Taken from live improvisation to live sampling and amp; recomposition to borderdefying beat collage – a new jazz mixtape tells a many-splendored tale of Trans-Atlantic collaboration in constant cadence. Over the course of 3 days in London, drummer / producer Makaya McCraven connected with first time collaborators (Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia, Joe Armon-Jones, Soweto Kinch, Ashley Henry, Daniel Casimir and Kamaal Williams) and did 2 improvised performances as part of a 2-night showcase called CHICAGOxLONDON at legendary UK Jazz hub Total Refreshment Centre (TRC).

The following Sunday afternoon five producers (LeFtO, Ben LaMar Gay, Quiet Dawn, Earl Jeffers and Don Leisure of the Darkhouse Family) were invited to TRC to participate in an event called Fresh Roasted: Live Beat-Making ad Battle, where they did live remixes of the recordings from Makaya and cos CHICAGOxLONDON performances. Remixes by Emma-Jean Thackray and Lexus Blondin were added to the pool, at which point Makaya took all the remixes and the raw live recordings from TRC back to his home studio in Chicago, chopped everything up and re-composed the music into two continuous side suites for this CHICAGO x LONDON mixtape.