Kassa Overall: ‘C.R.E.A.M.’

I first saw drummer Kassa Overall a decade ago when he appeared in London with trumpeter Theo Croker. He was impressive then, but even more so when he brought his own band to the Love Supreme Festival in July 2025.

Now he brings us CREAM, his fourth solo studio album and it’s a brilliant piece of modern jazz that fuses hip-hop and ‘proper’ jazz drums in arrangements of tunes that really shouldn’t work in a jazz setting. But they do.

There’s nothing new in jazz musicians arranging contemporary tunes for a jazz ensemble, but Overall takes surprising hip-hop tunes like The Notorious B.I.G.’s Big Poppa. This tune in particular takes on a new rhythmic feel with the drummer’s complex rhythms and some dextrous melodic mixing between Emilio Modeste’s tenor sax and Anne Drummond’s flute.

Many of these arrangements take the original tunes and make them absolutely the drummer’s own. Overall’s arrangement of Eddie Harris’s Freedom Jazz Dance makes it instantly recognisable but still different, with Emilio Modeste dancing along with Matt Wong’s organ, all sitting above Overall’s drums, Bendji Allonce’s percussion and Rashaan Carter’s double bass.

The outstanding tune is the title track - C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) by the Wu-Tang Clan. Totally reinvented by Overall, it’s a beautiful opportunity for the gorgeous, entrancing soprano sax of Modeste to float above the complex and tight rhythm section.

Then you get to Overall’s arrangement of Nuthin but a ‘G’ Thang, which is a remarkable piece of work, with Modeste’s bass clarinet and Drummond’s flute that resembles the feel of the original, with added complexity and delicious percussion.

Throughout, Overall’s drums sit brilliantly alongside his small but beautifully-formed ensemble: Bendji Allonce (percussion); Matt Wong (keyboards); Emilio Modeste (sax); Tomoki Sanders (sax and percussion); Rashaan Carter (bass); Jeremiah Kal’ab (bass); and Anne Drummond (flute).

Overall says: “This project is a full circle moment for me, creatively. All of the knowledge and insight gained from the electronic and hip-hop vantage point was applicable from the perspective of the drumset and arranging for live acoustics. To take music that originally comes off as crass or as a club hit and to reframe it with an intellectual and intimate feel shows some kind of humor or absurdity. The point is to open the listener up. Also, I just wanted to make something that sounds dope.”

Dope it might be, pretty some of it certainly is. I was blown away by the Overall set at Love Supreme (with many of the same players) and look forward to seeing him again on his current tour, now these arrangements are out in the world.