Jazz musician Shabaka Hutchings

2nd April 2024

Shabaka Hutchings makes brilliant, beautiful genre blending songs. His music is vivid, complex, and hypnotic. He recently hung up his saxophone and is playing the flute these days. 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.

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

In this episode...

Senior Producer
Producer
Maximum Fun Producer
Maximum Fun Production Fellow
Video Editor

Guests

  • Shabaka Hutchings

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Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture.

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Senior Producer

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Maximum Fun Production Fellow

Video Editor

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