COVER IMAGE
CD released: Oct 16, 2026

Tracklisting:
1. Black Focus
2. Strings Of Light
3. Remembrance
4. Yo Chavez
5. Ayla
6. O.G
7. Lowrider
8. Mansur's Message
9. Wingtai Drums
10. Joint 17
YUSSEF KAMAAL
BLACK FOCUS
Label: BROWNSWOOD RECORDINGS
Cat No: BWOOD157CD
Barcode: 5060180322915
Packaging: CD Jewel Case

2016 release. The borders between London's musical tribes have always been porous. For Yussef Kamaal, the sound of the capital - with it's hum of jungle, grime and broken beat - has shaped a self-taught, UK tipped approach to playing jazz. In the states, the genre's long-running to-and-fro with hip hop - from Robert Glasper to Kamasi Washington - has reimagined it with in US culture. On Black Focus, Yussef Kamaal frame jazz inside the bass-saturated, pirate radio broadcasts of London. 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. The pair, made up of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu), have had little in the way of formal training. Instead, their musical tastes - and approach to playing - are indebted to Thelonious Monk's piano as much as the drum programming of Kaidi Tatham.

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