Confucius MC & Bastien Keb on Travellers Vinyl Travellers Vinyl from Confucius MC & Bastien Keb is available for home delivery with Vinyl Records London, only £28 +P&P Confucius MC amp Bastien Keb Announce Debut Album On Shabaka Hutchings Native Rebel Recordings Label.Bastien Keb is a truly original talent Gilles Peterson34Con is a huge influence on my life, my character and my rhyme34 Kae TempestSouth London rapper Confucius MC returns to Shabaka Hutchings Native Rebel Recordings for a new project alongside producer and multiinstrumentalist Bastien Keb. Merging unexplored pathways between rap, folk, and jazz into a spiritual triumvirate, Songs For Lost Travellers, set for release on February 7th 2025, is an album unlike any either artist has made previously, possibly unlike any record in existence.Honest and direct, the duo imbue Songs For Lost Travellers with knowledge and truth from their lived experiences. There is grief hidden in the notes, an inherent sadness that is balanced with an awareness that grief is a protest against the social machinery of remaining numb. The record lingers in a meditative state, unafraid of restlessness and embracing solitude, with the expectation that peace is just as imminent as death.Neither Con nor Keb bothered much with the professional studio in making Songs For Lost Travellers. Instead, they opted for the raw state of their home recordings and first takes, matching the intimacy of being alone and reflective in their creative energies. Room static on Tell Me Lies makes it feel like youve entered their apartments. The immediacy continues on Gutters, as Keb plays guitar while watching the tele and Con hums along to the vocal melody in search of the proper pocket for his verse.More drawn to Kebs recent folk recordings on the Songs For Lilla EP than his funk roots circa Dinking In The Shadows of Zizou or the cinematic soul of The Killing of Eugene Peeps, Con leaned into the spacial freedom he heard in Kebs lofi production cobbled from field recordings and voice notes.Both artists placed their families into the tableau Con wrote Little Man for his son, hoping to add a positive contribution to the canon of parental rap songs. Later, his son appears at the end of Paramount to deliver a passage from Kahlil Gibrans The Prophet. Keb secretly recorded his mum playing saxophone and sampled his cousin playing sax as well. The result is a neardrumless album save for Toulouse and light tapping on It Would Speak in which Kebs raw production plus a few sessions with Kofi Flexxx on flute gave Con a liminal zone, unencumbered by beats per minute, to craft melodies that turn his philosophical rhymes into mantras.About Confucius MCHailing from South London, Con has been immersed in UK hip hop since the early 2000s and spent over a decade as an educator in a primary school running a successful Rap Club, where hed bring artists like Speakers Corner Quartet to give masterclasses. In 2013, Con was the support of choice for Mos Def and has previously performed alongside UK hip hop stalwart Jehst and longstanding friend Kae Tempest.About Bastien KebBased in Royal Leamington Spa, Keb born Sebastian Jones is a producer, songwriter, vocalist and multiinstrumentalist who draws comparisons with the likes of Thundercat, J Dilla and Flying Lotus. In 2015, he announced his debut album Dinking in the Shadows of Zizou before releasing The Killing of Eugene Peeps, an imaginary soundtrack with inspiration from Giallo Italian thrillerhorrors, French New Wave and amp3970s crime films which received widespread praise and describing him as one of the most exciting musicians emanating out of London DMY.