ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the musician Soweto Kinch and his blending of two African-American-based music genres: jazz and hip-hop. It looks at the ways in which black British artist makes use of genre, celebrates hybridity and responds to labels given to his music, have a direct effect on his use of jazz/hip-hop hybridity. The chapter discusses the music of black US trumpeter/rapper Russell Gunn, provides a very different model of jazz and hip-hop hybridity from that of Kinch. Saxophonist and rapper Soweto Kinch was born in 1978 and grew up in London and Birmingham. His father was a playwright originally from Barbados and his mother was a British-Jamaican actress. Kinch acknowledges a number of musical influences, from both the USA and the UK, which have paved the way for his own style. The division of the music market depends in part at least on issues of cultural capital and status, which feed back into the commercial decision-making of the music industry.
