The Gospel According To Femi
Talking soul, faith and Billie Eilish with London’s multi-hyphenate music maverick
A condensed version of this interview was originally published in Brick №9
A bona fide son of a preacher man, North London drummer Femi Koleoso talks with such passion and poise that it often seems like he’s sermonising at his father’s Jubilee Church. If you’ve ever seen him onstage, you’ll know that’s not far from the truth; despite being the rhythmic spine of Ezra Collective, a quintet that piles jazz, hip-hop, afrobeat and Shanks & Bigfoot covers into a Nutribullet, the 25 year-old Koleoso devotes significant time to spreading gospel from behind his toms. His relentless positivity is the fuel behind his group’s critically acclaimed debut, You Can’t Steal My Joy, as well as a staggering amount of concurrent projects, including two radio shows, DJing, modelling, volunteering with his Church’s youth outreach program and being a core member of longtime friend Jorja Smith’s live outfit.
Joy and gratitude are fundamental to Femi’s sense of self. They’re what allows him to tour internationally for up to 40 dates at a time, often with his and Smith’s bands concurrently. They inform the way he thinks and speaks, both internally and to large audiences. The majority of Britain was first introduced to Femi, who lays down blistering grooves alongside his bass-playing brother, TJ, during last year’s live telecast of Glastonbury. Ezra played a prime slot on the West Holts stage, alongside contemporaries Steam Down, Comet Is Coming, Kokoroko and Sons of Kemet, in what has since become regarded as a breakthrough moment for modern UK jazz. For Koleoso, it signals the dismantling of the preconceptions around genre that has spent decades shut away in expensive nightclubs and elite university courses. And there’s nobody better to preach the benefits of switching shit up than a man who spends as much time working his chat as his hi-hat.
From the drum stool to the pub, the Church to the club, Femi is an electrifying, infectious figure whose kinetic energy reaches every person he — or his music — encounters. He also spearheads a movement of drummers morphing into frontmen, with 2020 seeing high profile releases from other stick-wielders like Yussef Dayes and Moses Boyd.
It’s not often you encounter a musician this eloquent. So in the spirit of one of Femi’s heroes, Clyde Stubbelfied, let’s give the drummer some. Here, Koleoso tells us what he’s learned about keeping the faith, strategic vomiting, worshipping Arsenal, rigorous touring, attaining perspective, building communities and not letting anyone tell you you’re not allowed to like Billie Eilish.
On how to attain — and retain — gratitude.
I remember a big moment for me was realising that most of my friends didn’t live with their Dad — and I did. Part of that could be a real negative thing: ‘What’s wrong with our community that none of the Dads are sticking around?’ But on the other side of the coin I thought ‘This is amazing. I’ve got the best role model in the world and he’s in the living room right now, chilling.’
Quite often joy is a case of looking in the right direction. If you look at everything that is negative in your life, you will not experience that joy. If you look at the negativity, but shine a light on all the great things that have happened and use that to help yourself, that’s how you get the joy. You play a sold-out venue, you’re joyful it’s sold out; you play an empty venue and you’re joyful that someone’s there [at all.] You have to train yourself into being like that. It’s not natural.
The way you train yourself is by making sure you’re surrounded by the real world at all times. You’re surrounded by people you’re trying to help, people that help you. Surrounded by scenarios better than you own; that’s where you get inspiration from. Surrounded by scenarios far worse than your own, that’s where you get gratefulness from. Keep a variety of things around you and you’ll learn to focus well.
On why more drummers need to jump on the mic.
A lot of people look at the drum kit as a restriction. They [just] see ‘hold the groove at the back of the band.’ But when I watch a gig, all I do is look at the drumer. My dream is the drummer stopping halfway and talking about what they’re playing or explaining what they’re doing. So why don’t I provide that?
I just felt like I had something to say, and I didn’t see the drums as a restriction to that. I remember just thinking ‘all I have to do is shout a bit louder.’ I feel like I took that energy and attitude throughout my life.
I’m into it, man. I think drummers make great frontmen. Remember Phil Collins? [laughs]. Clyde Stubbelfield actually had his own projects for a bit. Same with Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers. Of course, you have the great Buddy Rich. He was a showman.
On what community really means.
Communities don’t look like something. In the same way that a yoga class is a community, Mums at the school gates are a community, a mosque is a community, a football team is a community. The whole of Arsenal stadium is a community when we cheer for the same people, you know what I’m saying?
People often talk about ‘the jazz community’. That’s a community of people who have jazz in common with one another, so we have something to build on together. But if you actually looked at it, what do I actually have in common with Shabaka [Hutchings of Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming]? Shabaka wasn’t born in North London. Shabaka’s Carribean, I’m African. Shabaka’s about ten years older than me. There’s so many ways I could look at that guy and say ‘he’s completely different from me.’ But there’s also a lot of ways to think that we’re exactly the same.
