Sélébéyone

Sélébéyone is an experimental musical, sonic, and cultural project that assembles a vast collection of disparate sounds, musical disciplines , genres, and languages -- English, French, and Wolof. A collaboration between American saxophonist/composer Steve Lehman, French saxophonist/composer (and former Lehman student) Maciek Lasserre, Senegalese rap sensation Gaston Bandimic, and HPrizm (aka underground rapper High Priest, a founding member of Anti-Pop Consortium), with an American rhythm section composed of keyboardist/producer Carlos Homs, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Damion Reid. Sélébéyone (a Senegalese Wolof word for "intersection") pulls at the seams of musical and cultural prejudices that separate contemporary jazz, underground hip-hop, and experimental electronic music. This band, unlike many of the artists who have previously attempted fusing jazz and rap, pays no mind to conventional 4/4 rhythmic architectures that are inherent in most of those attempts. Their eponymous 2016 debut won global acclaim for its meld of industrial crunch and groove, spiky, jagged, neo electro and industrialized techno, intense, fractious saxophone solos, intricately textured sound design (from engineer Andrew Wright), and unconventional culturally confrontational lyrical performances in English and Wolof. Their tour sold out venues in the U.S. and Europe. For 2022's Xaybu: The Unseen, Sélébéyone was pared down to a quintet sans Homs and Gress. Lehman left his name off the cover, favoring the group's. The word "Xaybu," is Wolof and refers to the concept in Islamic mysticism of al-Ghaib -- the unknowable and unseeable. Since HPrizm, Bandimic, and Lasserre are Sufi Muslims, the spiritual connection resulting from surrender to the unknown is deliberate and forceful, though it has been a cornerstone of their sound since the band's inception. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi