Super Jazz Club Is Here; Release First Single ”Couple Black Kids”.
You should have seen it coming if you have been following individual members of the collective, Super Jazz Club. They are not a team of old musicians who perform jazz songs. Neither is it the name of a jazz club. The Super Jazz Club is a collective of 7 young guys who are keeping jazz alive by embalming their songs with jazz influences.
Made up of 4 artists (BiQo, Ansah Live, Seyyoh and Øbed) and 3 behind-the-scenes individuals (Joey Turks, Oliver North, Anthony Orleans-Lindsay) who are investing their varied skills into the sound and direction of the guys at the front, the Collective have found a way of blending jazz inflections into their music. That is, jazz/soul is the bedrock on which their sound is crafted.
You should have seen it coming through the music of BiQo, Ansah Live and Øbed. These individual acts are making the kind of music that falls left of the overbearing, unmistakable, pop driven afrobeats sound. BiQo’s stirring “As We Blossom and Wither” EP is condensed in the realm of jazz and soul.
In 2016, Ansah Live’s experimental EP, “UltraMarine Dream’’ combined minimal synths, lo-fi hip hop beats and strands of jazz in fashioning out its soundscape. The same approach was used on “Purple Label + Muse. Øbed blew the minds of many with his futuristic, psychedelic sound on “Sober”. Jazz is the bedrock on which they built their works.
You should know that the new digital or streaming era has blown open the consuming choices of fans. People can now scan across music genres to find what suit their taste at a fingers roll. This opportunity has also afforded musicians, mostly non-mainstream or alte circles to cater to the new shift in music consumer. (Just check out BiQo’s ”modest” numbers on Spotify).
Read: BiQo: My Goal For Making Music Is To Create Experiences
Years of work by these artists has shaped both their sound and also their relationship. The outcome: ‘’Couple Black Kids’’, their debut single under their Super Jazz Club imprint.
With jazz serving as the oil coating the base of their cooker, “Couple Black Kids” is a fun, catchy sounding music on first listen, based largely off the stabbing hip hop drums that pegs the jazz/soulful feel that oozes across. The lyrics, however offers a perspective on their background and where they are heading over head bumping beat.
The dusty opening is infiltrated by hip hop drums which is then permeated by BiQo’s sing-rap cadence akin to Dreamville’s EarthGang. Øbed punches home with his soulful/RnB rendition. “Anyone can get it any day/ But we prefer to keep it on the low/ But if your friends ask you let them know/Just a couple black kids out riding”. This, exactly is how the Super Jazz Club wishes to introduce themselves. The rest, Ansah Live and Seyyoh cap things off with his various deliveries.
Their moniker notwithstanding, each member of the Collective brought their musical leanings to bear- soul, RnB, jazz, hip hop- making “Couple Black Kids” a refreshing sound and a perfect intro. It’s an attestation to the bravery of these young artists with regards to being different, being experimental and pushing into a realm that is often considered ‘bougie’ for the ‘average Ghanaian’. And like the sound you are hearing, the accompanying video for ‘’Couple Black Kids’’ takes an alte/, hipster approach.
Now you have seen it. The Super Jazz Club has arrived and ready to make an indelible impression. Along with the La Meme Gang, we are seeing an exuberant crop of new age artist who believe in flapping their wings in unison than doing this music thing on their own.
It is here.
