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GRAMMY-nominated jazz visionary and Doris Duke Artist Award winner Kassa Overall presents CREAM. Eight interpretations of hip-hop classics by The Notorious B.I.G., Wu-Tang Clan, Dr. Dre, A Tribe Called Quest, OutKast, Digable Planets, and Juvenile.

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Hot on the heels of winning the Doris Duke Artist Award, drummer, composer, producer, and rapper Kassa Overall delivers CREAM, his fourth long-player and second album on Warp. While jazz and hip-hop have been bound together since Guru released Jazzmatazz in 1993, this set turns that notion on its head. CREAM, named after Wu-Tang Clan's "Cash Rules Everything Around Me," offers hip instrumental versions of seven rap classics and a cover of "Freedom Jazz Dance," an Eddie Harris tune immortalized by Miles Davis. Overall reimagines hip-hop classics as jazz standards, exploring compositional architectures and subtle harmonies, and nearly discovering hidden rhythmic complexities. The music was recorded live in studio and released without overdubs, edits, or re-recordings. Overall plays drums and is accompanied by tenor and soprano saxophonist Emilio Modeste, tenor saxist Tomoki Sanders (two tracks), flutist Anne Drummond, keyboardist Matt Wong, electric bassist Jeremiah Kal'ab, double bassist Rashaan Carter, and conguero Bendji Allonce.

The opener, Harris' oft-covered standard "Freedom Jazz Dance," resembles the original more than the Davis reading. Overall's drum kit introduces its syncopated beat with his own breaks added as Modeste and Wong usher in the R&B-centered melody on organ and tenor saxophone. With congas falling in the backdrop, Carter's bass guides Overall's beat as the frontline moves through the melody into post-bop improvisation. Overall ratchets the intensity with funky, elongated snare and hi-hat before Wong grabs his piano and delivers a brief, deft solo break.

Notorious B.I.G.'s "Big Poppa" is rendered as 21st century post-bop with Drummond's flute leading the ensemble as Modeste colors her playing and Overall lays down a Brazilian samba rhythm atop expansive chords and double bass. Wu-Tang's "C.R.E.A.M." is rendered in modal post-bop with gloriously subtle Afro-Latin beats as Overall and Allonce enter a polyrhythmic conversation buoying soprano sax, electric bass, and piano.

Twinned tenor saxophones introduce the piano vamp in Digable Planets' "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" before Wong's fiery piano nearly steals the show. He, Overall, and Carter go head to head before the saxophonists' each take solos. Dr. Dre's "Nothin' But a 'G' Thang" is rendered as bluesy spiritual jazz led by bass clarinet, flute, and tenor saxophone atop shakers, bells, a downbeat tempo, and a slow-walked bassline.

A Tribe Called Quest's original "Check the Rhime" had ties to jazz organically, but here the funky interplay between drummer, bassist, and tenor saxophonist is sensuously funky and harmonically sophisticated as it moves through its various sections with a beautiful tenor solo from Modeste. OutKast's "SpottieOttieDopaliscious" is grooving post-bop, while Juvenile's closer "Back That Azz Up" showcases Overall's canny charts as his soloists build on harmonic and rhythmic palettes.

Overall's work has always been compelling, but on CREAM he makes a giant leap forward. You can place this excellent work next to Robert Glasper's Covered and Moses Boyd's Dark Matter. All killer, no filler. — (via Thom Jurek // AllMusic)

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Label: Warp Records 
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Released: 2025
Genre: Jazz, Funk / Soul
Style: Jazz Funk, Modern Jazz

File under: Jazz // Modern Jazz
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