Highly acclaimed London quintet Ezra Collective continues to fire on all cylinders. In the heat of their latest single “Body Language”, the recording of their upcoming album, and their busy tour schedule, bandleader / drummer Femi Koleoso talked to us for a brief yet joyful chat via Zoom.
Femi Koleoso: I like your background, bro.
I like your album and your cover art, obviously.
Thank you, my guy. How’s it going?
It’s going good. The weather has been funny lately in Berlin. One minute it’s rainy and cold, then it’s sunny.
I’m from London, so you’re not going to get any sympathy from me, bro. (both laugh)
Yeah, yeah. I actually went to London 10 years ago for three weeks. It has been a lot of time.
Yeah, you need to come back and experience some real rain. But yeah, thank you for your time.
Thank you for your time as well. I know that you’re in the middle of the tour right now. That really makes me appreciate it more.
Yeah, that’s all good.
I was at your Istanbul concert and it really, really transcended me and my friends. It was a beautiful show.
Thank you. I was very proud of that. For me, Turkey and Istanbul and Turkish culture and people, they are all very close to my heart, because I’m from North London where there’s a lot of Turkish people. And so getting the opportunity to play there was a very precious feeling for me. It was a beautiful festival as well.
You guys were recently in an album recording session. How’s that whole thing going? Are you on a break right now because of the tour?
No, I’m always making music, bro. Always, always making music. I’ll be making music next week, the day that I have to fly to Dublin. Any second. I can make songs, I’m making songs and I’ll always be making songs. If it wasn’t for the record labels, social media and the slowness of campaigns, I would be releasing music all the time. But for now, I’m just making as much as I can.
You mentioned that you didn’t have a name yet for the album, but it would probably be similar to Dance, No One’s Watching, because that’s your message. Do you give importance to titles because of what messages it may convey to your community?
100%. I think we are very precious about everything from the names of songs to the front cover, the back cover, the middle cover. Everything is contributing to this message that I’m trying to get across. So sure, the album names are also like that. And I still don’t have a name. I still don’t know if it’s an album or if it’s one song. What I do know is that you’re always rewarded when you make. So just keep making.
That, to a degree, sounds like a perfectionist approach in how you try to convey your image. I also know that in the studio, you rehearse and rehearse a lot on the material you have. Do you also sometimes have beautiful imperfect accidents in the studio?
Oh yeah. I mean, if you listen carefully, there’s mistakes across all Ezra Collective albums, but I never consider them mistakes, because the main objective when we’re in the studio is to be as honest as possible. And honesty is not about perfection. Honesty is about embracing imperfection. There’s lots of moments where it’s like “That wasn’t the plan!”, but it’s the moment. A good example is the song “Welcome to My World.” If you listen to the ending, it doesn’t sound very clean and together, but it feels perfect. I think we were meant to all stop, and the guitars carried on, and there was nothing wrong with that because that’s what was perfect in the moment, you know?
We need to redefine perfection, because true perfection comes from imperfection, right?
Exactly, exactly. True perfection comes from imperfection. I like that. I like that a lot. Maybe that’ll be the name of the album.
I would be so honoured. Next question: You’re a collective, a community. Was there a specific moment in your not super long history so far where you felt, “I think this will be a full time dedication for me. I can build a solid community out of this. I think this will be lasting”?
Yeah, I think from the first time we put on a show and my friends came and saw that moment. Just seeing that moment happen, I was determined to recreate that again and again, man, do you know what I’m saying? That’s the vibe, really.
Let’s also talk about your latest single with Sasha Keable, “Body Language”. How did that collaboration develop?
I met Sasha when we were still kids. Her best friend is the guitarist in Jorja Smith’s band. When I joined that band at age 19, I met her very soon after. In 2019, Sasha opened up for the Ezra Collective European-UK tour. So we’ve always been family. It was just about the moment I had a song that was right for her, then we were going to do it. And that song felt right for her. So yeah, man, it’s feeling good.
You have been doing more and more collaborations lately. Would you say that also parallels your aim for connection, and you will do many more?
Yeah, man, of course. I’m trying to make music with anyone, man. The next time I’m in Turkey, I hope someone from Turkey messages me and says, “Yo, I make music, let’s hang out.” You know what I’m saying? I’m just trying to finish this career and look back on all the work we have done and feel like, “Yeah, man, we really documented everything.”
You also have a huge record collection. Can you name three records from there with stories that are special to you?
That’s a wonderful question. I have an original pressing first edition of Fela Kuti’s Zombie. That is my prized possession in my house. I bought it by hustling in the marketplace in Lagos and eventually found someone who had some, and managed to buy them off that person. So that would be one record that is very, very precious to me.
Another record that is very precious to me is Fear Not for Man, by Fela Kuti as well. The reason that’s so precious is because it’s the first record my mum and dad bought me for Christmas. It was the first record in my collection. What’s really special is I still have the version they bought, but since then I’ve also managed to find the first edition of it. So that’s another very, very precious record to me.
The third record that I would say is really precious to me is my Chapter 7 vinyl. That’s the first bit of music ever recorded with me on drums that made it to a vinyl. So that for me represents the very beginning of my career. That album came out on April 20, 2016. So next year will be 10 years of that record coming out.
What are some records that you love dancing to?
I really love salsa music, so that’s been influencing a lot of what you hear on “Body Language”. Celia Cruz, Oscar D’Leon… Those kind of things have been influencing me a lot. Another example, I love what Patrice Rushen gave us with the disco and the soul man. That stuff is crazy music, you know? I’m DJing tonight. I’ll probably play some of that. And then I love samba music and I love Brazilian music. I’ve got Clara Nunes records that really hit me in the soul every time I play them.
There is too much oppression and fascism going around the globe right now. Your music makes me dance in these dark times, and I think that’s really precious. What would you like to say to our reader regarding the difficult times we are going through?
I think that it makes the community and the individuals more important than ever. We all have the option of being depressed, crying and doing nothing, but we also have the option of asking ourselves: “What can I do? What do I have?” And I think that’s really, really precious. So for me, it’s an opportunity. I’m very, very busy at the moment, and I have no time for anything. But when I got a message saying “A journalist from Turkey wants to interview you,” I said I have to make time for that, because I want to make sure people in Turkey understand how much I love them, appreciate what they did for us in Istanbul, and appreciate what they’ve done for a place like London. London would not be London without Turkish people. Berlin would not be Berlin without Turkish people. I feel like if everyone can start to see the beauty in connecting people, a lot of these dark times will start to look a bit more light.
Thanks for your beautiful answers, Femi.
Before I go, I want to say Mesut Özil is my favorite Turkish football player. Please write that in the interview. Femi wanted to let everyone know he loves Mesut Özil. See you next time, my guy.
You can check Ezra Collective’s Bandcamp profile here.
