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On Black Focus, Yussef Kamaal frame jazz inside the bass-saturated, pirate radio broadcasts of London. Around this time, Williams began gigging regularly around London, eventually landing a place in the band of Katy Balongside drummer Joshua McKenzie. In the states, the genre’s long-running to-and-fro with hip hop – from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington – has reimagined it within US culture. Yussef Kamaal are a London-based jazz-funk duo whose members are Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu). Connect your Spotify account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you listen to, from any Spotify app on any device or platform.
Let us know what you think of the Last.fm website. In 2008, Kamaal Williams met session drummer Yussef Dayes when Williams held his first event and booked the band United Vibrations where Dayes played.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone.
Instead, their musical tastes – and approach to playing – are indebted to Thelonious Monk’s piano as much as the drum programming of Kaidi Tatham.
Leave feedback. “Not to take anything from anyone else, but that's where it all originates from: the chords, the rhythm of the chords and the drums.” Born out of a one-off live session to perform Williams’ solo material for Boiler Room, it soon became a project in its own right. All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. Dayes drums for cosmically-inclined, afrobeat outfit United Vibrations, while Williams – on top of drumming and playing keys in different incarnations over the years – has made waves with his solo, synth-draped house 12"s for much-fêted labels like 22a and Rhythm Section. “It's all about the drums and the keys,” Williams says.
Coming together as Yussef Kamaal, they played a series of live shows where little more than a chord progression would be planned before taking to the stage, Bringing that unspoken understanding to the recording sessions (engineered by Malcolm Catto of The Heliocentrics), the unplanned, telepathically spawned grooves retain the raw energy of their live shows. “A lot of the tracks are just made spontaneously – Henry will be playing two chords, I'll fill in the groove and we'll just leave the arrangement naturally.”. Let us know what you think of the Last.fm website. “It's not so much about complete arrangement, it's more about flow,” Dayes says. The borders between London’s musical tribes have always been porous. For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz.
Feel free to contribute!
In 2016, the duo performed a 20 minute live set at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards in which Peterson himself landed them a deal at his Brownswood Recordings label.
The pair, made up of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu), have had little in the way of formal training.
A new version of Last.fm is available, to keep everything running smoothly, please reload the site.
On Black Focus, Yussef Kamaal frame jazz inside the bass-saturated, pirate radio broadcasts of London. Around this time, Williams began gigging regularly around London, eventually landing a place in the band of Katy Balongside drummer Joshua McKenzie. In the states, the genre’s long-running to-and-fro with hip hop – from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington – has reimagined it within US culture. Yussef Kamaal are a London-based jazz-funk duo whose members are Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu). Connect your Spotify account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you listen to, from any Spotify app on any device or platform.
Let us know what you think of the Last.fm website. In 2008, Kamaal Williams met session drummer Yussef Dayes when Williams held his first event and booked the band United Vibrations where Dayes played.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone.
Instead, their musical tastes – and approach to playing – are indebted to Thelonious Monk’s piano as much as the drum programming of Kaidi Tatham.
Leave feedback. “Not to take anything from anyone else, but that's where it all originates from: the chords, the rhythm of the chords and the drums.” Born out of a one-off live session to perform Williams’ solo material for Boiler Room, it soon became a project in its own right. All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. Dayes drums for cosmically-inclined, afrobeat outfit United Vibrations, while Williams – on top of drumming and playing keys in different incarnations over the years – has made waves with his solo, synth-draped house 12"s for much-fêted labels like 22a and Rhythm Section. “It's all about the drums and the keys,” Williams says.
Coming together as Yussef Kamaal, they played a series of live shows where little more than a chord progression would be planned before taking to the stage, Bringing that unspoken understanding to the recording sessions (engineered by Malcolm Catto of The Heliocentrics), the unplanned, telepathically spawned grooves retain the raw energy of their live shows. “A lot of the tracks are just made spontaneously – Henry will be playing two chords, I'll fill in the groove and we'll just leave the arrangement naturally.”. Let us know what you think of the Last.fm website. “It's not so much about complete arrangement, it's more about flow,” Dayes says. The borders between London’s musical tribes have always been porous. For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz.
Feel free to contribute!
In 2016, the duo performed a 20 minute live set at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards in which Peterson himself landed them a deal at his Brownswood Recordings label.
The pair, made up of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu), have had little in the way of formal training.
A new version of Last.fm is available, to keep everything running smoothly, please reload the site.
On Black Focus, Yussef Kamaal frame jazz inside the bass-saturated, pirate radio broadcasts of London. Around this time, Williams began gigging regularly around London, eventually landing a place in the band of Katy Balongside drummer Joshua McKenzie. In the states, the genre’s long-running to-and-fro with hip hop – from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington – has reimagined it within US culture. Yussef Kamaal are a London-based jazz-funk duo whose members are Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu). Connect your Spotify account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you listen to, from any Spotify app on any device or platform.
