Jazz musician Shabaka Hutchings

Episode notes

(Photo: Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for Coachella)

Shabaka Hutchings is a saxophonist, flute player, and composer that blends jazz, calypso, dancehall, hip-hop, and African folk music. Shabaka makes brilliant, beautiful songs. His music is vivid, complex, and hypnotic.

Shabaka was born in the UK, raised mostly in Barbados. He studied classical music in college, not jazz. As the leader of the bands Shabaka and the Ancestors and Sons of Kemet, Hutchings found ways to speak using the language of all these genres to make something totally unique and his. 

Shabaka recently hung up his saxophone. It may be for good or maybe for a little while. He’s playing the flute these days. And it’s different – a little more subdued, opaque, but just as compelling. Later this month Shabaka will release a brand new solo album made up of mostly flute compositions – it’s called Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace.

When Shabaka joined the show back in 2021, his band Sons of Kemet had just put out a record  called Black to the Future. He talked with us about making the new record during quarantine. He also discussed being an only child, the first instrument he learned to play, and his love of old school gangster rap. 

This interview originally aired in May of 2021