Yussef Dayes’ majestic new album finds a home around the world
“I like being the bandleader,” Yussef Dayes tells me as the rain envelopes the leafy suburbs of south London where we meet. “But when you come to my show, I want you to be like, ‘Yussef was wicked, but Rocco Palladino killed it on the bass! Venna killed it on the saxophone!’ I’m all for that man, because I know in my heart, I can’t make this music without playing with the best.” In Dayes’ world, jazz music is the sum of its parts; instruments complement each other to create otherworldly moments of rhythmic bliss. Collaboration is the nascent heartbeat of this art, channelling creativity into music that transcends the genre itself. Dayes, a supreme drummer and musical polymath, lives and breathes this creed.
Across work with Wizkid, Virgil Abloh, Kali Uchis and Kehlani, as well as his brothers in the band United Vibrations and as Yussef Kamaal alongside Kamaal Williams, Dayes has built a catalogue that can be loosely described as jazz but represents the fluidity of Black music itself. His 2018 release ‘Love Is the Message’, sparkles with elements of 1970s soul and progressive rock, cascading over Mansur Brown’s keys and Dayes’ composed drum patterns. ‘Nightrider’, from his 2020 project What Kinda Music with Tom Misch, should soundtrack an episode of Miami Vice in its vintage ’80s feel. For sounds as disparate as these, Dayes is the glue, the connector. “It’s all classical music to me,” he explains. “Bach was how many hundreds of years ago, but his music is still relevant. I want to be part of that lineage of Black classical music and showcase what’s inspired me. It could be Lauryn Hill or Roni Size; the list is endless.”
Born and bred in south London, Dayes was an outlier of sorts, a gangly teen in tune with jazz and reggae even as his friends and peers were enthralled by grime music’s peak. Fed by his father with a diet of Bob Marley and The Wailers, Herbie Hancock and Fela Kuti, his destiny was set when he began drumming at age four, aided by a strong familial unit that backed his every move. “I remember when I was six or seven and my dad was helping me to set up my drums for a talent show,” he recalls. “My mum worked mad shifts to provide for us as a family. My brothers played instruments. I learned a lot just being in my house.” After-school clubs, talent shows and pub gigs were his arena for development, yet his young career blossomed under the tutelage of jazz legend Billy Cobham – once drummer for the incomparable Miles Davis – whose records were often in his father’s rotation, a full circle moment he holds dear. “ taught me to relax a bit more and trust in my technique,” Dayes remembers. “I was always playing drums with my shoulders high up – I still kind of do but he loosened me up. It’s very easy to veer off in terms of technique but he gave me the confidence to believe in how I approach the drums.”
Even before his arrival in 2016, Dayes had been a student of the game, eager to discover every sketch of sound he could. It is a journey that has taken him everywhere from Los Angeles to Salvador to Brazil, picking up game from an array of musicians. Which is why his new album, Black Classical Music, almost feels like a culmination of his life to this point, a love letter to his family, his experiences, and his first love: music. A majestic 19-tracker anchored by his crisp, ebullient drum smacks, the album reveals Dayes’ deep affinity with home; it features vocals from his daughter, his father, and his late mother, who also took the photo of young Yussef that adorns his album cover. But its musical scope is global, and having worked with Venna, Masego, Jamilah Barry, Tom Misch, Shabaka Hutchings, Rocco Palladino and more, Dayes unequivocally leads the creative charge. “It’s a natural progression to take full charge of a project in a sense,” he explains. “Stepping out and taking more ownership of my music. Not having to rely on other entities to produce something and learning that pursuing your own ideas can be a beautiful thing.” The title track, frenetic and bebop-like in tone, stops you in your tracks, while ‘Crystal Palace Park’ turns a celestial dream state into sound. The Chronixx-assisted ‘Pin Di Plaza’ is a warm marriage with dancehall; ‘Afro Cubanism’ carries truncated rhythms akin to afrobeat’s 1970s heyday and the Masego-featured ‘Marching Band’ borrows the tempo of Brazilian samba. The result is an opus, as much speaking to the history of Black music as it is a living symbol. “I think this album shows how I’ve got to where I am,” he says. “It gives people an insight into the different kinds of music I can make. You might think it’s just jazz, but it’s deeper than that. You can find different flavours to it according to your outlook.”
This quest for new flavours continues to follow the musician as he strives to carve out a space for his free-flowing expressive form. As our conversation concludes, he outlines his world-facing mission: “When I went to Brazil last year, the drummers there were making me feel a certain way. I can’t explain, it just hits you. I want more of that feeling. I need to tap into the Caribbean more, visit family in Jamaica and Saint Lucia. I want to find the rhythm wherever I go.”
This article is taken from Port issue 33. To continue reading, buy the issue or subscribe here
