Grow to Black
Collective

Grow to Black Collective is a five-piece jazz group from Gaborone, Botswana. Founded in 2021 by bandleader and composer Laone Thekiso alongside co-founder and engineer Maleho "Lex" Makgothi, the collective composes and performs original music across three overlapping traditions: contemporary jazz, the African jazz lineage, and hip-hop-inflected instrumental music.

The music grew out of improvisation, but composition and arrangement have moved to the centre. The pieces are long-form and through-composed; improvisation is treated as a colour rather than a structural device. The rhythmic sensibility draws as much from beat culture as from the jazz tradition.

What's specific to Grow to Black is the perspective of making this music from Botswana, where the scene is still being built.