Femi Koleoso Guest Edits Culture Section on Hope — SkimNews
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- Femi Koleoso, drummer and frontman of Ezra Collective, guest edited the culture section of a Saturday magazine, writing an essay-length piece framed around the concept of hope
- Ezra Collective released a new album titled "Here Because of Hope," featuring spoken-word interludes performed by actor Letitia Wright that articulate the essay's central thesis
- Koleoso defines hope as "the belief that on the other side of pain there can be renewal," citing Fela Kuti's song about his mother's execution, grime born from council estates, and calypso emerging from the transatlantic slave trade as evidence that art transforms trauma
- Band-member picks in the section span films and albums from across the diaspora: Wagner Moura in Kleber Mendonça Filho's Brazil-set The Secret Agent, Akinola Davies Jr's 2025 Nigerian coming-of-age film My Father's Shadow, Brazilian singer Rosa Passos' sparse Recriação, and Chicago vocalist KeiyaA's Hooke's Law
- Koleoso frames himself as a beneficiary of the UK state school system and youth clubs — his bandmate Joe Armon-Jones highlights the Southbank Centre's 75th-anniversary steelpan programming as a cross-generational "best of London" moment
Why it matters: Ezra Collective crosses from live touring and BBC Radio 6 Music broadcasting into print culture commentary, with Koleoso's guest edit and Wright-featuring album positioning the jazz outfit as cultural tastemakers beyond the music press — and their picks foreground diaspora art (Fela, Rosa Passos, Akinola Davies Jr, KeiyaA) over mainstream Anglophone releases.
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