Keziah Jones

Born in Nigeria, rocker Keziah Jones absorbed formative influences from Jimi Hendrix and Fela Kuti. Singles such as “Rhythm Is Love” and “Beautiful Emile” brought him notice across England and France. Sent at eight to a London boarding school, he took up busking in the London Underground as a teenager. Regular appearances in Covent Garden and on Portobello Road led manager Phil Pickett to sign him. With bassist Phil “Soul” Sewell and drummer Richie Stevens aboard, Jones logged countless gigs before releasing his debut album, Blufunk Is a Fact!, in 1992.

Further albums followed over the next fifteen years—among them African Space Craft, Liquid Sunshine, and Black Orpheus—securing his place as a leading blues-rock figure on the European scene in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Black Orpheus (2003) and the first best-of set, Rhythm Is Love (2004), reinforced that position. His largest success to date, Nigerian Wood, appeared in 2008, logging 43 weeks on the French SNEP chart and confirming Jones as a principal exponent of European blues. Captain Rugged, his sixth studio album, arrived in 2013, and the Rugged Covers EP followed in 2017.