As he was with 2021 Gramm And “Djesse vol. 3, ” Jacob Collier Is again up for this year’s album, this time with the permission of his spiky, soul -filled “Djesse vol. 4. “While his first Aoty Nom found Wunderkind one-man band up against a mixed bag of female and male greats (Taylor Swift’s” Folklore “won that year), for 2025 is Collier surrounded Of women (Swift again, Billie Eilish, Beyoncé, Sabrina Carpenter, Chappell Roan and Charli XCX), plus a flute player in André 3000.
To say that the 30-year-old Londoner (who has six Grammy victories to their name) is a fan of his colleague 2025 nominees cannot say enough about his dedication to music from all stripes. Play Jjazzpiano and singing opera since 10 (his mother is well-known violinist leader Suzie Collier) made Collier a Youtube splash in 2011 with complex vocals (and video panel) arrangement of “Pure Imagination” and “Don’t You worry about a thing.” Later Stevie Wonder cover got attention on Quincy JonesWho started mentoring and managing Jacob soon afterwards. In Collier, Jones certainly saw a young man whose technical sorcerer, instrumental excellence, vocal ability and mastery of jazz, R&B and then reminded his own cutlets.
“Djesse vol. 4 ”-The last in a planned series of collapse-heavy albums is another animal completely, a disc with Collier’s usual layer of swirled genres and voices sharpened to an elegantly fined point with” over 100,000 votes of audiences from all over the world, “To bring an air of (literal) good mouth to the procedure. With “Djesse vol. 4, “Jacob Collier is not just a musical shooter; He is a snike shooter.
Collier spoke to Amount from LA a few days before the Grammy ceremony.
Based on the fact that you resist a wall of female superstars, and that a surrounding flute record will probably not appear victorious, you feel like “Djesse vol. 4” could sneak in and win this year’s album?
The concept “Album of the Year” is fun. It is not objectively true in any scenario. What we have here is a system created by Grammys over the years, with albums performed to represent together with each other. I continuously bowled to think that my album has been placed next to these amazing artists’ work … especially considering that it is an important, important moment for women in music. I’ve been cheering on that bandwagon for some time. It is curious to wonder what my album represents with these others … just what it stands for.
For me, this album is the end of a four-album series designed to be a celebration of collaboration with many of my musical heroes, artists from different generations all over genres and audiences all over the world. I have become obsessed with the sound of the audience, radically including everyone. So it’s hard to predict how voters will behave … that I have never had an album of me in the lists. Metrics about how an album finds its people – the goal post is moving all the time.
You have an armful of Grammys to arrange singing and instrumentation. With several talents and Victims in the specific skills sets – shared by influencers like Jon Hendricks and Quincy Jones, who were crucial to your career – Do you feel that you are already before the game? Many artists have captivating songs or fantastic voices, but how many can orchestrate?
The idea of an “arranging” Grammy is mysterious, somewhat undefined. I am an artist who does not fit into individual genre-based categories-not jazz, R&B, so pop-so this seems to be a safe space for those who are creative with their materials. Especially the first arranging Grammy was crazy, because I created music in my bedroom in London myself.
Quincy was the mentor and manager of you. Before he passed away last year, was it something he said or gave you that you were entering every project?
The greatest thing Quincy gave me was unconditional love and support. Sounds simple, though to is what we need as humans and artists: “You go, express the world as you see it and is honest.” He always ran that idea of honesty … It was his career – to be honest and audible but all decades of his work. He made you want to tell you your honest story. He saw something in me at 18, 19, that I couldn’t see in myself – maybe a way to be expansive and experimental. And we joined the idea early on to be “warm.” Quincy lived and worked through generations of sounds, different types of arrangements and what was hip at every time, and what he remained faith in was the heat in his spirit. “Don’t try to be cool. Be hot. “I will never forget him and say it.
It must have been a excitement for you to behave on 2024 Grammys and play “both sides now” with Joni Mitchell And one of your “vols. 4 ”Collaborators, Brandi Carlley.
It was incredible. I first met Joni in 2021 when Brandi – one of my favorite people on the planet – began this process of reviving Jonis musical energy after she became motionless and speechless for a while because of her brain aneurysm. Brandi’s idea was to get musician friends to inspire and be inspired by Joni. This exchange of energies worked. Flush forward for a few years and Joni went from strength to strength, from whispers to strong reproduction of her songs. For me, “both sides are now” one of the Ultimate songs through the ages and accompanied her on piano was surreal. For his core, Joni is a brave improvisor. As someone who loves to improvise, I identify with her desire to change expectations only with small phrases of melody, to suggest something else and always look for the edge. Witnessing the first hand on the Grammy scene was nothing but astonishing.
Your bending went up at the mention of “improvisation.” Is that what puts you Over the edge – the driving force to invent at a moment?
