Skip to main content

Moses Boyd nominated for the 2020 Hyundai Mercury Prize

Thu 23 July 2020

The TL alum’s debut solo album Dark Matter has made this year’s shortlist.

Drummer, producer and band leader Moses Boyd has been nominated for one of the most prestigious annual awards in the music industry for his debut solo album Dark Matter.

The eclectic album draws on a melting-pot of genres to create “an ambitious work full of scope” (NME) that is filled with “artfully spliced, stylish tracks” and “dancefloor-friendly kaleidoscopic jazz” (The Guardian). It features fellow TL alum Joe Armon-Jones of Ezra Collective playing synths on opening track ‘Stranger Than Fiction’.

Decided by a panel of musicians, industry figures and journalists including the likes of Anna Calvi, Jorja Smith and Jamie Cullum, the 2020 Mercury Prize shortlist celebrates artistic achievement across an eclectic range of contemporary music genres. It covers 12 albums released between July 20 2019 and July 17 2020 by a British or Irish act.

This is the third time TL alumni have been nominated for the award after Cassie Kinoshi and SEED ensemble (2019) and Laura Jurd with ensemble Dinasour (2017).

The winner, who will receive a £25,000 cash prize, will be announced on 24 September.

Graduating from TL in 2016 with a BMus (Hons) in Jazz and Drums, Moses is half of the duo Binker and Moses who won a Mobo for best jazz act in 2015.

Heralded as a boy of the London jazz revival, collaborations include Sons of Kemet and a track on the Beyonce curated Lion King soundtrack.

As London’s Creative Conservatoire, we embrace and celebrate jazz tradition whilst being contemporary in outlook, enabling students to become the artists they want to be.

To find out more about studying at Trinity Laban, visit our composition and jazz pages.