For a new year in which there’s much good to be done, Kev Choice is a righteous role model. The Oakland-based rapper, keyboardist, composer, and producer will serve as music director for Living Jazz’s commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland on Jan. 17.
“The message of MLK has deeply impacted and influenced me,” Choice said in an interview at his West Oakland studio. “I was very socially aware at a very young age, through both hip-hop and political education, with mentors who were part of the Black Panther Party and were in rallies and protests in the ‘70s.”
Choice will also perform with the Awesöme Orchestra and his own Black London ensemble — comprising sax, trumpet, two keyboards, guitar, a rhythm section, and several vocalists — in a medley of songs by this year’s honoree, Sly and the Family Stone.
Lyz Luke, executive director of Living Jazz, was prompted to feature Sly Stone when she learned of the veteran rock and funk star’s death on June 9, 2025. Paying homage to forebearers like Stone is part of Choice’s musical code of conduct.
“There’s trees they planted that are still present,” he said. “Whether it’s the OG musicians who are still here or the cover bands, we heard that music all the time, from our mothers and our aunties, and in what was passed down through our community. I feel that’s how I learned about Sly Stone and his incredible Bay Area group, who were influential in the funk and the soul and in bringing in gospel elements and the message of diversity.”
His Black London ensemble — comprising sax, trumpet, two keyboards, guitar, a rhythm section, and several vocalists — was named as a racially conscious takeoff on Jack London, and Choice looks forward to Black London’s outing at the Paramount.
“This has been a heavy year for a lot of people, with a lot of loss, a lot of uncertainty, and a lot of fear,” Choice sighed. “Art is a way to manage that, so we’re creating a space where 2,000 people can come together in a two- or three-hour moment of joy and celebration that can keep us going throughout the new year. Or just until the next time we can get together.”
Born Kevin Francisco Choice and a product of East Bay public schools, Choice started getting “heavily into vinyl” in middle school. “I didn’t learn about jazz by going to jazz school. I learned by going through hip-hop, because a big part of hip-hop is sampling,” he pointed out. “So, I looked into everything from Freddie Hubbard to Bill Withers, Bob James, Herbie Hancock, and Donald Byrd.”
Many of the samples drawn from Sly and the Family Stone records are the drum breaks. Aside from the horn parts and vocal samples, two minutes into ‘Sing a Simple Song,’ there’s one of the most popular drum breaks in hip-hop history.”
Choice started studying piano at age 11. In high school, he played in classical and jazz ensembles at Skyline High School and UC Berkeley’s Young Musicians Program. On a scholarship, he received a bachelor’s degree in piano performance from Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans and a master’s degree from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale.
After recording and touring with Michael Franti, Too $hort, Ledisi, and Goapele, he became the music director for Lauryn Hill and toured through a dozen countries.
Since his return to home base in 2008, Choice has celebrated his community and found endless opportunities within it. He has recorded over a dozen albums and performed in solo, small ensemble, and large group settings. He has also served on the City of Oakland’s Cultural Affairs Commission and co-chaired the instrumental music department at the Oakland School for the Arts. More recently, he was named music director for Barbara Lee’s May 2025 inauguration as mayor of Oakland. Beyond the East Bay, Choice is an assistant professor in San Francisco State University’s School of Music and served as president of the San Francisco Chapter of the Recording Academy.
Choice maintains an active performing schedule on both sides of the Bay. “I look at every show at Yoshi’s as an opportunity to display my musical growth, explorations, and collaboration with amazing artists and musicians,” he said during a stop at that Oakland venue last June.
He praises vocalist Martin Luther McCoy, a Hunters Point resident, for “kicking open a lot of doors for a lot of local artists at SFJAZZ, where he was part of the Jazz Collective. Because before, they weren’t giving a lot of us a lot of platforms.” Choice credits McCoy with helping him and saxophonist Howard Wiley secure repeat bookings at SFJAZZ. McCoy and Wiley, who both collaborate frequently with Choice, will join him on the bill at the Paramount.
Kicking down genre barriers is another of Choice’s prime directives, for which his early classical training and exposure to jazz suit him well. “It took me a while to see how to incorporate those things into the music I was more connected with, which was hip-hop and R&B and funk or soul,” he said. “But as I grew, being able to stop a whole show and go off into a Chopin prelude or a piece from Ravel or Schumann, it drew the audience in a different way and activated a different part of the mind. To me, a performance is a journey, like, how many different places can I take you in 60 or 90 minutes?”
In 2018, Choice composed the Soul Restoration Suite on commission from Michael Morgan and the Oakland Symphony. “It was five movements, each influenced by hip-hop and jazz. The opening movement, ‘Overture of 1852,’ told the story of how Oakland got incorporated as a town. One movement was a medley of hip-hop classics from Oakland history, and another was dedicated to Huey Newton.”
When Morgan was picked to curate the San Francisco Symphony’s online CURRENTS series during the pandemic, Choice’s contribution was Movements, which he described as an effort “to decolonize the repertoire.”
“I chose that piece to incorporate hip-hop and classical and to reflect the political unrest of that time, with George Floyd and John Lewis. But also, to deal with the challenges classical spaces have had in uplifting [Black] composers like William Grant Still and Florence Price. They allowed me to address these things, and to create a video,” which included members of the SFS string section.
“That led to my performing at Davies with a whole different piece a couple of years later, at their opening gala,” he continued. “It started a relationship between me and the Symphony, which I hope will lead to more collaborations. It’s given me an opportunity to learn more about creating at that level.”
The multitude of videos Choice has posted to YouTube are faultlessly edited, artistically creative, and true to their creator’s musical and moral missions. “God Is In All” incorporates strings, a horn, and a pair of modern dancers, with Choice delivering some of his rap from a Huey Newton-style wicker chair. In “Silver Lining,” Choice is part of a tag team of rappers holding forth on the streets of Oakland. The title of “So Far Gone” comes from Donald Trump’s description of Oakland last August, with the effect hilariously turned on its head in Choice’s rap.
In “Testimony,” Choice muses, “maybe I’m just a rebel with too many causes.”
