Dabs

Dabs is a Cardiff based musician from London. A songwriter, guitarist and loop artist in his own rights Dabs fronts ska, reggae band New Town Kings and has played venues and festivals across the UK, Germany, France, Holland, Croatia, Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland. Their DIY ethic and extensive touring schedule has seen them perform at Boomtown Fair, Secret Garden Party, The Electric Ballroom, Nottingham Rock City, The HMV Forum Cardiff Tramshed and a whole host more. Previous releases include ska stomper ‘Luna Rosa’, featuring sound system veteran YT, and reggae anthem ‘BurnBabylon’, featuring reggae legend Sylford Walker recorded with Grammy nominated producer Daniel Boyle (Max Romeo/Lee Scratch Perry). Their fresh approach has gained attention and received airplay from BBC 1Xtra’s reggae hotshot David Rodigan, and led to features on Fred Perry Subculture, WorldAReggae and Punktastic. “Hey, New Town Kings, I like what you’re doing. You’re doing good!” – Toots Hibbert (Toots and the Maytals) “New Town Kings are great crowd pleasers and are made to play live shows” – Colin Murray, Radio 1. Brought up on the fringes of London on reggae, motown, hip hop and RnB, Dabs went on to live in 7 countries collecting music and stories, language and rhythms. A proficient bossa nova guitarist with a good grasp of various latin rhythms and languages, Dabs sings jazz, blues and soul as comftably as he does hip hop and grime. His cover sets range through a multitude of genres. Pop, rock, party classics, background jazz/bossa nova, soul and motown using a loop pedal for harmony and bass he prides himself on appreciating the entire sphere of musical connection. As such he is one of the top booked artists nationwide on the Encoremusicians booking platform and has performed countless festivals, tours, venues, pubs, restaurants, weddings over a 20 year career spanning the globe. Since landing in Cardiff Dabs has been a regular on the pub and bar circuit in Cardiff, Swansea and Newport and worked with various organisations such as Black history Wales, Race council Cymru and the Windrush elders council. Through this work with NGOs he recently collaborated with several young Welsh artists on a song to support the NHS which featured on Heno on C4 Wales and on the ITV evening news. A veteran of 100 weddings and over 1000 shows Dabs repertoire caters for most musical tastes.