Steve Lehman & Sélébéyone Self-Titled Debut on Vinyl

Due to overwhelming demand and the response to Sélébéyone’s sophomore release Xaybu: The Unseen, we have started a BandCamp campaign to print the group’s 2016 debut, Sèlébéyone, on vinyl. BandCamp campaigns run for 30 days. By the end of 30 days we need to be 100% pledged in order for the vinyl to print so, please if you’d like to hear Sèlébéyone on vinyl pledge today. We’ve got till October 27th to meet our goal. We’re about half-way there so please pledge today.

Featuring HPrizm (English vocals,) Gaston Bandimic (Wolof vocals,) Steve Lehman (alto saxophone & sequencing,) Maciek Lasserre (soprano saxophone & sequencing,) Carlos Homs (keyboards & piano,) Drew Gress (acoustic bass) and Damion Reid (drums), Sélébéyone was described as “legitimately new” and a “revelation” by Pitchfork. The group’s eponymous 2016 debut was universally hailed as a game-changing synthesis of underground hip-hop, modern jazz and live electronic music.

Sélébéyone stands apart from almost every other jazz/hip-hop collaboration that preceded it: this is not an album where live musicians imitate repetitive samples in 4/4 time. Instead, the musical elements shifting rhythms, electro-acoustic harmonies, and contemporary sound design are wholly integrated with the lyrical content. Add to that the unique juxtaposition of English and Wolof that permeates the record, and one gets the sense of the development of a whole new musical universe.

In Wolof, the word “Sélébéyone” refers to an intersection; a liminal terrain where two fixed entities meet and transform themselves into something heretofore unknown. As Steve explains: “Hip-hop is like every other musical genre. There are fierce individualists, people that are more marketplace oriented, and every shade in between. I’ve always gravitated towards artists like Company Flow, MF Doom, Pharoahe Monch, Freestyle Fellowship, and Antipop, artists who are really trying to innovate on every level. This record is very much trying to follow that mold. I think regardless of musical milieu jazz, classical, rap the way we work with rhythm, harmony, timbre, and compositional form, is as elaborate and personal as anything I’ve done.”