The Jazz Mafia has taken many shapes since its inception, the most notable of which is certainly The Shotgun Wedding Quintet (SWQ), founded in 2003. With a catalog four albums deep, hundreds of live shows under their belt, and a list of ambitious collaborations to boot, this elite team of musical outlaws has become known as one of the most forward-thinking alternative Hip-Hop groups on the West Coast. 

“Tales From The Barbary Coast”, the group’s sophomore album, is a Bay Area underground hit. A themed record with seedy red light district saloon stories in sync with the vibe of the California Gold Rush days (where San Francisco’s Barbary Coast got its name) the album is executed with an edge that is still fresh today. So much so that San Francisco’s rock and roll circus company, The Vau De Vire Society, spun an entire immersive show from the music of the album. The show, entitled “The Soiled Dove” ran annually for five years and featured a Jazz Mafia orchestra performing a live score as characters woven into the tapestry of the production.

In 2020, SWQ released a four song EP paying tribute to the music of Cab Calloway; the visionary theatrical Jazz artists who many point to as an early pioneer of rap, decades before the movement was born. SWQ was joined onstage at the premiere of the project by Digital Underground’s Shock G (aka Humpty Hump).

SWQ was highly active during 2020/2021 performing many livestream concerts of new material at Jazz Mafia Compound and is working on their next record  that will be released in 2023. Shotgun has toured nationally with Zion I & The Grouch and have been the backing band for Digital Underground, Blackalicious, Peter Rowan, DJ Qbert, Kid Koala and dozens more. In the studio SWQ has recorded with Lyrics Born, Headnodic, Latyrx and dozens of other notables.