“He has found things to do on the guitar that are like nobody else. It was the same when I first saw Prince”: Eric Clapton picks an unlikely contender as his favorite contemporary guitarist

Eric Clapton has revealed who his favorite contemporary guitarist is, and why he compared the experience of discovering him to discovering Prince for the first time. 

In an interview with The Real Music Observer, Clapton was asked to rank his top guitarists. “Where is Mk.gee in that list?” he says. “Mk.gee kinda sits in a bit of a pop category for me. Right. But it's unique. And he has found things to do on the guitar that are like nobody else.”

“I think he goes into... I used to have one of these things... a Tascam? It's a four-track recording cassette machine. He uses that as a preamp.

“My daughter turned me on [to Mk.gee] today, and I trust her taste. And not only that, we're [referring to the guitar scene and the music industry] safe. The same when I first saw Prince, it was like we're safe. Just to know it's there [artists like Mk.gee] is enough.”

Mk.gee – Are You Looking Up - YouTube

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Mk.gee is a guitarist, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who fuses lo-fi and experimental indie with soft psychedelia. He caught the Internet's interest with his guitar playing style, which incorporates fingerstyle and a heavy emphasis on dynamics and vibrato using his guitar of choice, Fender ’60s Jaguar reissue, a short-scale guitar modified in such a way that it's in a baritone range. 

In a 2018 interview with Complex, Mk.gee mentioned how Eric Clapton, alongside Jimi Hendrix, were two artists who inspired him to pick up guitar.

“Eric Clapton, Jimi… more artists on the side of people who have shifted musical trends,” he said of his favorite players. “People that take these instruments and don’t play them how the instruments are supposed to be played.

“I was really drawn to that, but I didn’t know why at the time, I just knew I really liked it. Especially with Jimi’s playing, which really changed the game. He didn’t play like any conventional guitarists from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Deep Purple and all that classic rock stuff, too.”

Dijon - Big Mike's (Live) - YouTube

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Elsewhere in the interview, Clapton praises Mk.gee and his collaboration with R&B artist Dijon. “There's this thing with Mk.gee and Dijon – Absolutely. It's a film. I couldn't believe it. It's happening [referring to innovation in the guitar scene]. It's still going on."

Mk.gee recently made waves beyond his niche after appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, performing his song Are You Looking Up.