School of Rock
Random article All articles A–Z
2 languages

Shabaka and the Ancestors

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Shabaka and the Ancestors is the band of the British saxophonist, composer and bandleader Shabaka Hutchings. He was born in 1984 in London and grew up in Barbados, where at the age of nine he began playing the clarinet, among other things to the rhymes of Nas and Tupac. Back in England he studied clarinet at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. In London he ended up in the Tomorrow's Warriors programme, where he met many of his later fellow players in the South London jazz scene.

Music and breakthrough

The Ancestors made their debut in 2016 with the album Wisdom of Elders on Gilles Peterson's label Brownswood Recordings. In 2020 We Are Sent Here by History appeared on Impulse! Records. Hutchings also played in Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming, two other groups that helped bring British jazz to a wider audience. In 2018 he curated part of the programme of the Dutch festival Le Guess Who?. In 2020 he also started the label Native Rebel Recordings.

Influence

Many young London musicians set the label jazz aside, because their influences range from acid house and drum and bass to hip hop and soca, with less blues than in American jazz. Hutchings too worked with, among others, the Sun Ra Arkestra and Mulatu Astatke. At the end of 2023 he announced that he was taking a break from playing the saxophone. The Ancestors show how jazz sounds in the London of today.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to a track from We Are Sent Here by History and notice the interplay between the saxophone and the rhythmic interplay of the whole band beneath it.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

Categories: Artists