Biography
Sons of Kemet were a British jazz collective formed in London in 2011 by saxophonist and clarinetist Shabaka Hutchings alongside tuba player Oren Marshall and dual drummers Seb Rochford and Tom Skinner. Hutchings — born 1984 in London, raised from age six in his parents' native Barbados — drew the band's sound from an unusually wide sonic geography: the calypso and soca of Barbados' Carnival, reggae and hip-hop absorbed in his teens, and the lineage of British and African free jazz. The band's name references Kemet, the ancient African name for Egypt, a deliberate political statement that Hutchings described as "part of getting the word out there" about Egypt's Black African origins. The lineup evolved over time: Theon Cross took over tuba duties from Marshall after the debut album, and Eddie Hick replaced Rochford on drums ahead of the fourth record.
Their debut album Burn (2013, on Naim Jazz) announced a genuinely new sound — saxophone over two drummers and a tuba, building rhythm-driven compositions that fused free jazz with dub, grime, and Caribbean folk without losing instrumental rigor. It won the MOBO Award for Best Jazz Act in 2013 and was shortlisted for Gilles Peterson's Album of the Year. Lest We Forget What We Came Here to Do (2015) deepened the palette before their major-label breakthrough Your Queen Is a Reptile (Impulse!, 2018), a concept album honoring influential Black women with tracks named after figures including Harriet Tubman, Mamie Phipps Clark, and Albertina Sisulu — earning a Mercury Prize nomination. Black to the Future (2021), their final studio record, was their most explicitly political work, featuring guest vocalists Kojey Radical and Lianne La Havas, addressing systemic racism, decolonization, and Black identity.
Sons of Kemet announced their disbandment on June 1, 2022, stating they would "close this chapter of the band's life for the foreseeable future." Their legacy sits at the center of a resurgent British jazz movement they helped catalyze alongside contemporaries like Shabaka Hutchings' parallel projects The Comet Is Coming and Shabaka and the Ancestors. The instrumentation itself — no bass, no piano, dual percussion anchoring a tuba's low end — was a structural statement: rhythm and groove as the primary creative engine, not harmonic accompaniment.
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Fun Facts
- The band's name references 'Kemet,' the ancient African name for Black Egypt — Hutchings used it deliberately to educate listeners about Egypt's African origins and counter Eurocentric historical narratives.
- Shabaka Hutchings is named after an ancient Nubian pharaoh, Shabaka, who ruled Lower Egypt around 700 BCE — his parents gave him this name as a conscious connection to African history.
- Your Queen Is a Reptile (2018) was titled partly as a provocation against British monarchism — each track names a real Black woman as a queen, juxtaposing those figures against the conventional notion of royalty.
- The band's unusual instrumentation — saxophone, tuba, and two drummers with no bass or piano — was not chosen for novelty but because those specific musicians happened to be in a room together in 2011, and the sound that emerged made the lineup feel inevitable.
Members
- Shabaka Hutchings
- Oren Marshall
- Sebastian Rochford
- Tom Skinner
Musical Connections
Mentors/Influences
- Sun Ra's Arkestra - Drummer Seb Rochford had prior connections to Sun Ra legacy musicians, situating Sons of Kemet within Afro-futurist jazz tradition [Pre-formation influence]
- Mulatu Astatke - Members including Seb Rochford performed with Mulatu Astatke and the Heliocentrics, bringing Ethio-jazz and global jazz synthesis into their orbit [Pre-2011]
Key Collaborators
- Seb Rochford - Co-founding drummer; also of Polar Bear and Hello Skinny (Burn (2013), Lest We Forget (2015), Your Queen Is a Reptile (2018)) [2011–2019]
- Tom Skinner - Co-founding drummer; also of Hello Skinny and Melt Yourself Down (All four studio albums) [2011–2022]
- Theon Cross - Tuba player who replaced Oren Marshall; went on to solo career (Lest We Forget (2015), Your Queen Is a Reptile (2018), Black to the Future (2021)) [2014–2022]
- Kojey Radical - Featured rapper/spoken word artist on 'Hustle' and Black to the Future (Black to the Future (2021))
- Lianne La Havas - Featured vocalist on 'Hustle' (Black to the Future (2021))
- Steve Williamson - Guest saxophonist on recordings [2015–2018]
- Cassie Kinoshi - Guest alto saxophonist [2018–2021]
Artists Influenced
- Theon Cross - Cross developed a high-profile solo career (Fyah, 2019; Quarters!, 2022) directly growing from his Sons of Kemet work, reestablishing tuba as a lead jazz voice [2019–present]
Connection Network
External Links
Tags: #jazz, #jazz-fusion
References
Heard on WWOZ
Sons of Kemet has been played 1 time on WWOZ 90.7 FM, New Orleans' jazz and heritage station.