Alright Niggas mad at me but I can't help it I need…
MyPet Slow and steady wins the race Go on keep a steady…
News Where's that tiger! Where's that tiger! Where's that tiger! …
Nick & June tiger tiger tiger tiger grrrr Abre las botellas que a la…
Noel Paul Stookey Oh boy, another gig with the tiger Another pig in the…
P.T.A's Beyond the veil you leave the pale existence of your…
Patent Ochsner Chinder, häbet d Hüet! Hie chunnt dr Hirsch uf em…
Paula Cole Where do I put this fire This bright red feeling…
Peter Kraus Wenn ich am Wochenende tanzen geh? Und ein ganz besonders…
Polyna Hello, here I am Finally as strong as I was before Don't…
Pop Smoke & Fivio Foreign (Bordeaux and Non Native) (Yoz, what you tellin' me?) Look,…
Post Lovers The river runs without a second thought the river tries to…
Psapp You're always the same, you're always the same You're alway…
R3hab Skytech & Fafaq Break the fucking house down Break the fucking house down…
Recovery Mafia Of the tiger Of the tiger Of the tiger Eye of the tiger,…
Reezy Los geht's Ich hab' sie getokkert, sie schlüpft in die Jogg…
Regina Richards & Red Hot Risin' up, back on the street Did my time, took my…
Rock & Roll Where's that tiger! Where's that tiger! Where's that tiger! …
Rogério Skylab Where do i put this fire This bright red feeling This tiger…
Ronela Hajati Je imi daba dom dom "Roni got the dancehall" Kush osh me…
Ruby Coast tell me something I don't know tell me something I wouldn't…
sippy gill ਸੁਨਾ ਸੁਨਾ ਸਬ ਸੁਨਾ ਮੈਂ ਚੀਮਾ ਓ ਚੀਮਾ ਇਹ ਸਾਬ ਇਹ ਸਬ…
Skytech Fafaq R3hab Break the fucking house down Break the fucking house down…
Spada & Prezioso Risin′ up, back on the street Did my time, took my…
Spada feat. Prezioso Risin' up, back on the street Did my time, took my…
Sparkle Moore With Dan Belloc & His Orchestra Hold that tiger Hold that tiger Hold that tiger Hold that ti…
Sparkler Music: Freya / Rune Westberg Lyrics: Freya She's a tig…
Stanley R. Fields The sea is rising I see the moonlight in your eyes You're…
Survivor & lol I dunno Risin' up, back on the street Did my time, took my…
T-Max & Smasher (Tiger) (Maximum) Rua, ich hab den (Tiger) (Tiger style) (M…
The Wave Roar! Sustained by your filmsy gains You can't blame the wor…
TIGER DROOL QUIX & Vincent (Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh) When I was young Coach called me the…
Tonza I've got the eyes of a tiger Screaming louder than a…
Tora I'm no open grid oh would you care for him then he…
Trap Nav (Shoutout Yamaica) (Okay, okay) (Beats by Yamaica Production…
V-Mann Joe (Grr, grr, pow) Tornato nelle piazze, nessuno ha da dire ni…
Various Artist Look what we've done Years have past, but this is all…
Vovk The tiger in a trap. Mind control He's sitting on the…
W.A.R.Z. لن أيأس أبدا لن أستسلم سأخلص الحلبة من كل الشرور حلبة المصا…
Your Stepdad I don't feel bad for my enemies I don't feel bad…
Zanyia They ain't know I was a fighter (Rawr) Put in work,…
Zar Paulo Blev en smule lettet, da du gik på toilettet, sommerfugle…
[ingenting] Tiger, låt det gamla dö Du är så dyster nuförtiden Har du…
當山みれい You know what, boy? Listen up ソファの上 マスカラのついた顔 散らばったポテチはまるで私…
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