Kwame Kwaten
| Kwame Kwaten | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Kwame Amankwa Kwaten |
| Born | 13 May 1967 |
| Origin | London UK |
| Genres | Soul, acid jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, producer |
| Instruments | Keyboards |
| Years active | Since 1984 |
| Labels | Acid Jazz Records East West America Dome Records |
| Associated acts | D Influence |
Kwame Amankwa Kwaten (born 1967, London, England) is a musician, record producer, manager and music industry consultant.
Kwame Kwaten started his artistic career in the middle of the eighties at the Warminster Athenaeum as part of the school band Outcry. He spent the next few years learning his trade in many different bands. One of these bands called Rebekkah was formed with his old school friend Andrew Ross from Outcry in 1984. Rebekkah led Kwame and Andrew to a production deal at Courtyard Studios in Oxford where they settled for a year learning the ins and outs of the studio.
Steve Marston was a session saxophone player. Rebekkah used Steve for a session and it was then that Kwaten's friendship with Steve Marston started. Kwame had started working at the Borderline Club in London as a compère employed by Neil Conti of Prefab Sprout and Raye Cosbert when he and Steve formed the band D - Influence with Ed Baden Powell, Sarah Anne Webb and Ned Bigham (who was to leave the band after the release of the first album). D – Influence had taken their demos to record labels without any luck and so they decided to release their own music independently. The first of these recordings was I'm the One which they sold straight to record stores themselves out of the back of a van. Kwame gave one of these records to London DJ Tim Westwood and it was he who played D – Influence first on Capital Radio. A record deal with Acid Jazz Records followed.
D – Influence then signed to Atlantic Records and began recording their album Good 4 We. Their early support had mostly been through new London pirate station Kiss FM. There was no national radio airplay for music from the Acid Jazz scene at the time. This meant that the only way D – Influence could reach a fan base was through live music. So D – Influence toured for some time getting their break being offered the support slot on the Michael Jackson Dangerous Tour. This change in fortune led to many American acts requesting them as a support act. Michael Jackson, En Vogue, Prince, Naughty By Nature, James Brown all had D – Influence as an opening act. The band also played for Björk on her Debut album performance on Later ... With Jools Holland.
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