Biography

The son of a diplomat

Diplomat

A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

, Adams grew up in the middle-east and Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, before settling in the UK.

He began his career in music in the 1980s with the band The Impossible Dreamers

The Impossible Dreamers

The Impossible Dreamers were a 1980s new-wave band that had a major club hit with their 12” single “Spin”, before signing for RCA Records where they were produced by Johnny Marr . The band members have gone on to work with Robert Plant, The Pretenders and The Lilac Time.The Imps started off as...

. He then joined Jah Wobble

Jah Wobble

Jah Wobble is an English bass guitarist, singer, poet and composer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but left the band after two albums...

's band Invaders of the Heart.

His first solo album was Desert Road in 2001, and he also wrote the score for Elaine Proctor

Elaine Proctor

Elaine Proctor is a South African film director, screenwriter and actress. Her film Friends was entered into the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Caméra d'Or Special Distinction.-Filmography:* Sharpeville Spirit...

's 2000 film Kin.

Adams co-wrote the 2005 Robert Plant

Robert Plant

Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...

 album Mighty Rearranger

Mighty ReArranger

Mighty ReArranger is a studio album by British rock singer Robert Plant and his band the Strange Sensation. It was released internationally on 25 April 2005, on 9 May in the United Kingdom and 10 May in the United States...

, and is a renowned producer. He has worked with Saharan desert blues group Tinariwen

Tinariwen

Tinariwen is a band of Tuareg-Berber musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. The band was formed around 1979 in refugee camps in Libya but returned to Mali after a cease-fire in the 1990s...

, whose first and third albums he produced, Robert Plant's Strange Sensations band, and has collaborated with Brian Eno

Brian Eno

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...

, Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad O'Connor

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....

, Lo'Jo

Lo'Jo

Lo'Jo are a group of France-based musicians, performing and recording a blend of world music with strong North African as well as French folk elements....

 and musicians from African, Arabic and Irish traditions.

From 2007 he collaborated with Gambian griot

Griot

A griot or jeli is a West African storyteller. The griot delivers history as a poet, praise singer, and wandering musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition. As such, they are sometimes also called bards...

 Juldeh Camara (sometimes under the name 'JUJU'), resulting in the albums Soul Science, Tell No Lies (which won a Songlines

Songlines

Songlines, also called Dreaming tracks by Indigenous Australians within the animist indigenous belief system, are paths across the land which mark the route followed by localised 'creator-beings' during the Dreaming...

'Cross-Cultural Collaboration' award), The Trance Sessions, and In Trance. He also recorded with Ben Mandelson and Lou Edmonds as Les Triaboliques, releasing the album rivermudtwilight in 2009.

Discography

• Desert Road (2001), Wayward
• Kin: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2001), Wayward
• Soul Science (2007), Wayward - Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara
• Tell No Lies (2009), Real World
  Real World Records
  Real World Records is a record label started in 1989 by Peter Gabriel to record and produce world music.-Overview:The label grew up alongside the success of the WOMAD festivals and Peter Gabriel's exploration of music from other cultures, and helped push world music into the general public's...
  
  - Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara
• rivermudtwilight (2009), World Village - Les Triaboliques
• The Trance Sessions (2010), Real World - Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara
• In Trance (2011), Real World - JUJU