Kwame Kwaten

Kwame Amankwa Kwaten (born 1967, London, England) is a musician, record producer, manager and music industry consultant.

Biography

Early years

Kwame Kwaten started his artistic career in the middle of the eighties at the Warminster Athenaeum as part of the school band Outcry. He spent the next few years learning his trade in many different bands. One of these bands called Rebekkah was formed with his old school friend Andrew Ross from Outcry in 1984. Rebekkah led Kwame and Andrew to a production deal at Courtyard Studios in Oxford where they settled for a year learning the ins and outs of the studio.

D – Influence : 1989–99

Steve Marston was a session saxophone player. Rebekkah used Steve for a session and it was then that Kwaten's friendship with Steve Marston started. Kwame had started working at the Borderline Club in London as a compère employed by Neil Conti of Prefab Sprout and Raye Cosbert when he and Steve formed the band D - Influence with Ed Baden Powell, Sarah Anne Webb and Ned Bigham (who was to leave the band after the release of the first album). D – Influence had taken their demos to record labels without any luck and so they decided to release their own music independently. The first of these recordings was I'm the One which they sold straight to record stores themselves out of the back of a van. Kwame gave one of these records to London DJ Tim Westwood and it was he who played D – Influence first on Capital Radio. A record deal with Acid Jazz Records followed.