EFG London Jazz Festival: Nok Cultural Ensemble

Tomorrow’s Warriors presents Nok Cultural Ensemble for this special EFG London Jazz Festival performance at Foyles.

Nok Cultural Ensemble is the new project from percussionist, and Tomorrow’s Warriors alum, Edward Wakili-Hick (Sons of Kemet, Steam Down, Kokoroko). The four-piece drum circle journey through Afro-diasporic traditions of Jamaican nyabinghi, drill and Brazilian baião to thrilling effect.

Nok Cultural Ensemble’s debut album, Njhyi, was released October 2022 and was quickly selected for Contemporary Album of the Year by the Guardian.

On Njhyi, Nok Cultural Ensemble centred on diverse Afro-diasporic percussive traditions. Glitching beats unfold on African timelines, expressing free jazz sensibilities which extend the futuristic pulse of dub technologies.

In their live shows Nok craft a visionary rhythmic continuum that tunes into living traditions stretching back to the ancient Nok civilisation and reaching towards a common liberated future. They bring the diversity of Black percussive music styles firmly to the fore – from agbaja and apala, soca to bélé, sega, broken beat and beyond.

In Wakili-Hick’s own words, they ‘celebrate percussion as a complete music’ and draw from their own collective heritage – from Nigeria and Mauritius to St Kitt and the UK.

For over 30 years, Tomorrow’s Warriors has played a vital role within its community and the wider music industry and has been credited with literally changing the face of UK jazz.

Free access to Tomorrow’s Warriors artistic programme has proved crucial in nurturing the nascent talent and early careers of so many of the most exciting UK artists currently tearing up the international jazz scene including Mercury Prize 2023 winners Ezra Collective, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings and Sons of Kemet, ESKA, Jason Yarde, Denys Baptiste, Robert Mitchell, Soweto Kinch, Shirley Tetteh, Byron Wallen...the list goes on.

A Black-founded and Black-led organisation, Tomorrow’s Warriors is based at Southbank Centre in London and offers a pioneering, comprehensive programme of learning and training which champions and supports young Black and female talent and those who come from challenging circumstances that would be a barrier to accessing opportunities to pursue a music career.

Doors will open from 6:30pm.

Host or Publisher Foyles Bookshop, 107 Charing Cross Road