Yussef Kamaal Black Focus LP Shabaka Hutchings Kamaal Williams Yussef Dayes
$
27
Favourite Auctions
To save auctions to your favourites, please login
If you don't have an account, please register
Description
Yussef Kamaal Black Focus LP Shabaka Hutchings Kamaal Williams Yussef Dayes New Jazz at its best
Black Focus is the only studio album by English duo Yussef Kamaal, composed of drummer Yussef Dayes and keyboardist Kamaal Williams. It was released on 4 November 2016 under Brownswood Recordings. Characterised by its "spontaneity and flow", the album draws influence from electronic music of British origin. It received universal acclaim from music critics, being described as having a culturally diverse palette.
In 2017, when Yussef Kamaal were scheduled to perform in the United States, Dayes' visa was revoked under the Trump administration and the duo broke up shortly afterwards. The album experienced moderate success in the United Kingdom, reaching number 13 on the Jazz & Blues chart. It earned Yussef Kamaal the Breakthrough Award at the 2017 Jazz FM Awards. In 2018, Williams released his debut solo album The Return, which was considered a sequel to Black Focus.
Black Focus was met with universal acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 82, based on 6 reviews.Ryan B. Patrick of Exclaim! praised how Yussef Kamaal "kn[e]w jazz and its progenitors, and transform[ed] this knowledge into a dexterous take on the genre". Alejandra Ramirez of The Austin Chronicle wrote that the band: "weave[d] a fabric of [jazz] steering free of up-nosed traditionalist conventions in pursuit of exploratory grooves and improvisation..." where they "coalesced the bass-rich sounds of European club culture and Afrobeat rhythmic percussions[...] through a wash of Seventies fusion epics". Writing for The Indian Express, Anushree Majumdar compared the album to Herbie Hancock's 1973 album Headhunters, "But it's tighter, faster, fresh and refuses to colour within the lines of [jazz]." James Manning from Time Out said Yussef Kamaal "sound[ed] a bit like Weather Report" and that "Miles Davis is a big prescience, but so is J Dilla
Kamaal Williams (born Henry Wu,14 December 1989) is a British musician and record producer.
He began his career producing house and broken beat music as Henry Wu, but rose to prominence with drummer Yussef Dayes as Yussef Kamaal, releasing their only album Black Focus (2016). Williams has since released three solo albums under his record label Black Focus, including The Return (2018), Wu Hen (2020), and Stings(2023).
Williams' musical style relies on improvisation, including live performances, and he creates music under his own genre of jazz, hip-hop, R&B and EDM which he dubs "Wu Funk".
Shabaka Hutchings (born 1984) is a British jazz musician, composer and bandleader. He leads the band Shabaka and the Ancestors, and used to lead Sons of Kemet before its dissolution in 2022. He is also a member of The Comet Is Coming, performing under the stage name King Shabaka. Hutchings has played saxophone and other wind instruments with the Sun Ra Arkestra, Andre 3000, Floating Points, Mulatu Astatke, Polar Bear, Melt Yourself Down, Heliocentrics, London Brew and Zed-U.
price rating
