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Q. What do Dr. Dre, Kanye West and Kwesi Sey aka Kwes have in common?
A. They were all great producers before they decided to take up the mantle of being the main man, and put their own voices to the fore.
And just as Dre and Ye were at the top of their game as producers before starting rapping, Kwes’ production and remix credits read like a who’s who of forward thinking UK indie/pop/electronic artists – including the xx, Zero 7, Joe Goddard (from Hot Chip), Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, and Mr Experimentation himself, Damon Albarn. Luckily for us, Kwes has turned his talents from making other people sound great to crafting his own delightfully experimental pop records, and is releasing an EP entitled Meantime on Warp at the end of April.
“Bashful” is the first single from the EP, and it’s a highly personal cut which sees Kwes questioning himself and his actions in soft almost murmured tones, over a warm textured background of bubbling, playful electronics. Kwes’ fantastically quirky, eminently British lyrical turns are also present in “Get Up” (download below), but its the glitchy electronics and twitchy drums that really power it along, and show just how talented this Londoner is as both producer and singer.
Kwes – “Get Up”
