New Music From Black Nile

For Black Nile, jazz isn’t a musical genre as much as it is a language. A Black American form of communication that bridges music, visual art, and performance. An improvisational mindset that fits into nearly any genre derived from the Black experience. Brothers Aaron and Lawrence Shaw see a very different Los Angeles. Hollywood has stolen the beautiful story of LA, created a fantasy land from a city with deep Black and Latino roots often without including those communities. For Black Nile, Los Angeles is a city of improvisation, a city of fresh ideas, a city of jazz. Born and raised in LA’s Inglewood neighborhood, the brothers came up in the city’s red hot jazz scene, rubbing shoulders with elder legends as well as next gen stars like Kamasi Washington and Thundercat. Both GRAMMY nominated artists, Aaron Shaw’s saxophone work was recently featured in collaboration with Saul Williams and Carlos Niño, he’s played with contemporary greats from Tyler, The Creator to Herbie Hancock, and gave André 3000 flute lessons. . Lawrence Shaw has played bass for John Legend, Booker T. and the M.G.’s, Aminé, Nubya Garcia, and Raphael Saadiq, and is currently touring with pop star Andy Grammar. Both well-seasoned touring musicians, Black Nile was born from their desire to bring jazz into a new century. Adopting sampling and modern production techniques that they learned from hip-hop, Black Nile’s improvisation is wildly inventive and combustible.

Invited as artists in residence at MASS MoCA in 2025, Black Nile’s new album, Indigo Garden, will be released April 10, 2026 on MASS MoCA Records and will feature cover art from renowned conceptual artist Charles Gaines. The album was produced by Harlan Steinberger and recorded both at Studio 9 in North Adams, MA and at Steinberger’s Hen House Studios in Venice Beach, CA. Steinberger, whose collaboration with MASS MoCA is the core of MASS MoCA Records, has been recording Black Nile since the band’s early days, and their easy rapport makes for an album of uncommon experimentation. Bringing in some of the best jazz musicians in LA to flesh out the band, like keyboardists Luca Mendoza and Brian Hargrove, and drummer Myles Martin, Indigo Garden is both an homage to the brothers’ LA roots and a bold step forward for the city’s jazz tradition. Advance single “Exposure” is at radio now.

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Label: Mass MoCA

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