Description
Nubya Garcia was already a household name within the UK jazz scene thanks to playing on modern classics like Ezra Collective's Juan Pablo: The Philosopher, Makaya McCraven's Universal Beings, and Sons of Kemet's Your Queen Is A Reptile; playing in the bands Maisha and Nérija; and releasing a couple well-liked EPs; but with Source -- her first full-length album as a bandleader -- she's made her grandest statement yet. As a London-based musician with immigrant parents from Guyana and Trinidad, Nubya's life has always been rooted in diaspora, and that comes across in the music on Source, which ties spiritual jazz to dub, cumbia, Afrobeat, soul, and more across nine deep, bold songs. Produced by Solange collaborator Kwes and featuring members of Ezra Collective, KOKOROKO, Nérija, and others, Source has an impressive cast, and Nubya knows when to hand the spotlight over to a guest vocalist or another musician and when to take it for one of her stirring sax solos. But no matter who's center stage at any given moment, the vision is all Nubya's, and that vision led to one of the year's most simultaneously dizzying and heartwarming records.