Ezra Collective detail 'Here Because of Hope' album
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- Ezra Collective will release their fourth album "Here Because of Hope" in September, with Koleoso saying the record was "born from trying to bring joy while suffering" following "moments of devastating pain" across the band, including losing a child at a youth club
- Femi Koleoso took overnight Megabus trips from London to Paris for weekly drumming lessons with late Afrobeat pioneer Tony Allen after meeting him through a Haggerston pub jazz jam; Allen taught him to "take things away in your playing rather than adding them"
- Koleoso and Mollison described performing at Fela Kuti's Shrine venue in Lagos as "total mayhem" that ages you "about a decade," and recalled a Fuji Rock set in Tokyo where a peaceful crowd began crowd-surfing the moment they started playing
- The duo urged people with instruments to teach others directly rather than wait on local authorities, calling the dependence on government and institutions where the UK "goes wrong" with youth music access
- Ezra Collective first attended Love Supreme as teenagers in 2013, with Koleoso framing jazz as a "big word" spanning Ella Fitzgerald, Robert Glasper and Earth, Wind & Fire
- The pair named formative dancefloor touchstones including east London's now-shuttered Passing Clouds, the University of Dub night at north London's Scala, and Sunday sessions at a Haggerston pub where a jazz jam ran alongside a disco night
Why it matters: Ezra Collective's call to shift youth music education from government to community lands as UK arts budgets face cuts and grassroots venues continue closing — the band named now-shuttered Passing Clouds as one casualty of that pattern. The September release of 'Here Because of Hope' arrives as the group processes a child's death at a youth club, channeling that loss into an album about choosing joy anyway.
