Sound of 2025: Ezra Collective ‘keeping the music real’

If you think Ezra Collective’s music is life-affirming, just wait until you meet them in person.

Hanging out in the BBC’s Maida Vale studios, the band are warm and charming, the kind of people who welcome a perfect stranger like a long-lost cousin.

Bandleader and drummer Femi Koleoso’s smile lights up a room and his zest for life comes through in his music.

“We’re just trying to bring something positive and enjoyable to whoever will listen,” he says. “So anything that gets us in front of more people is always gratefully acknowledged.”

Today, that means the honor of being named runner-up in the BBC’s Sound of 2025.

The annual survey, which has been running since 2003, has pointed to everyone from 50 Cent and Adele to Ray and Dua Lipa for success.

Ezra Collective’s inclusion on the list came relatively late in their career. they already did won the mercury awardfor their second album Where I’m Meant to Be, and last November, they became First jazz act to sell out Wembley Arena,

But in his opinion, the band is still a newcomer.

Kolasso remembers the intense intensity of his Wembley debut.

“Fifteen minutes before the show, I made the terrible mistake of reading the wall backstage,” he says.

“They put down the names of everyone who played there before us. So it was like, ‘Okay, Beyoncé played here, and Jay-Z and Stormzy and Madonna… and now it’s Ezra Collective’s turn’.”

If he was intimidated, it didn’t show. The quintet turns audience participation into an art form, moving out into the crowd and making fans part of their group, almost like a New Orleans parade.

Reviews were enthusiastic, calling the show “Masterclass in Musicology“he left”every person has a smile on their face,

As a result, Ezra Collective’s name will be added to the Wembley Wall – but Koleosso wants it to have a completely different impact.

“Wouldn’t it be great if, in 10 years’ time, some band is going to be intimidated by Beyoncé and Madonna, and then they see our name, and they say, ‘Oh yeah, they came to our school to do something. The gathering – then we will be fine’?”.

Community and musical kinship are the cornerstone of Ezra Collective; It can be traced back to youth club Tomorrow’s Warriors, where they first met in central London in 2012.

The charity provides training to musicians who cannot afford private tuition, with a particular focus on “people and girls from African migrant backgrounds, who are often under-represented in the music industry”.

“It’s where I met my best friends,” says Koleosso, who is a keen supporter of youth clubs.

“Not to go too deep, but how do you fix domestic violence or the male suicide rate? You teach a 14-year-old boy how to deal with rejection, how to love people, how to control anger, How to respect others.

“Youth clubs can help with this. By the time someone is 24, it’s almost too late.”

When Koleso first toured Tomorrow’s Warriors with his brother TJ, he had already formed a tight rhythm section in his church band. Actually, Femi had been playing drums since the age of four.

“Maybe I’m a little biased, but I think drums are the best instrument, because you can see what’s going on,” he says.

“When I look at our horn section, I’m hearing thousands of notes, but I’m only seeing three valves. It doesn’t make any sense. But with drums, you play them and they make sounds.

“I wish everything was that simple.”

Tomorrow’s Warriors introduced Koleso to jazz, a genre he previously considered exclusive and inaccessible, and to his future bandmates James Mollison (sax), Ife Ogunjobi (keyboards) and Dylan Jones (trumpet).

Together, they tore the genre’s rule book to shreds, fusing elements of Afrobeat, hip-hop, grime, reggae, Latin, R&B, highlife and jazz to create a sound that was bursting with possibilities.

“We’re a shuffle generation,” explains Colosso. “We listen to Beethoven and then right after that comes 50 Cent. It influences our approach to music: we love jazz but I also love salsa. So why not try to include it there?”

After playing their first show at Foyle’s Bookshop, they released their debut EP, Chapter 7, in 2016, and a debut album, You Can’t Steal My Joy, in 2019.

Then Covid hit.

“We were supposed to do a world tour, but shortly after arriving in New Zealand, we were told to go back to London because the world was collapsing,” says Koleosso.

Lockdown inspired their second album, but instead of introspection and despair, it’s a highly energetic record, driven by the promise of reconnecting after the pandemic.

“What we found was that we had each other,” says Colleoso. “It felt like we were meant to be together, and we made as many tracks as possible that made that clear.”

When it won the Mercury Prize, a follow-up was already in the bag.

Dance, No-One’s Watching was recorded over three days (“One Just Set Up”) at Abbey Road Studios, with the band still in a slightly depleted state after a weekend at the Notting Hill Carnival.

The idea was to capture the excitement of their live shows directly on tape – with an audience of family and friends to prevent them from getting caught up in the technicalities of recording.

“What you’re hearing is absolutely real. We just played it and then listened to it and said, ‘Yeah, let’s put it on vinyl.’

This is why the album features a brief, aborted performance by Ajala, in which Koleosso instructs his bandmates to play louder on the next take.

“A lot of people think it’s an act, but it was a very real moment,” he says. “I wanted the song to play, but it didn’t, so we stopped and tried again.

“Those things are priceless, because they will never happen again.

“There are a lot of things in the world that don’t seem real at all, but music shouldn’t be one of them.”

Unlike its predecessor, the album is steeped in the real world. Themed on a night out in London, it celebrates the sacred power of dancing and losing yourself in music with other people.

There’s even a song called N29, after the night bus that Koleso uses to catch a night home in London.

Anyone who has ever braved one of those 3 a.m. trips home will recognize the song’s mix of post-club excitement, random conversation, and a backdrop of potential violence.

Colleoso says his first experience of that frontier reality occurred after his high school prom.

He recalls, “Our school got one of those fancy little boats on the Thames and everyone paid their £20, which was an impressive night out for a state school from Enfield.”

“It was the peak of grime and funky house, so I’m having the time of my life, dancing on this boat in a suit… then I missed the last tube home.”

In the times before Google Maps, it took a while to locate the right bus. When he finally got on the boat, it was carnage.

“I grew up 10 years in that one trip, do you know what I mean?” He laughs. “I saw Wow! For a lot of life!”

His desire to document life in all its messy, wonderful glory is the core of the album.

“In 2022, we got the chance to travel the whole world. We spent amazing nights in New Orleans, on the colorful streets and so much happened that it’s hard to describe.

“And you’ll think, ‘How do I bring this feeling into a song? I want someone to get a glimpse of this in their flat in Edmonton.’

“Or you’ll go to the temple in Lagos and be like, ‘I need to convey the feeling of the temple to someone who lives in Cardiff.'”

Ezra Collective’s ever-growing audience shows that they have successfully accomplished that mission.

But there’s one person who will be surprised: Koleosso’s A-level music teacher.

“It’s the secret, I got a D in music,” he admitted.

“I was very embarrassed, because it was difficult to convince my parents that it was okay to play music.

“But it tells you that tests can determine a type of intelligence, but they’re not everything.

“If there was a test to close the show, I think I would have done better than a D.”

Amen to that.