CURATION
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from this page:
by Matrix
Network Node
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Name:
Keb' Mo'
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City/Place:
Nashville, Tennessee
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Country:
United States
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Hometown:
Compton, California
Current News
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What's Up?
With five GRAMMYs, 14 Blues Foundation Awards, and a groundbreaking career spanning nearly 50 years under his belt, Keb’ Mo’s got nothing left to prove. Just don’t tell him that.
Life
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Bio:
Raised in Compton, Keb' embarked on his extraordinary journey at 21, marking a pivotal moment when he secured his first major opportunity playing alongside Papa John Creach, the violinist of Jefferson Airplane. Over the subsequent two decades, Keb' thrived behind the scenes, earning recognition as a revered guitarist, songwriter, and arranger. His ability to seamlessly bridge the past and present through expressive playing and singing became evident.
While he had a brief stint with an album in 1980 under his birth name, Kevin Moore, it wasn't until 1994 that Keb' Mo' emerged, captivating audiences with his self-titled debut. Critics lauded his modern, genre-blending approach to classic sounds. Just Like You, released two years later, earned him his first GRAMMY Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. In the years that followed, Keb' claimed four more GRAMMY Awards, topped the Billboard Blues Chart seven times, and collaborated with icons like Taj Mahal, Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, The Chicks, and Lyle Lovett.
Beyond his musical prowess, Keb' made a mark onscreen, appearing in Martin Scorsese’s The Blues, Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing, and Sesame Street. He showcased his acting skills, portraying Robert Johnson in the documentary Can’t You Hear The Wind Howl, Howlin’ Wolf on CMT’s Sun Records, and the ghostly bluesman Possum in John Sayles’ Honeydripper. His performances extended to late-night TV and award shows, including Letterman, Leno, Conan, Colbert, and Austin City Limits.
An ardent philanthropist and vocal activist, Keb' dedicated significant time to social, environmental, and racial justice causes. As a mentor in The Kennedy Center’s Turnaround Arts Program and a longstanding ambassador for the Playing For Change Foundation, he contributed to arts education and global music education initiatives.
Returning to his roots for inspiration, Keb' crafted his latest album, Good To Be, intertwining the raw essence of his Compton upbringing with the melodic influences of his current home in Nashville, TN. With a blend of country, folk, blues, and soul, the album transcends boundaries, creating a joyful, heartwarming, and unwaveringly optimistic narrative that encapsulates the breadth of this artist's extraordinary career.
Contact Information
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Management/Booking:
General inquiries:
management [at] kebmo [dot] com
Publicity
Missing Piece Group
Joe Sivick
joe [at] missingpiecegroup [dot] com
Booking - North America:
WME - Ben Schiffer
bps [at] wmeagency [dot] com
Booking - Rest of World:
ATC-Live
stuart [at] atc-live [dot] com
colin [at] atc-live [dot] com
Clips (more may be added)
The Integrated Global Creative Economy
Wolfram Mathematics
This technological matrix originating in Bahia, Brazil and positioning creators around the world within reach of each other and the entire planet is able to do so because it is small-world (see Wolfram).
Bahia itself, final port-of-call for more enslaved human beings than any other place on earth throughout all of human history, refuge for Lusitanian Sephardim fleeing the Inquisition, Indigenous both apart and subsumed into a sociocultural matrix comprised of these three peoples and more, is small-world.
Human society, the billions of us, is small-world. Neural structures for human memory are small-world...
In small worlds great things are possible.
Alicia Svigals
"Thanks, this is a brilliant idea!!"
—Alicia Svigals (NEW YORK CITY): Apotheosis of klezmer violinists
"I'm truly thankful ... Sohlangana ngokuzayo :)"
—Nduduzo Makhathini (JOHANNESBURG): piano, Blue Note recording artist
"Dear Sparrow: I am thrilled to receive your email! Thank you for including me in this wonderful matrix."
—Susan Rogers (BOSTON): Director of the Berklee Music Perception and Cognition Laboratory ... Former personal recording engineer for Prince; "Purple Rain", "Sign o' the Times", "Around the World in a Day"
"Dear Sparrow, Many thanks for this – I am touched!"
