Kassa Overall is an acclaimed Seattle-born and-based Grammy-nominated, Doris Duke Artist Award-winning, jazz drummer, emcee, vocalist and producer, who as a child drum prodigy taught himself to make beats on an MPC and ASR 10 he acquired at a Seattle Police Department auction. Over the course of his 20+ year career, Overall has firmly cemented a unique sound that sees him seamlessly blending jazz, hip-hop and avant-garde experimentation across six, critically applauded mixtapes and albums.
Throughout his career, Overall has crafter material that’s simultaneously innovative and accessible, pushing the boundaries of genre while remaining deeply engaging.
His last bit of recorded output, 2023’s ANIMALS explored the complexities of his identity as an artist and as a Black man in America, while featuring collaborations with an eclectic array of artists including Danny Brown, Lil B, Vijay Iyer and JOVM mainstay Nick Hakim.
Adding to a growing profile as a sought-after collaborator and one of contemporary jazz’s most exciting artists, Overall has toured and recorded with Geri Allen, Jon Batiste, Steve Coleman, Vijay Iyer, Terri Lynne Carrington and Gary Bartz. His production work can be heard on albums by the likes of Theo Croker, Arlo Lindsay and Danny Brown among others.
The acclaimed Seattle-born artist’s fourth album CREAM is slated for a September 12, 2025 release — both digitally and on vinyl — through Warp Records. The album reportedly sees Overall paying homage to the twin passions of his youth — hip-hop and jazz drums in the tradition of Elvin Jones. The eight-song album sees the acclaimed musician and producer transforming beloved, hip-hop classics by The Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, Digable Planets and Juvenile into rhythmically adventurous, witty and sublime jazz-inspired standards.
“This album is almost a boomerang response to all my previous work. No edits, no overdubs no samples or drum machine,” Overall says. “Just a great group of musicians playing together. It just so happens that the compositional material we are drawing from is rap records I grew up on!”
CREAM’s first single “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)” is a breakneck, 15/4 Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie-era bop-like arrangement that draws from Digable Planets’ 1992 smash-hit “Rebirth of Slick,” which manages to pull out and restore the swing of the original sample, Art Blakey‘s “Stretching.” While mischievously managing to retain elements of the smash-hit song and its source material, the arrangement sees some subtle changes: the conga pattern from “Rebirth of Slick” becomes a drum break and the lyrics “we be to rap what key be to lock” are turned into a drum fill, and the sax melody turns into an explosively expressive solo.
Overall learned the classic hip-hop song from the inside-out during a year-long stint on the road opening and touring with Digable Planets as their drummer. Overall says, “It nods to Digable Planets’ smooth flow and Art Blakey’s ‘Stretching.’ Knowing the song so well, I was able to flip the script with odd time rhythms and utilize many elements from the original, from vocal parts to production details. This one is high energy and still crispy.”
