jazz

Yussef Dayes

1 festival played →

London drummer whose fluid, hard-swinging kit work made Yussef Kamaal a landmark before he stepped out alone — jazz shaped by sound-system weight.

Yussef Dayes was born in south London in 1992, the youngest of four brothers, to a mother who taught primary school and a father of Jamaican Rastafarian descent who played bass. His father gave him his first drum kit at age four, and at ten he attended a course taught by drummer Billy Cobham while staying with his grandparents in Bath.

He came up playing with his brothers Ahmed and Kareem, plus saxophonist Wayne Francis, in United Vibrations, a group mixing jazz with Afrobeat and psychedelic rock. They released the single "Ra!" in 2009 and the albums Galaxies Not Ghettos in 2011 and The Myth of the Golden Ratio in 2016, alongside a 2012 EP, We Never Die.

His profile widened through the duo Yussef Kamaal, formed with keyboardist Kamaal Williams after the pair reconnected years after first meeting in 2007. A live set at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards led to a deal with Brownswood Recordings, and their 2016 album Black Focus tied broken-beat and hip-hop rhythms to loose, improvised playing, reaching number 26 on the UK jazz chart before the duo split in 2017.

Since then Dayes has recorded as a leader and collaborator, often with bassist Rocco Palladino and keyboardist Charlie Stacey, releasing the track "Love Is the Message" and the live albums Welcome to the Hills and Live at Joshua Tree. The 2020 album What Kinda Music, made with Tom Misch, and the 2023 solo record Black Classical Music followed, built on the same fast, elastic hi-hat and snare work and a live approach that leaves space for extended improvisation.

Read more

jazz