Paris-born, New England-raised, long-time Chicago-residing Makaya McCraven has been at the forefront of genre-redefining movements in jazz since 2015, when he introduced the world to his unique brand of ‘organic beat music’ on the breakout album In The Moment. Culled, cut, post-produced & re-composed by Makaya using recordings of free improvisation he collected over dozens of live sessions in Chicago, through incubation & experimentation In The Moment established a procedural blueprint that he has since been sharpening & developing.

Universal Beings is jazz drummer / producer Makaya McCraven's new album - his most ambitious, elegant and refined work yet. Recorded at 2 intimate live sessions and 2 pop-up "studio" sessions across the "new" jazz hotbed cities of New York, Chicago, London, and Los Angeles, Makaya collaborated with an all-star cast of improvisers (15 musicians in total, including Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia, Jeff Parker, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson,Tomeka Reid, Brandee Younger and Carlos Niño) to create source material for the signature style of "organic beat music" production he debuted on the ground-breaking 2015 release In The Moment. The result is this epic, double set that represents another breakthrough in Makaya's career as a recording artist, as well as a definitive new work of the exciting global groundswell of next-generation, Black musicians re-vivifying and re-articulating "jazz" in 2018.