Black Focus

Yussef Kamaal are shaped by the sound of London. Growing up in the capital, they frame jazz within the bass-saturated, pirate radio broadcasts of the UK capital. The pair, made up of Yussef Dayes and Kamaal Williams (aka Henry Wu), have had little in the way of formal training. Instead, their musical tastes - and approach to playing - are indebted to Thelonious Monk's piano as much as the drum programming of Kaidi Tatham.

For the pair, the sound of the capital - with its hum of jungle, grime and broken beat - has shaped a self-taught, UK-tipped approach to playing jazz. Moving in the same circles but never playing together previously, rhythm underpins an innate musical understanding. Drawing influence from all corners of London's shapeshifting musical make-up, their hotly anticipated debut album titled Black Focus, its sound is distilled - or focused - down to the core interlock between drums and keys.