Kaidi Tatham

Kaidi Tatham has earned acclaim as a versatile producer, multi-instrumentalist, and songwriter who helped shape the U.K.'s broken beat movement. Active since the 1990s, he has led dozens of projects and contributed to hundreds of releases, moving among jazz fusion, house, hip-hop, neo-soul, and related styles. His recordings typically combine intricate, dancefloor-friendly syncopation with fluid structures that highlight his command of keyboards, flute, drums, and further instruments. Tatham has been central to the Bugz in the Attic collective and to several acts on the 2000 Black label, often working with founder Dego of 4Hero. His solo catalog features albums and singles issued as Agent K, as Shokazulu, and under his own name, among them the 2021 full-length An Insight to All Minds.

Early credits include sessions with the Herbaliser and its Meateaters side project that date to the mid-1990s. Neon Phusion, the trio Tatham formed with Alex Phountzi and Orin Walters (aka Afronaught), issued one of the scene's first albums, The Future Ain't the Same as It Used 2 B, on Laws of Motion in 1999. All three members belonged to the wider Bugz in the Attic collective, whose participants accounted for most material filed under broken beat. Outside that circle, Tatham forged a key partnership with Dego and the 2000 Black label, frequently recording together as a duo and within projects such as Da One Away. Agent K released the album Feed the Cat on Laws of Motion in 2002. Bugz in the Attic delivered the mix CD FabricLive.12 in 2003 and its first full-length, Back in the Doghouse, on V2 in 2006, while also assembling remixes for Amy Winehouse, Macy Gray, Basement Jaxx, and many others across two Got the Bug compilations.

Tatham's first album under his own name, In Search of Hope, appeared on Freedom School in 2008 and fused high-tempo funk, soul, and fusion. The mini-album Kaidi's 5ive followed on Jazz Re:freshed in 2011. Debut albums by the supergroup Tatham, Mensah, Lord & Ranks (with Dego, Akwasi Mensah, and Matt Lord) and by the Shokazulu project both came out on 2000 Black in 2012 and 2013. Dego & Kaidi issued two EPs on Eglo Records, founded by Alexander Nut and Floating Points, then released the 2015 EP Adam Rock Dissed!! and the 2017 album A So We Gwarn on Theo Parrish's Sound Signature. Tatham put out the trilogy of EPs Hard Times, Changing Times, and Serious Times plus the 2018 album It's a World Before You on First Word Records, which also reissued his debut. The solo single "You Find That I've Got It" appeared on 2000 Black in 2019. He collaborated with Patrick Gibin and Josh Milan on the 2020 single "Love to the World," and his first EP with Andrew Ashong, Sankofa Season, arrived at the close of that year. The solo album An Insight to All Minds, featuring Stro Elliot of the Roots and MC Uhmeer (son of Jazzy Jeff), was released on First Word in 2021.