Xaybu: The Unseen (feat. Gaston Bandimic, Hprizm, Maciek Lasserre & Damion Reid)

Following up his 2017 effort Sélébéyone, alto saxophonist Steve Lehman sticks with the earlier album title as a group moniker (it translates as “intersection” in the Wolof language). The focus: a hybridization of Lehman’s complex, ever-shifting rhythmic and sonic concepts with the rapid delivery and biting inflection of Senegalese hip-hop. The instrumentation is a bit thinner—no keyboards, no bass—but the lineup is otherwise the same, with Gaston Bandimic and Hprizm rapping in Wolof and English, respectively; Lehman and soprano saxophonist Maciek Lasserre absolutely tearing it up on their horns; and everyone serving up samples and electronic beats as drummer Damion Reid navigates the landscape in riveting style. In a sense, this music is a culmination of processes that Lehman first documented in 2005 with Demian as Posthuman, a radical and prescient merging of jazz and turntablism involving Meshell Ndegeocello and others.