I just got home from a month long tour with Tom Misch. For those that don’t know, he’s a multi-instrumentalist and singer from the U.K. He’s released a few beat tapes and EPs and just dropped his debut album Geography. It’s fire! So I was asked to join only a couple weeks before and I was ecstatic about it when I got the call! I quickly checked out the music and before I knew it I’m on the west coast ready to start the national run. As soon as I arrive to the Warfield in San Francisco I realized just how large of a production was! There was a tour bus with 12 bunks, a trailer with a full lighting rig, multiple sound engineers and 5 killin musicians from London. Definitely a culture shock to say the least. We got through soundcheck and I got acquainted with the music and the chemistry with the band was immediately there!! I knew this tour would be ridiculously fun. The next show was Coachella and that was amazing!! I saw some of my favorite of all time perform. Daniel Caesar, Jorja Smith, Jamiroquai, and Beyoncé were definitely highlights for me! Such a dope hang! After Coachella it was smooth sailing. We drove the tour bus from Cali to Vegas, Colorado, Detroit, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Boston, New York, Philly and DC!! Saw parts of North America I’ve never been to. We ended the tour with a Tiny Desk performance and a show in Dc! My parents even came through. Couldn’t have asked for a better ending to a fun ass tour! Such a blessing!

Special shoutout to Rudi Creswick on Bass, Joe Price on keys, Jamie Houghton on drums, Tobie Tripp on violin/guitar and of course Tom Misch on vocals/guitar!! Looking forward to the next one...

I’m not sure who first coined this term but I do remember Nicholas Payton using it a lot a few years back to describe Jazz. I don’t intend to go back down that rabbit hole with this post, but rather to better define how I would describe my music. I grew up on soul music and particularly a lot of Motown artists such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Temptations and Smokey Robinson. This had a profound affect on the music that I gravitate to. Even after studying jazz for a number of years I find myself always gravitating back to my roots (but informed by jazz). The music that I like to create is influenced by the soul music I grew up on as well as the Jazz that I’ve studied and been immersed in while in NYC. Both Jazz and R&B/Soul (as well as Hip Hop, Rock N’ Roll, Country, Blues and many other styles) are art forms that have come out of the African American traditions. When it comes to trying to classify the music that I make, the best term I can come up with is Black American Music.