Nubya Garcia

Camden to Concord

Nubya Nyasha Garcia was born in 1991 in Camden Town. She studied at Camden Saturday Music Centre from age five, playing violin and later viola in the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, began saxophone at ten with Vicky Wright, played in the Camden Jazz Band under Nikki Yeoh and in Tomorrow's Warriors workshops, studied with Jean Toussaint in a gap year, and graduated in jazz performance with honors from Trinity Laban in 2016, alongside Joe Armon-Jones and Moses Boyd. She told The Fader she grew up with loads of reggae, dub, classical music, funk and soul, and Wikipedia lists Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and Mary Lou Williams as influences. She has played in Nerija and Maisha, joined London Brew in December 2020, and has hosted a monthly NTS Radio residency since November 2017.

Nubya's 5ive (Jazz re:freshed, 2017) won the PRS Foundation Steve Reid InNOVAtion Award, and When We Are came out on March 8, 2018. Source (Concord Jazz, August 21, 2020), recorded in 2019 in London and Bogota and produced with Kwes, was nominated for the 2021 Mercury Prize. She won Jazz FM's UK Breakthrough Act in 2018 and UK Jazz Act of the Year in 2019, played a Tiny Desk (Home) concert on September 16, 2020, made her BBC Proms debut with her band on August 18, 2021, and released Odyssey on September 20, 2024. A second Tiny Desk in April 2025 played "Dawn", "Solstice", "Clarity", "Odyssey" and "Triumphance".