Biography
Singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Dave Okumu has pursued an expansive career that spans collaborations with pop stars, dance acts, jazz groups, and soul vocalists. Throughout the 2000s he contributed to projects by Róisín Murphy, Daniel Bedingfield, Matthew Herbert, 4Hero, and numerous additional artists before founding the indie electronic outfit the Invisible, whose self-titled Mercury Prize-nominated debut arrived in 2009. He co-wrote and co-produced the acclaimed 2012 album Devotion for Jessie Ware while sustaining an ongoing partnership with the vocalist and also teaming with Adele, Lianne La Havas, Jordan Rakei, and further musicians. The year 2021 saw the appearance of his instrumental hip-hop release Knopperz together with The Solution Is Restless, recorded alongside Joan as Police Woman and Tony Allen, and in 2023 he issued I Came from Love, a guest-filled set credited to Dave Okumu & the 7 Generations and shaped by his ancestral lineage.
Born in Vienna during his father Professor Washington Okumu’s period of exile as a Kenyan peace campaigner, Dave Okumu relocated with his family to London at age ten and soon afterward began exploring music, initially on trumpet before switching to guitar. After completing university he joined the jazz education initiative Tomorrow’s Warriors and performed one of his own pieces at the London Jazz Festival; he also joined longtime associates bassist Tom Herbert and drummer Tom Skinner in several ensembles, among them the funk/fusion group Jade Fox. Okumu supplied guitar to Daniel Bedingfield’s 2002 blockbuster debut Gotta Get Thru This and additionally wrote, sang, or performed on recordings by Terri Walker, Matthew Herbert, Les Nubians, Us3, and many others. He launched the Invisible in 2006, first as a solo venture that quickly evolved into a trio completed by drummer Leo Taylor plus Tom Herbert on bass and keyboards. The band fused neo-soul, indie rock, and alternative dance on its Accidental label debut The Invisible in 2009, earning a Mercury Prize nomination, and later shifted to Ninja Tune for Rispah in 2012 and Patience in 2016.
Even while active in the Invisible, Okumu maintained outside collaborations with Robert Miles, V.V. Brown, Toddla T, and Jessie Ware, among others, and he co-wrote and co-produced Ware’s Mercury Prize-nominated 2012 debut Devotion while also contributing to her later albums as well as Adele’s 25, Lianne La Havas’ Blood, Nilüfer Yanya’s Miss Universe, and additional releases. In 2018 he played bass on the Sky Blue Room project with singer-keyboardist Gwilym Gold and drummer Dan See, and the following year the jazz session Undone: Live at the Crypt featuring Tom Herbert and Tom Skinner was issued. Knopperz, Okumu’s first solo album and a beat-driven instrumental reworking of collaborator Duval Timothy’s 2017 release Sen Am, came out via Transgressive Records in 2021; the same year PIAS issued The Solution Is Restless, his joint effort with Joan as Police Woman and the late Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen. He next assembled an extensive roster of contributors that included Grace Jones, Tom Skinner, Wesley Joseph, and ESKA for a project informed by the writings of James Baldwin and Aimé Cesaire along with his own family history; issued digitally in successive chapters, the full album I Came from Love appeared in April 2023. That year also brought Okumu’s participation in London Brew, a fusion recording uniting British jazz figures such as Nubya Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings, and Theon Cross.
Born in Vienna during his father Professor Washington Okumu’s period of exile as a Kenyan peace campaigner, Dave Okumu relocated with his family to London at age ten and soon afterward began exploring music, initially on trumpet before switching to guitar. After completing university he joined the jazz education initiative Tomorrow’s Warriors and performed one of his own pieces at the London Jazz Festival; he also joined longtime associates bassist Tom Herbert and drummer Tom Skinner in several ensembles, among them the funk/fusion group Jade Fox. Okumu supplied guitar to Daniel Bedingfield’s 2002 blockbuster debut Gotta Get Thru This and additionally wrote, sang, or performed on recordings by Terri Walker, Matthew Herbert, Les Nubians, Us3, and many others. He launched the Invisible in 2006, first as a solo venture that quickly evolved into a trio completed by drummer Leo Taylor plus Tom Herbert on bass and keyboards. The band fused neo-soul, indie rock, and alternative dance on its Accidental label debut The Invisible in 2009, earning a Mercury Prize nomination, and later shifted to Ninja Tune for Rispah in 2012 and Patience in 2016.
Even while active in the Invisible, Okumu maintained outside collaborations with Robert Miles, V.V. Brown, Toddla T, and Jessie Ware, among others, and he co-wrote and co-produced Ware’s Mercury Prize-nominated 2012 debut Devotion while also contributing to her later albums as well as Adele’s 25, Lianne La Havas’ Blood, Nilüfer Yanya’s Miss Universe, and additional releases. In 2018 he played bass on the Sky Blue Room project with singer-keyboardist Gwilym Gold and drummer Dan See, and the following year the jazz session Undone: Live at the Crypt featuring Tom Herbert and Tom Skinner was issued. Knopperz, Okumu’s first solo album and a beat-driven instrumental reworking of collaborator Duval Timothy’s 2017 release Sen Am, came out via Transgressive Records in 2021; the same year PIAS issued The Solution Is Restless, his joint effort with Joan as Police Woman and the late Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen. He next assembled an extensive roster of contributors that included Grace Jones, Tom Skinner, Wesley Joseph, and ESKA for a project informed by the writings of James Baldwin and Aimé Cesaire along with his own family history; issued digitally in successive chapters, the full album I Came from Love appeared in April 2023. That year also brought Okumu’s participation in London Brew, a fusion recording uniting British jazz figures such as Nubya Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings, and Theon Cross.
Albums
Singles
Live
