Kwes

Kwes (sometimes stylised as kwes, kwes., Kwes. or [o=o]. ) is a British music producer, composer and artist from London, England. Kwes is also currently signed to Warp as a solo artist and released his debut album, ilp, in October 2013. He has since gone on to produce music for the likes of Damon Albarn, Bobby Womack, Solange Knowles, Sampha, Loyle Carner, Black Coffee, Nubya Garcia, Mica Levi, Tirzah, Lucy Rose and numerous others. He also composed his debut feature length score for 2023 British rom-com film Rye Lane, directed by Raine Allen-Miller. It won a BIFA award in 2023 for Best Original Music.

Biography
Kwes began playing his grandparents' organ at the age of four and his grandmother bought him his first small keyboard aged 5. For his tenth birthday, he received a radio/tape recorder with a built-in microphone, which launched his interest in sound recording. Kwes's younger brother is the musician Coby Sey.

Kwes has chromesthesia (sound-to-colour synaesthesia).

His earliest synaesthetic experiences occurred around the age of 4 and he attempted to colour paper with the particular colours he was seeing when listening to music. These colours have been set since he first discovered his condition: "any form of a G-chord would have orange in it, and the other notes which are not G accompanying that G-chord would have an effect on the type of orange it is. Majors tend to be slightly brighter. Same applies for D which is always – yellow/green, E which is Yellow/gold, F which is violet/blue, C – Blue, A – light blue, B – yellow/gold/green."

"Colour is not in my direct field of vision, it's more in my peripheral field of vision, so it's just something that's always going on; it doesn't annoy me, or it doesn't amuse me, or it doesn't make me feel good, it's a normal occurrence to me. But at the same time, that could be why I love music so much."

His synaesthetic impressions of his own music are translated in the artwork to his solo releases, including "Hearts in Home" and "No Need to Run".

Singles

 * "Hearts in Home" (16 February 2009)
 * "Get Up" (13 November 2011)
 * "Bashful" (7 March 2012)
 * "Rollerblades" (26 November 2012)

Live session duties

 * Ebony Bones – Guitarist (2006–2007, 2008)
 * Bono Must Die now O. Children – Keyboardist (2007)
 * Jack Peñate – Laptop and keyboards (2009)
 * Kwesachu (with Micachu) – co-production and co-selector (2009–?)
 * Elan Tamara – Bassist (2009–2011)
 * Leftfield – Keyboards and Computers (2010)
 * Bobby Womack – Keyboards (2012–2013)