‘Exciting & special!. .comes across with a maturity and slow-burning beauty, to savour and enjoy.. ‘(Debbie Golt: Resonance FM) Rafiki Jazz are a new UK-based collective playing gloriously ambitious contemporary world roots dance music, their debut album, More Big Musik from Over There!
As a big diverse family of star African & Latin diaspora musicians and outstanding local singers & music-makers, they compose, arrange, perform & record.. stretching out together in an inspired fusion.
Recorded live over just one cold February weekend at Sheffield’s famed Yellow Arch Studios, the band’s debut full CD release More Big Muzik from Over There comprehensively raids the global dance chest & grooves its way across the popular music of the continents, impressively linking both established & emerging musicians from our growing community of migrant & refugee artists
with some of the finest roots and jazz singers & players from the region & beyond.
With an outstanding all-Yorkshire frontline vocal trio featuring the fiery Swahili taarab singing of Zanzibari Real World recording artist Mim Suleiman alongside Sheffield bossa-jazz singer Rosie Brown’s cool liquid stylings & newcomer Vanessa Chutturghoon’s sultry creole, this ambitious band delivers an ecstatic babble of voices, languages, stories & beats, whilst the breadth & energy of
their arrangements focus on a daring & at times virtuoso combination of iconic cultural instruments. Kora, marimba, table, steeldrums, ataba quo, riti all propel a thoroughly contemporary sound where beatbox meets berimbau and Brazil greets Banjul.
Singers & Players:
Mim Suleiman (Zanzibar):vocals
Rosie Brown (Uk):vocals
Vanessa Rani Chutturghoon (Mauritius-LJk):vocals!
UNome (Uk):beatboxer
Kadialy Kouyate (Senegal): kora, vocals
Catherine Carr (Uk):steel pans
Kudaushe Matimba (Zimbabwe):marimba, vocals
Tony ‘tk’ Koni (Uk):bass guitar
John Ball (Uk):tabla
Guery Tibirica (Brazil) : berimbau, atabaque (drum)
Juldeh Camara (Gambia):vocals, riti (fula fiddle),koloko (west african banjo)
Juan Gabriel Gutierrez (Colombia):vocals, harmonium
Pa Bobo Jobarteh (Gambia) kora on track 5 only.
Debbie Goft (Resonance FM) adds:
"How exciting and special! A home grown band with solid UK release support and distribution. It’s something that really could only happen here, with an amazing diversity of musicians taking part from such a wide diaspora, and performing for this live studio recording with such inventive unity. It’s great too, to enjoy the sounds of a big-band, as latterly this has been more the province of the Americans. Particularly gratifying is finding such fine UK-based African musicians gaining a stature through this release that has often been denied them. With Kudaushe Matimba, Kadialy Kouyate and Juldeh Camara, plus the introduction of Pa Jobarteh’s new kora voice, we
hear them all coming foiward to play to their strengths with the utmost respect for each others creativity, yet vividly maintaining their own distinctive voices and it’s great to find relative new-comers coming through too, alongside both seasoned and newer on the scene English musicians.. all given a rare opportunity to truly flex. Above all it is the combined and solo female voices that give Rafiki Jazz such an edge and cohesion that has hitherto been missing in UK product, & the wonderful discovery of Zanzibari Mim Suleiman who composes key tracks as well. The beatbox and hard bass don’t go amiss either!
More Big Muzik from Over There! is a well-produced album which manages to avoid the too bright, too keen pitfalls, and instead comes across with a maturity and slow-burning beauty, to savour and enjoy."
For more information about Rakik Jazz and their touring dates please contact Tony Bowring at Konimusic info@konimusic.co.uk 0114 3463 047 or 07753 129 888
Buy a copy of More Big Musik from Over There!
