Kassa Overall
Biography Kassa Overall
Kassa Overall
is a Grammy-nominated musician, emcee, singer, producer and drummer who melds avant-garde experimentation with hip-hop production techniques to tilt the nexus of jazz and rap in unmapped directions. He previously released four critically acclaimed projects: I THINK I’M GOOD, Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz, Shades of Flu and Shades of Flu 2.
On ANIMALS, his Warp Records debut, Kassa pushes his kaleidoscopic, subversive vision further. He layers Roland 808s against avant-garde drumming in the vein of his mentors Elvin Jones and Billy Hart, the latter of whom he studied with at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. Virtuoso musos appear alongside rap poets, including Danny Brown, Wiki, Lil B, and Shabazz Palaces. Top-flight jazz improvisation weaves in and out of orchestral string arrangements by Jherek Bischoff. The album’s diverse, all-star roster of collaborators includes several of his close friends, like vocalists Nick Hakim, Laura Mvula, Francis and the Lights, and jazz stars like Theo Croker and Vijay Iyer.
ANIMALS pushes Kassa’s message further too, the title a loaded metaphor for the paradoxes of his life as an entertainer and as a black man in America. ANIMALS is the sound of an artist aware of the cost of embodying one’s natural self in the public eye, a deep reckoning with the two-sided truth that to perform one’s freedom for an audience can mean succumbing to life inside a cage.
“Sharing a common ancestor, jazz and hip-hop ought to be a natural fit — but nobody has ever quite made this fusion feel like theirs. Enter Kassa Overall, the soft-spoken drummer, producer and M.C., who plays a different game.” —New York Times
“The “backpack jazz” approach of this drummer-producer-rapper reaches its ultimate form on ANIMALS, a sleek, soulful album jam-packed with features” —NPR
“On Animals, Seattle rapper and drummer Kassa Overall astounded as both a wordsmith and a metronome with guests like Danny Brown and Vijay Iyer.” —Vulture
