NEW ARTIST OF THE DAY: BEN KHAN

21 year old artist with the world at his feet…

SUBBA-CULTCHA.COM SAYS: “Wow, at 21 years old I was still sleeping in and missing lectures after horrendous University nights where you’d end up wasted on cheap booze dancing to some of the cheesiest tunes around in the name of “fun.” Khan has instead been creating music that much belies his tender age, and forged together the perfect platform to show off his songwriting talents. There are flourishes reminiscent of the R ‘n B/electronica/esoteric combination that gave Yeasayer such an emotive edge to their music, but maybe with a more focussed and pop-minded edge pushed to the fore. Amidst all this seriousness is a playfulness that keeps the focus squarely on a funky/R ‘n B’d up slice of pop that gives this listener a serious musical stiffy (recalling Friendly Fires funkier moments and production that Jay-Z would be foaming at the mouth about). Faux shout-outs, doubled up raps, soulful melodic passages with a breathless and excitable veneer, all fleshing out what are at the root of all this, astounding compositions with hooks galore and the potential to be world-conquering give then right chances in the near future.”

Ben Khan has been quickly been making himself known as one of 2014's most exciting and forward thinking new voices. 1992 is a heady invitation to Ben Khan's vibrantly escapist world, where swampy r&b, contemporary funk, bruised nocturnal soul and exuberant hip-hop brush up against evocative moods, personal lyrical narratives and an encompassing visual sensibility to create something new and audacious.
In approaching his craft, Ben is similarly informed by his cultural heritage – his father a Kashmir born artist specialising in raw design and textile, whose work appears as the backdrop to Ben’s first public image – the ideas and aesthetics of Eastern art and philosophy, along with his experience growing up in London and love of Western film, melding evolving and often abrasively disparate elements to a vivid and dynamic whole.  The self-made videos to his tracks offer further testament to this – visual collages channeling evocative imagery.
Displaying a deft confidence and musical maturity that is rare to find in an artist of only 21 years, combined with a sense of thrilling wide-eyed discovery, 1992 is a bold statement of intent that earmarks Ben Khan as one of the UK's most exciting new artists. https://soundcloud.com/benkhan/sets/1992ep
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