You have to really work at finding similarities with people. If you’re good at doing that, you start to believe in yourself a lot. I don’t look at what Dave Grohl’s achieved with Foo Fighters and think ‘Well he’s American, he’s white so he probably didn’t have to deal with some of the racism I had to deal with, he’s older than me so he’s from a time when people actually liked buying records…’ Nah, man. I’m looking at him and saying ‘He plays drums, I play drums, same thing. Let’s go.’
On how faith influences performance.
I’m a son of a preacher man, you know what I’m saying? I think what you get when you go to Church — especially one like mine which is quite multicultural — is you learn the skills of making people feel included and valued, even though they’re totally different.
There’s not many scenarios where that happens. That’s why there’s different channels on TV. But in Church, you can’t just change the preacher when you’ve had enough, so the preacher has to engage everyone.
I’d like to think that regardless of your thoughts on Christianity, once speaking to me and TJ, my prayer and hope is that you leave thinking ‘Well, they’re not all that bad.’[laughs] I enjoy being challenged on my faith because it forces me to confront those stereotypes and help smash them. You start to question ‘Why did I think that person wasn’t going to be cool? What do I need to address in myself so it doesn’t happen again?’
On why jazz needs to tear it all down and start again.
The most important thing for me would be to strip the elitism away from jazz. That’s not it’s foundation and not what it was written for. For instance, I love Ronnie Scott’s. I love going there, I love playing there, but that serves one purpose. It’s very much an upper class view on jazz. At the same time, you need the pub in South-East London, where entry is free, beers are cheap and there’s a real vibe in there. You need that diversity. Diversity kills elitism.
Jazz was heavily institutionalised in a way other genres weren’t. You can’t go and get a degree in soul music even though it’s as academic as any other kind of music. The snobbery brought in around jazz music has been a really big factor in why people view jazz in the way they do. There’s a sophistication to jazz music that intimidates people.
I often hear ‘I don’t know if I’m qualified to say this, but I think..’ I don’t need a qualification, man! A perfect example is football fans. None of them can play football, but every single fan has the best opinion of how the manager should set up a team. I’ve never heard a fan say ‘I’m not qualified to say this.’ They all say ‘this is what [Mikael] Arteta should be doing with Arsenal.’ That’s how I think you should talk about jazz music! Say what’s on your mind. It’s all good.
On dissolving genres….
Right now I have the most unashamed freedom in what I like. I don’t care. I’m a Billie Eilish superfan and proud of it. I remember someone tried to tell me she was whack and I was like ‘bro, I don’t care what you think. I’m going to listen to her every day this year — and next year!’
I mean, I was on television. That’s unheard of in jazz! At Glastonbury, we were dealing with crowds and competing with rock bands. It really changed things positively. People respected the form when they saw how captivating it could be, even though we don’t have a singer or rapper.
I feel like I was born too late. I missed the generation of walking down the street and people were playing music out of boom boxes, or listening to the radio together. Sound systems, stuff like that. Communal listening creates such a beautiful energy.
…and fighting homogenised taste
I’m here to hear something I’ve never heard in my life, you know what I’m saying? I don’t want to rap all the lyrics along; sometimes it’s fun, I mean that’s what Wu-Tang’s for, but sometimes you want to be blown away by something, like ‘Yo, what the hell is this?’
We’ve lost the ability to discover. When I go to a rave in London these days, what I find sad is people dancing to songs they’ve already heard. Nobody is trying to vibe to new stuff. Where’s the fun in that?
Maybe in the future we might do more narrowed projects. You know, like Ezra Collective Play Britney Spears. You have to pay homage to the legends. There’s no Britney, there’s no Billie [Eilish], you know what I’m saying! Part of who we are is that we’re always flexing and switching around genres. I don’t see that changing.
On being a role model for black youth
I wouldn’t say I’ve ever been particularly inspired by Kanye West. I found it quite tough to relate to him, mainly because by the time I got into him, he was already a multi-millionaire and definitely living that way. The more relatable I found someone, the more possible I saw what they achieved was.
People like Robert Glasper inspire me the most. I saw that journey. Even though I was really young when he started putting music out, I got onto it really quickly. I was sneaking into jazz clubs at age 16 to watch him. He really made me believe my dreams were possible. He just put out a film soundtrack the other day and I was just like ‘well, I better start learning piano again because I’m going to do a film score, too.’ Glasper did it, why can’t I?
I want [young people] to see a dream that is achievable. I want people to look at me, whether they’re black, white, male, female, whatever it is, I want them to look at me and think ‘This pipe dream that I have in my mind is achievable, because Femi did it.’
