Sons of Kemet’s Shabaka Hutchings

Episode notes

(Photo: Udoma Janssen)

Saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings on Sons of Kemet’s latest record Black to the Future

Shabaka Hutchings is a saxophone player and composer. He fronts the bands Sons of Kemet and Shabaka and the Ancestors.

Shabaka was born in the United Kingdom, raised mostly in Barbados.

The group Sons of Kemet is often informed by his upbringing in Barbados. You might hear a dub song performed almost entirely by horns. And then he’ll go into a sax solo that is breathtaking. It’s music that is vivid, complex and hypnotic.

His genre bending music combines jazz, calypso, dancehall, hip-hop and African folk music. Shabaka finds ways to speak using the language of all these genres to make something totally unique and of his own.

Sons of Kemet have a brand new album that just came out, it’s called Black to the Future.

We talk with Shabaka Hutchings about making the new record during quarantine. He’ll also discuss being an only child, the first instrument he learned to play, his love of old school gangster rap. He’s a huge fan of Tupac.

Black to the Future is available now.