Naim Label's Sons of Kemet win Best Jazz Act at MOBO Awards

Naim Jazz Records is pleased to announce that Sons of Kemet won Best Jazz Act in the 18th annual MOBO Awards held at the SSE Hydro, Glasgow on Saturday. The announcement was made hot on the heels of their highly acclaimed debut album release ‘Burn’. Led by clarinetist, saxophonist and composer Shabaka Hutchings with Oren Marshall on tuba and both Tom Skinner and Seb Rochford on drums, these four mighty creative forces have yielded music that is powerful, lyrical and, above all, fiercely original. The album was released to rave reviews, with much on-air support from the likes of Gilles Peterson on 6music, John Kennedy on XFM and Jamie Cullum on Radio 2, for whom the band are also recording a Maida Vale session this week.

Although born in London, Shabaka Hutchings spent most of his childhood in Barbados and it was there that he turned for inspiration when putting Sons of Kemet together - two artists in particular making their mark on him - Count Ossie and Cedric ‘Im’ Brooks. However, the band’s infectious and compelling sound also stems from the deployment of two drummers, in Skinner and Rochford, whose visceral exchange of rhythmic ideas is an unforgettable, highly danceable experience. Throw into this one of the great wild cards of contemporary British music, Oren Marshall on tuba, and you have a wonderfully unorthodox configuration that The Guardian described in a recent 4 star live review as “visceral as a rock group, as serenely sensual as a ska band, as rootsy as a percussion choir and as instrumentally hip as a post-bop outfit”.

Sons of Kemet support Brad Mehldau and Mark Guiliana: Mehliana at the Barbican on 21st November as part of the London Jazz Festival. Read more here

Watch the Czlowiek Kamera (Fever Ray, Sigor Ros, Half Moon Run) directed promo video for ‘Inner Babylon’ here 

Watch the alternate video for Vince Vella’s remix of Inner Babylon here

www.sonsofkemet.com

www.naimjazz.com