New album 'Music From The Mint Hotel' drops 3rd April 2023.
Welcome to the world of Hakim Jamal’s evolved silky grooves from the ’70s, augmented by a vivid complex instrumentation and glamorous female vocals. His luscious enigmatic sonicscapes are travelled by hypnotic sensual grooves. Extended arrangements and propulsive funky basslines just add to the intensity and mystique of this exotic land inhabited by languorous rhythms. Currently #1 in the JazzWorld and LA Funk charts, “U Come Thru,” his latest album, marks an experimentation with the Blues and Gospel roots of black music.
English musician Paul Wheatcroft, previously signed to Big Life/Polygram and published by Universal Music Publishing, toured the UK & Europe with TV appearances and some chart success with the band Ashley & Jackson. Band was part of the ‘Madchester’ scene in the 1990s and band members/crew included members of A Certain Ratio, Happy Mondays, New Order. Played the Cities In The Park festival with a lineup which also included Bill Nelson and Denise Johnson. Also toured with Inspiral Carpets, James and Brand New Heavies, plus gigs with Jamiroquai, Public Enemy and Adamski/Seal. Quit the music industry to form a film company and label TalkingHead TV, which won a Royal Televison Society award and Best International Documentary in 2018 for 'They Shall Not Grow Old.’
The pseudonym Hakim Jamal has a complicated history. It was adopted by American activist Allen Donaldson, who was a cousin of Malcolm X and later became an associate of Michael X. Hakim Abdullah Jamal (March 28, 1931 – May 1, 1973) wrote From the Dead Level, a memoir of his life and memories of Malcolm X. Jamal was a ladies’ man as well as a political animal and he became romantically involved with several high-profile stars of the time, notably the great film actress Jean Seberg. Paul originally hooked up with an individual purporting to be Hakim Jamal on an online civil rights forum. Around a year later, this man was later discovered to be an imposter. Paul decided to carry on using the name.
The idea for the first album ’Not Too Busy To Hate’ came partly from accidental timing (the BLM movement coming to prominence in the first part of 2020) and also because Paul has long been inspired by black artists who took on social themes (e.g Gil Scott-Heron, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye.) The album is grounded in the style of those artists. Paul had written and recorded some tracks in previous years and added new ones as the theme developed, the lyrics in particular being reflective of current issues and news stories. The title is a Black Panthers slogan. https://soundcloud.com/paul-wheatcroft/sets/hakim-jamal-not-too-busy-to
The second album ’The Soul Of Hakim Jamal,’ was less overtly political and more concerned with human stories, some real and some fictional; from Nina Simone to a so-called ‘bum' encountered on a street in NYC to a high-society reporter in the 1950s. The link between the characters is that they have ’soul’ - a quality Paul feels is missing to an extent in both contemporary music and society. The album covers a range of styles from jazz to nu-soul to funk and disco.
The 3rd album, In My Mind was the most ambitious, far reaching, darkest and most complex of Hakim’s work to date. It mirrors the work of Isaac Hayes in the 1970s and takes Hakim’s music to a new and fascinating place. 3 months in the making, this is an album for people who love to be carried away by what they listen to. Hakim Jamal’s 3rd album: the darkest, most far-reaching and most complex yet. Enjoy in the tub or the car with a fat one by your side. File under Jazz/Jazz-Funk/Funk/Trip-Hop/Psychedelic Rock/Chillout
