Tomoki Sanders - Jazz Is Just A Game (feat. Nicholas Payton & Mélanie Charles)

Tomoki Sanders
Jazz Is Just A Game (feat. Nicholas Payton & Mélanie Charles)
Released digitally on 30th September via Brownswood Recordings

Tomoki Sanders (They / Them) announces the release of “Jazz Is Just A Game” (feat. Nicholas Payton & Mélanie Charles), a single that challenges the ideas surrounding jazz and confronts the systems that have long shaped how Black musicians are expected to create, live, and be valued.

Drawing from this rich musical heritage while continually forging their own path, Sanders crafts immersive listening experiences that balance freedom, contemplation, and emotional depth.

Sanders tells us;
"‘Jazz Is Just a Game’ is my compositional response to a script that Black musicians have been expected to follow for generations: romanticized suffering, financial exploitation, addiction and mental health struggles, premature death, and the idea that an artist somehow becomes more valuable once they are gone.”

For Sanders, the composition is also a confrontation with the misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia that persist within parts of the culture, particularly the ways Black women and Black queer artists have contributed profoundly to Black American Music without always receiving the same freedom, recognition, respect, or celebration.

Sanders prefers the term Black American Music rather than “jazz,” embracing a broader artistic canvas and the freedom to honor the lineage without being confined by the expectations attached to the genre. “Jazz Is Just A Game” embodies that philosophy: it draws from the history and imagination of Black music while refusing the idea that suffering must be its price of entry.

Follow Tomoki Sanders:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomokisanders/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/officialtomokisanders/
Website: https://www.tomokisanders.com/

Thank you for your continued support,
The Brownswood Fam