Sons Of Kemet to break up after remaining 2022 live shows

Sons Of Kemet have announced that they’re set to break up after finishing up their 2022 touring schedule.

• READ MORE: Sons Of Kemet live in London: virtuosic, party-starting masterclass

The jazz quartet, led by saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings and featuring Tom Skinner of Radiohead side-project The Smile on drums, were nominated for the 2018 Mercury Prize for ‘Your Queen Is A Reptile’.

The band are set to play a host of gigs across 2022, including a show in Barcelona for Primavera Sound next week (June 6), and have told fans in a statement that the shows will be their last “for the foreseeable future.”

The statement read: “This year will be the last chance to see us in the form to which you’ve grown accustomed.

“After 10 years we have decided that from the end of our scheduled 2022 shows we will be closing this chapter of the band’s life for the foreseeable future. We’re excited to play our remaining gigs for you and to make this summer a fitting send off.”

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Sons Of Kemet released their third album, ‘Black To The Future’, back in May of 2021. It follows 2018’s Mercury-nominated. ‘Your Queen Is A Reptile’, which earned the group a Mercury Prize nomination.

In a five-star review of ‘Black To The Future’, NME‘s Dhruva Balram wrote: “Featuring an all-star cast of guests such as UK saxophonist Steve Williamson, Chicago bandleader/vocalist Angel Bat Dawid, American poet Moor Mother, legendary British grime MC D Double E, British rapper Kojey Radical, singer Lianne La Havas and poet Joshua Idehen, the album is the kind of career-defining work that makes the case for Sons of Kemet as jazz greats in their own right.”

The band played their last UK headline tour at the start of 2022. Giving the London Roundhouse show of the tour a five-star review, NME wrote: “The four members of Sons Of Kemet are intertwined like few other bands manage. On drums, Tom Skinner and Eddie Hick duel together as they roll out increasingly complex rhythms, always captivating in the way they interconnect.

“In front of them, bandleader and saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings has the same effortless to-and-fro with giddy tuba player Theon Cross, the pair trading criss-crossing melodies and showing off a striking telepathic connection.”

The post Sons Of Kemet to break up after remaining 2022 live shows appeared first on NME.