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I THINK I'M GOOD

by Kassa Overall

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • I THINK I'M GOOD CD
    Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Tracklist

    1. Visible Walls
    2. Please Don't Kill Me (Feat. Joel Ross & Theo Croker)
    3. Find Me (Feat. J Hoard)
    4. I Know You See Me (Feat. J Hoard & Melanie Charles)
    5. Sleeping on the Train
    6. Show Me a Prison (Feat. J Hoard & Angela Davis)
    7. Halfway House
    8. Landline (Feat. Carlos Overall)
    9. Darkness in Mind (Feat. Sullivan Fortner)
    10. The Best of Life (Feat. Aaron Parks)
    11. Got Me a Plan
    12. Was She Happy (For Geri Allen) (Feat. Vijay Iyer)

    Includes unlimited streaming of I THINK I'M GOOD via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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  • I THINK I'M GOOD Vinyl LP
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    A1. Visible Walls
    A2. Please Don't Kill Me (Feat. Joel Ross & Theo Croker)
    A3. Find Me (Feat. J Hoard)
    A4. I Know You See Me (Feat. J Hoard & Melanie Charles)
    A5. Sleeping on the Train
    A6. Show Me a Prison (Feat. J Hoard & Angela Davis)
    B1. Halfway House
    B2. Landline (Feat. Carlos Overall)
    B3. Darkness in Mind (Feat. Sullivan Fortner)
    B4. The Best of Life (Feat. Aaron Parks)
    B5. Got Me a Plan
    B6. Was She Happy (For Geri Allen) (Feat. Vijay Iyer)

    Includes unlimited streaming of I THINK I'M GOOD via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

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please don't kill me in your sleep i can't breathe when i get down i could drown in your weep dry your eyes i'll dry mine we'll be fine please don't mind those chalk lines they don't know what's inside of you and i pick a side and we collide we don't die we multiply it's you and i it's you and i
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You know how I feel Oh Lord you do You know how I feel Only you do I know you see me (birds flying high) In the sunlight, (Sun in the sky) I know you hear me, (Breeze driftin on by) In the midnight Welcome to planet earth where if you slip then you die, Vision full of scars, still they listen to I Been through a little still it feel like a lot When I lay down to rest and it feel like a plot And up and down’s feelin like heaven and hell Am I in that number, is it stuck in the mail? The only way to climb is if you try and you fail It was written in the mud, Lord, I will prevail I only feel right when I write what I feel We livin in a jungle don’t frighten the meal Try to send a message put a pigeon in seal But they hearing got aids cause they envy is real Me against the world like Pac in his prime Water get no enemy unlocking divine Crossing the line is often sublime Don’t cough at the officer they tossin em time It cost em his mind! This train don’t carry no backsliders this train This train don’t carry no backsliders this train (no, no) This train is bound to glory, this train (this train is bound for glory) This train is bound to glory, this train You know how I feel You know how I feel I know you hear me, in the midnight This train is the train, this train
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Show me a prison, show me a jail Show me a prisoner, whose face has gone pale I show you a young man, with so many many reasons why There but for fortune, may go you and I, show me Show me, will you show me? Show me, will you show? Show me a prison, show me a jail Show me a prisoner, whose face has gone pale I show you a young man, with so many many reasons why There but for fortune, may go you and I, show me Will you show? Show Hey Kassa, Angela here, you good? I just wanted you to know that we are totally supporting you Stay strong my brotha
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about

Seattle-raised, Brooklyn-residing Kassa Overall is a jazz musician, emcee, singer, producer, and drummer. His second, full-length album, I THINK I’M GOOD, is the work of an artist whose voice has ripened to its own hard-earned, provocative conclusions, erasing the need to talk about dissolving barriers between hip hop and jazz because he has begun a new conversation.

I THINK I’M GOOD is a window into the real life of Overall, a Bushwick-based artist wrestling with the abhorrent American prison system, the ebbs and flows of romantic relationships, and perils of trust, all seen through the kaleidoscopic lens of a brilliant 21st century composer. The backdrop to these varied themes is Overall confronting his experience with mental illness, which included a manic episode and subsequent hospitalisation when he was a student. Themes of incarceration and claustrophobia weave through the record, but never drown out the feeling of a fragile but vital hope.

“Mental instability or hyper-sensitivity was something that felt too taboo to talk about," said Overall. "I want to show the world that mentally sensitive people are the innovators of our society, and hopefully set a new standard that includes a healthy way of life and embracing our unique perspective on reality.”

Recent years have seen something of a worldwide movement making jazz and improvised music relevant to fresh audiences, providing a critical cultural counterpoint to feelings of political disenfranchisement and globalised anxiety. Exciting scenes are springing out of grassroots musical communities from London to Melbourne, Chicago to Johannesburg. But perhaps the most vital of these scenes remains in New York, a city that is still ground zero for the most competitive jazz musicians in the world, a community that continues unbroken from Charlie Parker to the present. This is Overall’s home turf, and it shows on I THINK I’M GOOD, which is a tour de force of New York’s brightest young up-and-comers (Joel Ross, Morgan Guerin, Julius Rodriguez, Melanie Charles, J Hoard) as well as some of its more established fixtures, including Sullivan Fortner, Brandee Younger, Theo Croker, Craig Taborn, Aaron Parks, and Vijay Iyer. Iyer’s contribution is a gorgeous, melancholic tribute to their shared musical mentor, Geri Allen, with whom Overall played for seven years. Dr. Angela Davis, a longtime jazz supporter and fan of Overall’s work, makes a recorded cameo, punctuating the album’s dive into the human condition and exploration of social justice.

Like Karriem Riggins before him, Overall belongs to a rare class of musicians naturally fluent in both jazz performance and hip-hop production. He’s also a clear contemporary of brazen, potent genre-shifters like Madlib, Flying Lotus, Solange, and Kendrick Lamar. Yet one of the most striking aspects of I THINK I’M GOOD is its singular intimacy, a byproduct of Overall’s indie hustle and uncanny at-home and on-the-fly production methods. In fact, most of the album happened out of Overall’s Bushwick bedroom and a backpack. "I’ve recently begun to think of myself as a backpack jazz producer, which is something like a cross between a jazz musician, a backpack rapper and a bedroom producer," said Overall, who mostly used a skeletal mobile studio (laptop, a simple audio interface, and microphone), giving the album a distinctively inward, almost confidential flavour.

But Overall describes his method as being a far more social endeavour than bedroom production. "The bedroom producer is mostly solitary and stationary, but the backpack producer is collaborative, mobile, and totally improvisatory in the truest sense of our tradition. My studio is with me almost all the time. I need to be able to work whenever and wherever, at my own pace.”

As Time Out New York frames his talent, Overall is “a Renaissance man: part chopsy, super-funky jazz drummer, and part rising producer-MC.” Since the January 2019 release of Ice Cream, NYC and global audiences have had the opportunity to experience Overall’s singular brilliance, which has been embraced with rave reviews from The New York Times, AFROPUNK, Downbeat, NPR, BBC Radio 6 Music, and other influential media outlets.

credits

released February 28, 2020

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Kassa Overall Seattle, Washington

Kassa Overall is a jazz musician, emcee, singer, producer and drummer.

“One of modern jazz music’s most audacious futurists.” -Pitchfork

“It's not another jazz-meets-hip-hop scrum: It's the sound of whole new lanes opening up.” -NPR, All Things Considered

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