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Kenny Beats has been extremely busy as of late. Earlier this year he contributed production to Thundercat's Distracted and Fcukers' Ö, as well as forthcoming releases like Weezer's Gold Album and Show Me The Body's Alone Together. Now, he's fronting a new music collective called Fathers.
Along with Kenneth Blume, Fathers has keyboardist Kiefer, bassist CARRTOONS, and drummer Nate Smith (not to be confused with the other Nate Smith), all of whom share jazz roots and production skills. Kiefer has collaborator and producer credits with Terrace Martin and Anderson .Paak; CARRTOONS has produced for George Clinton, Freddie Gibbs, Jadakiss, Usher, and Roy Ayers; Smith has collaborated with Michael Jackson, Brittany Howard, Jon Batiste, Childish Gambino, and more.
The group's eponymous debut album arrives next month. It was produced by Kenny Beats and recorded at his Putnam Hill studio in Los Angeles. "I was 95 percent through building my studio, and I asked Kiefer if he could come by with a band and play some instruments," he says. "We custom-built our recording console and hadn't heard anything through it yet. So it was meant to be a test day to make sure the studio was up and running. Kiefer happened to be playing shows with Ben and Nate at the time, and in testing out the equipment we recorded these songs in 48 hours. Turns out the board works just fine."
The LP also features guests like saxophonist Nicole McCabe, vocalist Genevieve Artadi (KNOWER), guitarist Paul Castelluzzo (HETHER) and the strings of Yasmeen Al-Mazeedi. Hear the lead single "Pearl" below.
Fathers is out 7/10 via Blue Note. Pre-order it here.
Aidan Cullen
English (US) · 