Soweto Kinch

Soweto Kinch is a jazz saxophonist and rapper who is pretty much a modern day beat artist mixing spoken word poetry with jazz, social politics, and an overall cool vibe. His music has firm roots in the post-bop tradition, though he is somewhat of an omnivore when it comes to styles. He frequently goes on elaborate excursions into Ornette Coleman-type experimental territory, '30s era swing, old-school '70s fusion, or Afrocaribbean themes, Latin funk, and so on. He enjoys building his albums around narrative arcs, advancing the story through his rapping, spoken words, and sound snippets, as well as his stylistic shifts. The eclectic and boundary-blurring nature of his work and his affection for hip-hop are some of the features he shares with the current wave of jazz artists coming out of the UK, even though the start of his career predates theirs by about a decade. He also has a tendency to go on a freestyling tear in his live performances.