Kassa Overall : Cream
In 36 minutes, Grammy-nominated jazz visionary and Doris Duke Artist Award-winning drummer Kassa Overall will tell you golden age hip-hop has evolved, become wise, seasoned through the passage of time and cultural absorption. That’s the vibe coming through on his recent album Cream, where hip-hop classics by Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, OutKast, Digable Planets and Juvenile get extended into compositions, noble arrangements, and sometimes, when the moment calls for it, he turns, flips and fricassees those joints into absolute jazz bangers.
I’m somewhat reminded of Miles Davis’s motivation to perform at rock festivals in the late 1960s and early 1970s, driven by both financial and cultural factors, such as his showing at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival where he played to over 600,000 rock fans, marking a significant moment in his embrace of jazz fusion. By engaging with this new type of venue, he was able to lord and vibe merchant over a broader audience beyond the smoky, funky-tiny jazz clubs he had typically played in. This pivot led to an increase in his record sales. He added long hairs to the Dylan, Byrds, Simon and Garfunkel, Joplin and Johnny Cash funny-cigarette wing at Columbia Records.
Fusion—a blend of jazz, rock, funk, R&B, and electronic musical elements—appealed to a wider cross-section of listeners. Davis recognized this when his Bitches Brew record, a blitzkrieg of numbers totalling success, sold hundreds of thousands of copies in 1970 alone. Unheard of numbers for a jazz record; it pointed to a new direction for the Herbie Hancock floodgates to flow. Those record totals were big. Like, Beatles, Hendrix, Sly Stone and Rolling Stones big. Miles officially became a rock festival staple. Nowadays, it’s commonplace to see Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Robert Glasper, and other jazz players of that ilk following punk-emo festival darlings Mannequin Pussy like it’s nothing. The cuture has been set, primped and ready for exploration.
Cream, which honors both classic jazz standards alongside hip-hop favoites, understands how Pete Rock sampled his pop records to build a personal and cultural legacy from the creation of an earlier generation. Hip-hop’s billion-dollar cultural movement, reflects upon John Cage’s idea about how, in the future, records might be made from records—not an exact quote, but the core idea is there—exploring that concept in reverse.
Is it fate, coincidence, or just pure luck that a week before this intriguing project was released—one that embraces a fully free-flowing sound without edits, dubs, or drum machines—iconic emcee Busta Rhymes won the Rock The Bells Visionary Award at the MTV Music Video Awards? Kassa Overall, who may have this culture clock dialed, opens his new album with Freddie Hubbard’s traditional “Freedom Jazz Dance,” featuring the backbeat from Busta’s “Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Can See,” which itself was originally adapted from Seals and Crofts’ laid-back, patchouli smellin’ “Sweet Green Fields.” The Hubbard chart, modern, yet capricious, snakes about with altered rhythms, inverted constructs, and a blend of 21st-century eclecticism. Unlike some jazzified hip-hop projects of the past, Overall could give a damn, which is good, once he pushes through the memorable section of the song, after that gentle reminder or introduction is made, he’s off to work—doing to Yo! MTV Raps staples, what John Coltrane did to Oscar Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers’ “My Favorite Things”. Assigning “cultural accent” to a piece of art originally created with just one idea in mind.
Wu-Tang’s “C.R.E.A.M.” receives a whimsical yet weary interpretation (Wu-Tang weary, hilarious right?) from soprano saxophonist Emilio Modeste. He creates ethereal melodies that transition into post-blues upper-register skronking, intriguing energies for the Gods. This clean-energy reinvention highlights something that has always been lurking beneath the surface but never got pulled into clear-view. Even the Digable Planets classic “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” gets supercharged with hard bop meter, burning odd-time signature and full blow-out Art Blakey type swing riding those quick hittin’ polyrhythms.
Kassa Overall’s Cream project goes light years past traditional remaking hip-hop into jazz tropes, he’s inserted the notion that both must be in conversation with one another to collectively march into future.
Label: Warp
Year: 2025
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