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Soweto Kinch

Award winning alto-saxophonist and MC Soweto Kinch is one of the most exciting and versatile young musicians in both the British jazz and hip hop scenes. Undoubtedly, one of the few artists in either genre with a degree in Modern History from Oxford University he has amassed an impressive list of accolades and awards on both sides of the Atlantic – including a Mercury Music Prize nomination, two UMA Awards and a MOBO for best Jazz Act in 2003. In October 2007, he won his second MOBO Award, at the O2 Arena, London where he was announced as the winner in the Best Jazz Act category- fending off stiff competition from the likes of Wynton Marsalis.

His skills as a hip hop MC and producer have also garnered him recognition in the urban music world: having supported the likes of KRS ONE, Dwele and TY, and being championed by the likes of Mos Def, Rodney P and BBC 1-Xtra’s Twin B.

Kinch’s projects also extend beyond recorded albums. Writing the score for Jonzi D’s Hip Hop Theatre production Markus the Sadist (2010), and Sampad’s In The Further Soil (2010), a dance-theatre. Kinch also wrote and acted in the latter piece, which toured throughout India for a month.

Most recently, he has collaborated with the BBC and Drum and Bass producer Goldie. By Royal Appointment is 3-part prime time reality music show, following Goldie, Soweto, Guy Chamber and Ms Dynamite as they discover and coach a group of 12 vulnerable young mentees towards their first live performance before HM Prince Harry at Buckingham Palace. Kinch, describe how the programme (due for transmission on the 23rd February, 2011) really allowed him to extended his work as an curator and mentor, “it was a radically fresh approach to discovering and nurturing new talent, and an antedote to the usual pop formulae and manufactured music.”

The Flyover Show is Soweto’s flagship project. Currently in its 5th year, this groundbreaking daylong, music and arts festival takes place in its unusual setting beneath a motorway flyover in Birmingham. 2011’s years event continued a theme from 2010, celebrating black male icons who’ve been influential in successful in redefining Britishness. Featuring artists as divergent as Goldie, Akala and Omar the festival continues to build on its reputation, bringing world class rostra to an often neglected corner of inner city Birmingham – its previous guests having included Bashy, Ms Dynamite, Janet Kay, Ty, Speech Debelle and Jonzi D to name a few.

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Album Review

Tomos Williams: Cwmwl Tystion II: Riot!

Read "Cwmwl Tystion II: Riot!" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Billowing clouds of black smoke dominate a blood-red backdrop. From the cover alone, it is clear that trumpeter/composer Tomos Williams has something extra-musical to say. The Welsh language project name--Cwmwl Tystion means 'witness'--and the English title-- Riot!--writ large, expel any doubt. Inspired by events both famous and infamous in Welsh history--workers revolts, pogroms and race riots--this sprawling one-hour suite is a musical manifesto for a more balanced perspective on Welsh identity/nationalism. It is a subject close to Williams' ...

3
Album Review

Samuel Blaser: Routes

Read "Routes" reviewed by Chris May


The Jamaican trombonist Don Drummond (1934-1969), the inspiration for Routes, was in certain respects a mid-twentieth Jamaican parallel of the New Orleans cornetist Buddy Bolden (1877-1931). Bolden pioneered jazz in the US, Drummond in Jamaica. Both achieved mythic proportions during their lifetimes and both their legends endure. Both, tragically, spent their final years in what were then called insane asylums. One difference between the two musicians is that, while no recording of Bolden has survived, if indeed ...

1
Live Review

Soweto Kinch's 'White Juju Deconstructed' at SFJAZZ Center

Read "Soweto Kinch's 'White Juju Deconstructed' at SFJAZZ Center" reviewed by Harry S. Pariser


Soweto Kinch SFJAZZ Center, San Francisco, CA White Juju Deconstructed May 19, 2023 “It fascinates me how we're all acquainted with an unspoken architectural and symbolic language of power.' How do these monuments or myths affect how we see ourselves as a nation? Naming the piece “White Juju" deliberately inverted ideas of the 'savage' or primitive. Perhaps the bizarre fetishes and obsessions of a cult religion are more visible in modern Britain than third world ...

