Shabaka Hutchings

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.

Hutchings was born in 1984 in London, England, but moved to Birmingham at the age of two.

From the age of six, he was raised in his parents' native Barbados.

There, as a nine-year-old, he picked up the clarinet and practised along to the hip hop verses of Nas, Notorious BIG and Tupac, as well as the rhythms of Crop Over.

Returning to England, at the age of 19 he went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he received a classical-music degree on the clarinet.

In London, he joined the Tomorrow's Warriors programme, a blues workshop led by British bassist Gary Crosby, Janine Irons and expat New Orleans trumpeter Abram Wilson, where Hutchings met many of his future collaborators in the burgeoning South East London jazz scene.

Hutchings was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2010 to 2012.

He has also spent time in South Africa.

Hutchings and many of his contemporaries shrug off the "jazz" label, eschewing the restriction especially as the many groups reflect influences ranging from acid house and drum & bass, to hiphop and soca, with less of a blues influence than jazz, which reviewers have noted marks a distinction between the London scene as represented by Hutchings and American jazz music.

Sons of Kemet, a quartet of saxophone, tuba and two drummers, launched with the album Burn in 2013, followed up with Lest We Forget What We Came Here to Do in 2015, both on the Naim Jazz label, before moving to Impulse! for Your Queen Is a Reptile in 2018, which coincided with a breakout into wider public consciousness of the UK jazz scene, captured by the attention on the Hutchings-directed compilation We Out Here on Brownswood.

Hutchings has won a MOBO Award for best jazz act with the Sons of Kemet in 2013, the Paul Hamlyn Composer Award in 2014, and Jazz Innovation awards from Jazz FM.

Shabaka and the Ancestors debuted in 2016 with the album Wisdom of Elders on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings label.

The Comet Is Coming, a trio with keyboardist Dan Leavers and drummer Max Hallett, received a Mercury Prize nomination for their debut album Channel the Spirits, released on The Leaf Label in April 2016.

In November 2018, Hutchings curated part of the programme for the Dutch Le Guess Who? festival.

In March 2020, Shabaka and the Ancestors released We Are Sent Here by History under Impulse! Records.

In May 2022, Hutchings released his debut solo EP, Afrikan Culture, under the mononym Shabaka.

In December 2020, Hutchings joined a band of British jazz musicians to play on the Bitches Brew-inspired, self-titled album London Brew, which was released on 31 March 2023 by Concord Jazz.

On New Year's Day in 2023, Hutchings issued a statement on his Instagram page, that he would take a hiatus from playing the saxophone from the end of 2023.

He later clarified his reasons for doing so, citing the physical and emotional strain that comes from performing on the saxophone on tour.

On 28 February 2024, Hutchings announced his solo debut album, Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace, set for release on 12 April by Impulse!