Biography

London has a knack of carving out frontrunners in music, instrumental in bringing change within genres. Kaidi Akinnibi & NK-OK have been part of the exciting loose interconnected new jazz scene for about 5 years – NK-OK as part of the successful Jazztronica Duo Blue Lab Beats and Kaidi Akinnibi playing sax for Tom Misch, Yussef Dayes & Celeste as well as his own band Invariance. The two have produced a fully collaborative album Sounds of Afrotronica. For NK-OK, it represents his first full-length release since Blue Lab Beats “Voyage”. For Kaidi, it’s another chance to stretch his talent outside of playing on huge stages for ‘successful others’ to a proving ground for his own sound. NK-OK’ says “We both love the energy of grime from 2003 onwards and we both love jazz. We learnt jazz at the same place (Tomorrows Warriors) and one day in the studio I played Kaidi a track that didn’t fit into Blue Labs signature sound it was more electronic and industrial, he immediately started improvising and soon the layered horns and drums went on to become the song “Time Capsule” – we knew from then we had the makings of an album project” “Sounds of Afrotronica” also feels indebted to the synergistic & harmonious nature of the young London jazz scene, the presence of Blue Lab Beats collaborator and significant other David Mrakpor, Richie from KOKOROKO, Horn player extraordinaire Theo Croker and Ezra Collective collaborator Ife Ogunjobi, bode well as featured musicians on the album.