8
Album Review

Soweto Kinch: White Juju

Read "White Juju" reviewed by Chris May


Adding politically charged spoken-word lyrics to instrumental jazz needs to be done with care, because if sloganeering is tedious to listen to once, it becomes unbearable on repeated exposure. The record containing it drops off one's playlist. Counterproductive or what? The British saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch, however, has pulled the trick off many times. From Conversations With The Unseen (Dune, 2003) through to The Black Peril (Soweto Kinch Recordings, 2019), Kinch has made the combination work because of the ...

5
Album Review

Emma-Jean Thackray: Um Yang

Read "Um Yang" reviewed by Chris May


Right now, in summer 2020, using new and recent releases as the yardstick, the two most exciting musicians on London's alternative jazz scene are trumpeters. One is Laura Jurd, whose recent To The Earth (Edition) is a high-water mark for her electro-acoustic band, Dinosaur. The other is Emma-Jean Thackray, whose EP Um Yang is also remarkable. Jurd is the longer established musician, having released three albums with Dinosaur since 2016. Thackray's first release came two years later, and she has ...

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Profile

Soweto Kinch: A Singular Jazz Odyssey

Read "Soweto Kinch: A Singular Jazz Odyssey" reviewed by David Burke


Soweto Kinch was a curious teenager when an encounter with Wynton Marsalis impelled him on his own jazz odyssey. An odyssey characterised by the creation of dynamic new soundscapes in the spirit of the music's great innovators, on landmark albums such as A Life in the Day of B19: Tales of the Tower Block, The Legend of Mike Smith and Nonogram. “There is a point at which you can hear the music and not really be switched onto ...

5
Album Review

Soweto Kinch: The Legend Of Mike Smith

Read "The Legend Of Mike Smith" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Once upon a time the C-word was in common usage. It isn't heard so much these days, but the older generation mustn't be lulled into a false sense of security, because the younger generation remains perfectly capable of using the word on occasions. This is one of those occasions, because Soweto Kinch's The Legend Of Mike Smith is very definitely a Concept Album--and it's quite a concept.Kinch is an alto saxophonist, rapper and composer: a two-time winner of ...

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132

Performance / Tour

Martin Taylor and Soweto Kinch hit USA as part of "Made in the UK" concert series 2011

Martin Taylor and Soweto Kinch hit USA as part of "Made in the UK" concert series 2011

Source: Jazz Services UK

'Made in the UK,' America's largest series of British Jazz, will showcase four English groups, three Scottish and one from Wales at the Xerox Rochester International Jazz Festival (10-18 June 2011). The exciting line up from England includes the Soweto Kinch Quartet, Jason Yarde and Andrew McCormack, Ronnie Scott's All Stars and John Escreet. Martin Taylor and Alison Burns, the Fraser Fifield/Graeme Stephen Duo and Alan Benzie's trio will represent Scotland. Martin Taylor will also perform solo. Representing the Welsh ...

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Recording

Dune Records Announces U.S. Release of New CDs by Saxophonist/MC Soweto Kinch & Trumpeter/Vocalist Abram Wilson

Dune Records Announces U.S. Release of New CDs by Saxophonist/MC Soweto Kinch & Trumpeter/Vocalist Abram Wilson

Source: MFA - Mitchell Feldman Associates

Kinch & Wilson Will Premiere Music From Their Much-Anticipated Second CDs At Showcases March 16th At The Elephant Room During 2007 SXSW Conference in Austin, TX The British jazz label Dune Records, internationally acclaimed for its decade-long commitment to nurturing and documenting the work of black artists who are central figures on the UK jazz scene, announces the US release of saxophonist and MC Soweto Kinch's second CD A Life In The Day Of B19: Tales Of The Tower Block ...