Let us know what you think of the Last.fm website. In 2008, Kamaal Williams met session drummer Yussef Dayes when Williams held his first event and booked the band United Vibrations where Dayes played.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone.
Instead, their musical tastes – and approach to playing – are indebted to Thelonious Monk’s piano as much as the drum programming of Kaidi Tatham.
Leave feedback. “Not to take anything from anyone else, but that's where it all originates from: the chords, the rhythm of the chords and the drums.” Born out of a one-off live session to perform Williams’ solo material for Boiler Room, it soon became a project in its own right. All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. Dayes drums for cosmically-inclined, afrobeat outfit United Vibrations, while Williams – on top of drumming and playing keys in different incarnations over the years – has made waves with his solo, synth-draped house 12"s for much-fêted labels like 22a and Rhythm Section. “It's all about the drums and the keys,” Williams says.
Coming together as Yussef Kamaal, they played a series of live shows where little more than a chord progression would be planned before taking to the stage, Bringing that unspoken understanding to the recording sessions (engineered by Malcolm Catto of The Heliocentrics), the unplanned, telepathically spawned grooves retain the raw energy of their live shows. “A lot of the tracks are just made spontaneously – Henry will be playing two chords, I'll fill in the groove and we'll just leave the arrangement naturally.”. Let us know what you think of the Last.fm website. “It's not so much about complete arrangement, it's more about flow,” Dayes says. The borders between London’s musical tribes have always been porous. For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz.
Feel free to contribute!
In 2016, the duo performed a 20 minute live set at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards in which Peterson himself landed them a deal at his Brownswood Recordings label.
The pair, made up of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu), have had little in the way of formal training.
In 2008, Williams put on a show with the then fourteen-year-old drummer Yussef Dayes, with whom he would later form Yussef Kamaal. Taking inspiration from the anything-goes spirit of ‘70s jazz-funk, on albums by Herbie Hancock or the Mahavishnu Orchestra, it’s a loose template with plenty of room to experiment. In the states, the genre’s long-running to-and-fro with hip hop – from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington – has reimagined it within US culture. Both hail from South East London, crossing paths in 2007 as teenagers playing their first pub gigs around Peckham and Camberwell.
After attending high school, Williams attended the Bermondsey Centre of Southwark College, where he studied music production and learned to play the keyboard. One of the album's producers Malcom Catto "work[ed] by ear" when recording the band "as opposed to having things programmed in", according to Williams. Williams remained with Katy B for two years before leaving t…
A new version of Last.fm is available, to keep everything running smoothly, please reload the site.
On Black Focus, Yussef Kamaal frame jazz inside the bass-saturated, pirate radio broadcasts of London. Around this time, Williams began gigging regularly around London, eventually landing a place in the band of Katy Balongside drummer Joshua McKenzie. In the states, the genre’s long-running to-and-fro with hip hop – from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington – has reimagined it within US culture. Yussef Kamaal are a London-based jazz-funk duo whose members are Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu). Connect your Spotify account to your Last.fm account and scrobble everything you listen to, from any Spotify app on any device or platform.
Let us know what you think of the Last.fm website. In 2008, Kamaal Williams met session drummer Yussef Dayes when Williams held his first event and booked the band United Vibrations where Dayes played.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone.
Instead, their musical tastes – and approach to playing – are indebted to Thelonious Monk’s piano as much as the drum programming of Kaidi Tatham.
Leave feedback. “Not to take anything from anyone else, but that's where it all originates from: the chords, the rhythm of the chords and the drums.” Born out of a one-off live session to perform Williams’ solo material for Boiler Room, it soon became a project in its own right. All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. Dayes drums for cosmically-inclined, afrobeat outfit United Vibrations, while Williams – on top of drumming and playing keys in different incarnations over the years – has made waves with his solo, synth-draped house 12"s for much-fêted labels like 22a and Rhythm Section. “It's all about the drums and the keys,” Williams says.
Coming together as Yussef Kamaal, they played a series of live shows where little more than a chord progression would be planned before taking to the stage, Bringing that unspoken understanding to the recording sessions (engineered by Malcolm Catto of The Heliocentrics), the unplanned, telepathically spawned grooves retain the raw energy of their live shows. “A lot of the tracks are just made spontaneously – Henry will be playing two chords, I'll fill in the groove and we'll just leave the arrangement naturally.”. Let us know what you think of the Last.fm website. “It's not so much about complete arrangement, it's more about flow,” Dayes says. The borders between London’s musical tribes have always been porous. For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital – with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat – has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz.
Feel free to contribute!
In 2016, the duo performed a 20 minute live set at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards in which Peterson himself landed them a deal at his Brownswood Recordings label.
The pair, made up of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu), have had little in the way of formal training.
