Soweto Kinch – Biography

An award winning alto-saxophonist, Soweto Kinch is one of the most exciting and versatile young musicians on the British Jazz (& also hip hop) scene. The Kinch, self taught with a love of hip hop, weaves an entangling web of spoken word, rap and jazz sax and whilst his music is firmly rooted in jazz, Soweto has been deeply influenced by artists such as De La Soul, The Roots and Q Tip.

As well as Gary Crosby, Kinch’s jazz mentors include Sonny Rollins, Courtney Pine and Denys Baptiste. Like many of Britain’s rising jazz stars, this self-taught musician is a graduate of the Tomorrow’s Warriors youth jazz development program and is undoubtedly one of the few jazz artists or rappers with a degree in Modern History from Oxford University.

That Soweto is as diverse a musician as he is talented is without question. Equally comfortable in a band as he is solo, in 2001 he established the Soweto Kinch Trio – with bassist Michael Olatuja and drummer Troy Miller, both exceptional young players. At the end of 2002, Soweto began work on his début album, extending his band to quartet status with the addition of Femi Temowo on guitar.
 
Conversations With The Unseen was that LP and it was released in 2003 on Dune Records. Guesting on that LP were impressive names like Charlie Parker and Q-Tip.

In 2003 he won the MOBO prize for Best Jazz Act and in the same year his debut album was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. In 2006, Kinch released his second album, A Life In The Day Of B19 – Tales Of The Tower Block, the first instalment of a two-part concept album documenting the lives of three inner-city Birmingham men.

Mr. Kinch constantly explores and examines his relationship with traditional jazz by integrating a plethora of other styles and nowhere is his love of diversity more evident than in his current work.