I feel most when I am a megaphone for other voices, but I combine these voices with deep curiosity and adventure. Whether it means working with my own voice, the voices of the collaborators or my audience, there is something that I know when I use this palette where the whole world becomes a musical instrument. I can see interesting combinations and collisions based on these materials. Much of it comes from curiosity. … Quincy mastered it with being a megaphone for others and did it in a fantastic way. I am also obsessed with the unusual, the subversive, the irreverent. As a listener, I am drawn to artists who are not afraid to try anything else. Joni or Bjork, Stevie Wonder, Freddie Mercury or Igor Stravinsky – people who go there.
Your musical talents are plentiful. Your willingness to experiment with form is clear. However, your rise to appearance came with the permission of your colorful Youtube videos. When you go back 11 years, now, how do you look at Rush of Fame in addition to music?
No one knew what everything was yet. It made it magical. There were no algorithms to talk about. As a creative person, it’s a cool place to be. So Youtube was a mystery, but it was a safe space to experiment – so I did it in every possible way to get my fascinations to the world. And it was multimodal. Not just about the music, without filming all my faces, hair styles, color coordinating my clothes and editing everything together … At the age of 16 you are full of ideas and ravens for an outlet, so I went down so many rabbit holes to fit my Fascinations. I’m still doing it. You just have to avoid the algorithms.
The series “Djesse” began in 2018 with you announcement that it would exist in four volumes. Listening to the series’s bow is “Vol. 4 “What you thought it would be when you created“ Vol. 1 ”?
I deliberately did not plan ”Vol. 4 “Too much … Although I was originally planned for all four albums to come out in a year (laughs) in a typical Jacobic way. I knew the first one would be an orchestra, that the second would be popular and acoustic based and that “vol. 3 “would be mysterious and digital – like coming out as it did around Covid was meaningful. For a while, then, ”Vol. 4 ”was an unpleasant album; The doctors were too wide and difficult to complete … When I started playing again after the pandemic, I found that I had been in love with the audience and realized that this next volume would include their votes as part of my collaborations. “Vol. 4 ”was about the human voice – still euphoric, unifying colliding genres and languages, as there are 23 languages on this new album. Works with Brandi Carlley, Kirk Franklin, Anoushka Shankar and Chris Martin – all fantastic. Everything I had planned in 2018 went as far as it could go. I wanted to feel euphoric, feel funny and create an epic finale – end with this collision of worlds.
And yet, rather than closing on something as large complicated as the first three volumes, “Djesse vol. 4,” is not so much simpler, but rather blunts and punk. All your usual, dynamic rich, layer-upon storage, All your obvious knowledge of close harmony, micro-tone and dissonance is at “Vol. 4,“ compressed, more direct and denser melodic.
I could see that it came when I came to the other volume with the help of what was exciting me. As a writer, producer and singer, I wanted to increase its intensity. One way to do this is to use a lot of material and pure width. You can do this too by raising the silence. It’s grounding and pulling you in. You can make everything brighter. My own voice grew with it, and I fell in love with the idea of a voice that grew, natural and with intensity. It took me ten years to learn to sing like that. As I realized, it became my job to let the natural intensity of that shine and be clear. My skills sets and interests focused on the different types of intensity …
You used the words “punk” and “directly.” There is something with “Vol. 4 “As it tries to give more obstacles – looking for other edges – and handles them in unusual ways. All we can do as artists is to catch the wave and ride it. To your word, yes, it is more directly. And I see what you also get with the word “blunt”. I would use “sharp” instead. This is a sharper album. Clearer. Every sound you hear has a place and an identity. When I listen back to my previous albums, I can hear me figure this out.
Finally, this was the first album I wrote with playing shows and touring in mind. The first three albums were their own world, designed in the studio, for the studio-very colorful, multi-layer environments. With “Vol. 4, “I tried to throw some of these layers in favor of songs that would sing easier. It does something more directly. In playing “Vol. 4 ”Live, these were songs that had to fill large spaces.
Without playing a psychologist, your songs can welcome the audience and use their voices expansively, but your texts focus on loneliness and are looking for communion. You have been a one -man band for so long. Do you think you make music to mimic the shared family song of your past with your mom and siblings? And how it comes through most of “Vol. 4 ”By including the audience, now, as part of your process?
I think you are probably right. My earliest memories of being children were toHaving a single mother with three children and our song is a big part of things. I am wholeheartedly an introvert and came into the music industry who never dreamed of playing shows – I never saw “Jacob Collier” in neon lights. My dreams were to be an alchemist, someone in a workshop with beautiful metal and tools that sculpted things that were visceral and make sense. And it was a pretty lonely process, even if it was informed by the world around me …
My first tour ever was the one-man-band thing, made in solitude. But craving collaboration and loving my audience made the same audience to my game mates, my bandmates. Having the audience gave me someone to vibe off. True improvisation is to have that audience in the room with me. So I still build worlds, but – like all artists – I give a mirror, something that offers an opportunity to see themselves. That was what an artist that Joni Mitchell did for me – allowed me to see myself in her work. The mirror that I hope to support others is to literally make them part of the band. You may never have met 5,000 people before, but what if it is just directing you, and as a team we can reflect each other?
