Black Focus

Description

First album by Yussef Kamaal, on Brownswood. For Yussef Kamaal, the sounds of the urban jungle, grimy and syncopated as it is in London, have influenced his self-taught and fundamentally British approach to jazz. While in the United States the genre has escaped into hip hop—from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington—reinventing itself within US culture, Yussef Kamaal takes jazz into the bass-saturated world of London’s pirate radio with Black Focus. Drawing inspiration from the spirit of 70s jazz-funk found in the albums of Herbie Hancock or the Mahavishnu Orchestra, the duo composed of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams chose to break free from constraints to allow for experimentation, with a strong taste for Thelonious Monk's piano and Kaidi Tatham's rhythmic programming. Initially created for a solo performance by Williams for Boiler Room, the project quickly became more concrete: under the name Yussef Kamaal, the two friends began to give a series of concerts where only the chord progression was decided, just a few minutes before going on stage. Keeping this tacit understanding with them and bringing it to the studio (with Malcolm Catto from The Heliocentrics at the helm), the immediate and almost improvised grooves of their live performances are now found on record. Both originally from South East London, Dayes is the drummer for the afrobeat group United Vibrations, while Williams is making his way as a solo artist in house music with labels like 22a and Rhythm Section.