Brooklyn artist Avery Jones, also known as Kota the Friend, is a jazz-trained trumpeter who incorporates that sound into his hip-hop music.
∙ Jones started his own record label, FLYBYS, in 2008 while still in high school.
∙ Foto, the third independently released Kota the Friend album, was listed as No. 17 on Rolling Stone’s Best Hip Hop Albums of 2019.
∙ The 2020 release Everything featured Oscar-winning actress Lupita Nyong’o and was his first album to enter the Billboard 200.
Influenced by Kota the FriendKota the Friend has influenced the music of Adam Oh, Tymain Robbins, Deshawn Visionz and more.