Venna

Venna is a saxophonist and producer whose playing sits at the centre of a sound built from jazz, soul and UK rap. The tone is warm and melodic rather than showy, used to carry a line the way a vocal would, and the arrangements around it lean on space, slow harmonic movement and the low-end weight of drill and hip hop production. He came up as a jazz player and still describes himself that way, which shows in how much of the writing is improvised melody rather than written hook.

He trained on classical piano as a child and taught himself production later, building a reputation first as a session player and then as a producer whose work shaped whole records. His playing appears on a Grammy-winning album, and he has executive produced projects that pushed jazz instrumentation into drill, a combination that barely existed before. Under his own name the releases have run to EPs that mix vocal tracks with instrumentals, structured around ideas of balance and repair.

Performing, the saxophone is the thing a room hears first, and the music is played rather than triggered, which gives it a looseness the recorded versions only partly capture. He works deliberately slowly and is openly exacting about musicianship, and that care shows in how a set is put together. It suits listeners who came to jazz through rap, or to rap through jazz, and anyone who wants live instrumental playing at the front of the music.