Official Biography (courtesy of Carvalho)
Growing up in a household where music was played daily, the sounds of jazz, reggae, and other African based music shaped Carvalho’s musical identity. So specifically, we are talking about Artists like Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sara Tavares to Burning Spear & Bob Marley. However, the influence of popular music cannot be ignored.
His first instrument was a bass guitar and then his musical journey began. His main focus was always to start a band, and that he did which led to him playing with a friend in a church. This was a great learning experience, especially for improving his listening and his playing skills, be able to find the key of song on the spot was something that would help him later as a session bassist. Working in numerous studios in London, one being Rondor Music which belonged to Island Records. His session work saw him working with Singer/songwriter and producer Glen Goldsmith who wrote Mysterious Girl for Peter Andre and Mintos of London based Rap group Urban Species. Who were signed to Giles Peterson’s Talking Loud label. During this period, he met Gail Ann Dorsey who was David Bowie’s bassist and now plays for Lenny Kravitz, at an audition for the Grand Union Jazz orchestra in Clerkenwell.
From being a session musician led to a music education teaching degree this involved studying at the Birmingham Conservatoire. After playing with various local bands even undertaking touring duties with ex keyboard player/guitarist Phil Henry of reggae band Steel Pulse in Scandinavia for 2 months. This is when the songwriting and composition took hold.
In between teaching music in local Secondaries/Academies and Colleges as well as producing and remixing, his first release was with Dutch based producer D Felic who were known as Decadent Creatures and the EP was titled Your Mommy told you to listen. This led to numerous releases with South African based house producers like Miza, Deep Con Soul including Sao Paulo based Brazilan Soul Crew. It was while working on his debut album, South African based producer Nutty Nys requested to remix Carvalho’s song Loving U for the South African Market. Which was then released on Nutty Nys’s album Vintage love released on Gresham Records. Loving U sold 19,000 units in South Africa as a single after its release in 2009. From then onwards Carvalho has had numerous releases as well as his own band Xtended family performing locally, nationally and in Europe. His track Dubplate (taken from All the things you know to be true album) was voted no 6 out of the best ever top 20 by the public via British Black Music month via Sound Fusion Radio in 2014.
Here are some Album/EP listings are as follows; All the things you know to be true 2013 (Versify Music), Elevate 2017 (Plaizir Music) Ras Kitchen which has now reached 85k views via You Tube, Hope’s Journey 2019 (Versify Music), Watermelon Smiles 2020 (Versify Music) Peace, No. Just Us 2021 (Versify Music) & Apocalyptic Son 2022 (Versify Music) & Children of the Son Remix EP 2022 (Versify Music). Currently the last of the trilogy Apocalyptic Sun is now released and available on all digital platforms.
