Soul Supreme

There’s a sense of duality in the work of Soul Supreme: jazz-minded, hip-hop-schooled. His acclaimed 45 records with reinterpretations of classic material by A Tribe Called Quest, J Dilla, Madvillain, Mos Def, and Grandmaster Flash show how he carefully studies and dissects music to flip things upside down for something entirely new. Serving as tributes to both the sampled originals as well as the golden-era productions—a spirit also heard in his original compositions on 2020’s self-titled album. The Amsterdam-based, Jerusalem-born keyboardist, DJ & producer first released music in 2018 under the moniker of Love’s High, on Chicago’s Star Creature record label. A year later, his first 45 with his own versions of “The Message” (Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five) and “Umi Says” (Mos Def) on Tugboat Edits set the blueprint for the records to follow under the alias of Soul Supreme. “It’s kinda ironic: these songs are interpretations, but almost everything is different,” Soul Supreme said about his versions of two A Tribe Called Quest classics in early 2020. “The harmony, the melodies, the instruments that are used for each part, the structure... I want to take the listener on a trip through music they know, but from a different perspective.”