—Julian Lloyd Webber (LONDON): Premier cellist in UK; brother of Andrew (Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Cats, Phantom of the Opera...)
"This is super impressive work ! Congratulations ! Thanks for including me :)))"
—Clarice Assad (RIO DE JANEIRO/CHICAGO): Pianist and composer with works performed by Yo Yo Ma and orchestras around the world
"We appreciate you including Kamasi in the matrix, Sparrow."
—Banch Abegaze (LOS ANGELES): manager, Kamasi Washington
"Thanks! It looks great!....I didn't write 'Cantaloupe Island' though...Herbie Hancock did! Great Page though, well done! best, Randy"
"Very nice! Thank you for this. Warmest regards and wishing much success for the project! Matt"
—Son of Jimmy Garrison (bass for John Coltrane, Bill Evans...); plays with Herbie Hancock and other greats...
Dear friends & colleagues,
Having arrived in Salvador 13 years earlier, I opened a record shop in 2005 in order to create an outlet to the wider world for Bahian musicians, many of them magisterial but unknown.
David Dye & Kim Junod for NPR found us (above), and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (he's a huge jazz fan), David Byrne, Oscar Castro-Neves... Spike Lee walked past the place while I was sitting on the stoop across the street drinking beer and listening to samba from the speaker in the window...
But we weren't exactly easy for the world-at-large to get to. So in order to extend the place's ethos I transformed the site associated with it into a network wherein Brazilian musicians I knew would recommend other Brazilian musicians, who would recommend others...
And as I anticipated, the chalky hand of God-as-mathematician intervened: In human society — per the small-world phenomenon — most of the billions of us on earth are within some 6 or fewer degrees of each other. Likewise, within a network of interlinked artists as I've described above, most of these artists will in the same manner be at most a handful of steps away from each other.
So then, all that's necessary to put the Bahians and other Brazilians within possible purview of the wide wide world is to include them among a wide wide range of artists around that world.
If, for example, Quincy Jones is inside the matrix (people who have passed are not removed), then anybody on his page — whether they be accessing from a campus in L.A., a pub in Dublin, a shebeen in Cape Town, a tent in Mongolia — will be close, transitable steps away from Raymundo Sodré, even if they know nothing of Brazil and are unaware that Sodré sings/dances upon this planet. Sodré, having been knocked from the perch of fame and ground into anonymity by Brazil's dictatorship, has now the alternative of access to the world-at-large via recourse to the vast potential of network theory.
...to the degree that other artists et al — writers, researchers, filmmakers, painters, choreographers...everywhere — do also. Artificial intelligence not required. Real intelligence, yes.
Years ago in NYC I "rescued" unpaid royalties (performance & mechanical) for artists/composers including Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Mongo Santamaria, Jim Hall, Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (for his rights in Bob Marley compositions; Clement was Bob's first producer), Led Zeppelin, Ray Barretto, Philip Glass and many others. Aretha called me out of the blue vis-à-vis money owed by Atlantic Records. Allen Klein (managed The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Ray Charles) called about money due the estate of Sam Cooke. Jerry Ragovoy (Time Is On My Side, Piece of My Heart) called just to see if he had any unpaid money floating around out there (the royalty world was a shark-filled jungle, to mangle metaphors, and I doubt it's changed).
But the pertinent client (and friend) in the present context is Earl "Speedo" Carroll, of The Cadillacs. Earl went from doo-wopping on Harlem streetcorners to chart-topping success to working as a custodian at PS 87 elementary school on the west side of Manhattan. Through all of this he never lost what made him great.
Greatness and fame are too often conflated. The former should be accessible independently of the latter.
Matrix founding creators are behind "one of 10 of the best (radios) around the world", per The Guardian.
Recent access to this matrix and Bahia are from these places (a single marker can denote multiple accesses).
Across the creative universe... For another list, reload page.
This list is random, and incomplete. Reload the page for another list.
For a complete list of everybody inside, tap TOTAL below:
TOTAL
Nduduzo Makhathini
Susan Rogers
Julian Lloyd Webber
Clarice Assad
Kamasi Washington
Randy Brecker
Matt Garrison
RÁDIO MATRIX