Alexander Sowinski


Alexander William Sowinski is a Canadian musician and the drummer for instrumental group BADBADNOTGOOD. He is best known for incorporating jazz drumming into hip hop and electronic music.

Life and career

Alexander William Sowinski was born on October 11, 1991 and raised in Mississauga, Ontario. There, he attended Lorne Park Secondary School, before moving to Toronto as a teenager and transferring to Humberside Collegiate Institute. He went to high school with future collaborator Charlotte Day Wilson.
Sowinski studied jazz performance at Humber College, where he met his future BBNG bandmates Chester Hansen and Matthew Tavares in class. Before forming BBNG, Sowinski played in a band with musician Tommy Paxton-Beesley, who performs as River Tiber. BADBADNOTGOOD formed in 2010 and had viral success the following year after posting jazz covers of Odd Future online. They released their debut record in Fall 2011. Sowinski both drums and acts as the band's MC from behind his drum kit. Following the rising popularity of BBNG in 2011 and 2012, Sowinski eventually withdrew from Humber.
As of 2020, Sowinski has released five full-length albums with BBNG, including a collaborative record with Ghostface Killah, and has been short-listed for the Polaris Music Prize twice. Also with the group, Sowinski has produced numerous hip hop, R&B, and electronic music singles, including tracks by Kendrick Lamar, Daniel Caeser, and Kali Uchis. Sowinski has also worked as a session musician and songwriter for the past decade, working with producers and musicians like Kaytranada, Frank Dukes, Jerry Paper, and Charlotte Day Wilson, among others.
In 2018, he helped form the Toronto-based design collective Arrangement Studio. With its Fall 2018 launch, Sowinski released a volume of original music titled Vol. 1. In 2019, Sowinski helped curate a series of experimental DJ mixes as part of Arrangement Studio. In 2019, Sowinksi composed the soundtrack of the Canadian indie thriller Disappearance at Clifton Hill with BBNG bandmate Leland Whitty.

Equipment

Sowinski plays a Ludwig Maple four-piece drumkit, generally with a 14" tom, 18" floor tom and a 26" kick, and utilizes a Roland SPDS sampler. In the early-2010s, he would often play without a rack tom and have his SPDS mounted on top of the kick drum. He has utilized both Istanbul and vintage Zildjian cymbals, and plays with Headhunter drumsticks.

Discography

With BADBADNOTGOOD
With Leland Whitty
Notable production credits as part of BADBADNOTGOOD
Other credits