78

Performance / Tour

Soweto Kinch to Appear at The Clef Club in Philadelphia on August 31

Soweto Kinch to Appear at The Clef Club in Philadelphia on August 31

Source: All About Jazz

Experience Soweto Kinch, the London born alto saxaphonist who has been declared as one of the most exciting young sax stars to hit the UK scene.

Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz 736-38 South Broad Street Philadelphia, PA

August 31, 2005 Tickets: $15, $12 to members.

Though he feasts at the table of jazz, Soweto drinks at the fountain of hip-hop and rap, soaking up the vibe from artists such as Q-Tip, De La Soul, ...

119

Performance / Tour

Soweto Kinch Kicks Off 1st US Tour As Leader With Performances In NYC At Charlie Parker Jazz Festival (8/27) & The Jazz Gallery (8/28)

Soweto Kinch Kicks Off 1st US Tour As Leader With Performances In NYC At Charlie Parker Jazz Festival (8/27) & The Jazz Gallery (8/28)

Source: All About Jazz

Award Winning Alto-Saxophonist / Rapper Also To Appear At Clef Club For Jazz in Philadelphia (8/31), Montreux Jazz Festival in Atlanta (9/2) & AfricanFest in Chicago (9/3) The “blazing young alto player" (NY Times) and rapper Soweto Kinch, hailed in Downbeat, JazzTimes, Time Out New York, Billboard and other publications as the “bridge" and “missing link" between the worlds of jazz and rap music, will conduct his first North American tour as a leader with appearances at the 13th Annual ...

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Music Industry

Amazon.com Names Soweto Kinch's Dune Records Release "Conversations With The Unseen" #5 In Editor's List of Top-10 Jazz CDs of 2004

Amazon.com Names Soweto Kinch's Dune Records Release "Conversations With The Unseen" #5 In Editor's List of Top-10 Jazz CDs of 2004

Source: All About Jazz

British Alto Saxophonist / Rapper Soweto Kinch's Dune Records Release “Conversations With The Unseen" #5 In Amazon.com (US) Editor's Picks For Top-10 Jazz CDs of 2004 1. Ivey-Divey by Don Byron 2. Funeral for a Friend by Dirty Dozen Brass Band 3. Friends Seen & Unseen by Charlie Hunter 4. Careless Love by Madeleine Peyroux 5. Conversations With the Unseen by SOWETO KINCH (DuneCD08) In the '50s and '60s, Jamaican-born Joe Harriott was the face of Black jazz in Britain, ...

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Event

British Sax Sensation Soweto Kinch To Make North American Debut Dec 7 @ Jazz Gallery In NYC

British Sax Sensation Soweto Kinch To Make North American Debut Dec 7 @ Jazz Gallery In NYC

Source: All About Jazz

ACCLAIMED BRITISH ALTO SAXOPHONIST / RAPPER SOWETO KINCH TO MAKE NORTH AMERICAN DEBUT DEC 07 AT JAZZ GALLERY IN MANHATTAN Mercury Music Prize, MOBO & BBC Jazz Award Winner To Debut Music From Dune Records CD “Conversations With The Unseen" Released In US In September 2004 The award-winning, “blazing young alto player" [Ben Ratliff, The New York Times] and rapper SOWETO KINCH will make his North American debut on Tuesday, December 7 at The Jazz Gallery, 290 Hudson Street, in ...

“Mr Kinch demonstrates what England has to teach [the USA] about narrative Hip-Hop. Don’t sleep on Mr Kinch.” (The New York Times)
Benjy Sandler
saxophone, alto

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Routes

Enja
2023

buy

White Juju

Soweto Kinch Recordings
2022

buy

Um Yang

Night Dreamer
2020

buy

The Legend Of Mike...

Soweto Kinch Recordings
2013

buy

The New Emancipation

Dune Records
2010

buy

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