Makaya McCraven found success in the late 2010s as an auteur of progressive jazz, releasing ambitious, richly conceptual projects integrating heavy studio experimentation and sampling. Born in Paris in 1983, McCraven found his way to Chicago in the mid-2000s, becoming part of a rising set of artists in the city carrying on its rich experimental-jazz tradition. McCraven’s work with cosmic-jazz revivalist Kamasi Washington put the drummer at the forefront of a major crossover moment for jazz with indie-rock and psychedelic-music fans. His breakthrough 2018 LP, Universal Beings, exudes a similarly broad appeal as Washington’s records, consisting of a funky, phantasmagoric collage of moments from live gigs. Follow-up releases would feature even more adventurous rhythms and production methods: See 2020’s We’re New Again—a rescoring of Gil Scott-Heron’s final album—and 2022’s compositionally dense, seven-year labor of love In These Times.