“Behind the Boards” with Kassa Overall feat. Giovanni Russonello from The New York Times. Get a behind-the-scenes look at Overall’s process of crafting his signature sound in his lab.

Kassa Overall is a multi-faceted jazz musician, emcee, singer, producer and drummer. One of the fastest rising stars of New York City’s legendary jazz scene and a self-described “backpack jazz” artist, he melds the praxis of avant-garde improvisation with hip-hop production techniques and on his latest highly acclaimed album, I THINK I’M GOOD, released on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings and which many Top 10 lists in 2020.

Following up the critically acclaimed Go Get Ice Cream and Listen to Jazz (2019), I THINK I’M GOOD tilts the nexus of jazz and hip-hop in even stranger, more unexpected directions, reflecting his panoramic musical background, from Joan Baez to West Coast G-Funk to the sounds of the New York avant-garde.

Overall has been working at the forefront of jazz for two decades, touring and recording as a sideman drummer with artists as varied as Geri Allen, Steve Coleman, Francis and the Lights, Yoko Ono, Peter Evans, and Gary Bartz. His work as a producer can be heard on albums by Theo Croker (Escape Velocity), Arto Lindsay (Cuidado Madame), and Das Racist (Sit Down, Man). He’s also featured as an emcee and DJ on drummer Terri Lyne Carrington’s latest project, Social Science.

Raised in Seattle, Washington, Overall attended Garfield High School, the alma mater of Quincy Jones and Jimi Hendrix. A graduate of Oberlin Conservatory of Music, he is currently based in Brooklyn.

“Raw, underground, and chaotic…one of modern jazz music’s most audacious futurists.” – Pitchfork

“I Think I’m Good is alive with spontaneity and outcomes too wild to be scripted. It’s not another jazz-meets-hip-hop scrum: It’s the sound of whole new lanes opening up.“ – NPR All Things Considered

“While Kassa Overall began his musical career as a jazz drummer — and remains a damn fine one — his artistic arc is increasingly taking him into creative spaces without easy categorization. It’s the sound of an artist raising his game. Powerful sh*t!” – Afropunk