Celestial, A Tribute To Nujabes

Paying tribute to the late Jun Seba, on what would have been his 47th birthday.

Celestial is a tribute to Jun Seba aka Nujabes, the groundbreaking hiphop producer who pioneered in blending jazz with hiphop. He was born on this day exactly 47 years ago.

In preparation of creating this tribute track, I spent a day listening to both his own work and the work of the artists he sampled. One of the songs that immediately struck a chord with me was Here's That Rainy Day by The Paul Horn Quintet, an atmospheric jazz fusion tune recorded in 1966, which Nujabes sampled for his score of the legendary anime series Samurai Champloo. Using the intro loop as the backbone of my song I continued to layer it with tiny chops from other tunes he sampled as well as my own live instrumentation.

The result is a raw, atmospheric boom bap beat that I hope will contribute to keeping Nujabes' legacy alive.

Celestial is out now on all digital platforms.