KASSA OVERALL

Kassa Overall is a percussionist, producer and rapper from Seattle, educated at Garfield High in his home town, where Jimi Hendrix and Quincy Jones also went to school. He has no shortage of pedigree, but neither does he lack ambition and breadth of vision: he headed off to New York to try to make it as a musician, and ended up playing for Christian McBride, Ravi Coltrane, Geri Allen, Jon Batiste and Yoko Ono. He certainly has an impressive résumé and I guess it’s hard to say anything better about him than what musician Terri Lyne Carrington has already said in the pages of the New York Times. She described Kassa as one of the artists of the new century, a musician capable of transcending all genre barriers on albums such as his recently released third album, Animals (2023), a feast of futuristic jazz and hip-hop.