North London rhythms
Ezra Collective’s joyful music has brought them accolades and prizes galore – but, as brothers Femi and TJ Koleoso explain, nothing could top a rousing team talk from Arsenal legend Ian Wright
WORDS Niall Doherty
Music
On a rainy Tuesday morning at the end of February, Femi Koleoso received a phone call that sent him into a state of panic. A request had come in asking if Koleoso and his band Ezra Collective would like to perform at this year’s Brit Awards, fast approaching that weekend. “Oh, snap!” the drummer and de facto band leader immediately thought to himself. “This is an opportunity that people normally get three months to prepare for.” Ezra Collective had four days.
To fast-track his mind into tackling this mammoth, globally televised event, he went into football mode. “I was like, ‘This is like a massive match,’” he recalls, speaking with his bassist brother TJ over Zoom. If this was a big game, Femi reasoned, then the band would need a team talk and they’d need someone good to give it. Femi gave Arsenal great Ian Wright a ring. “He was so busy that week and he said, ‘I’ve got one spare hour on Thursday,’” Femi continues. “I was like, ‘Perfect.’”
Next, the 30-year-old made a call to Arsenal and asked the brothers’ beloved club if they could use a stadium dressing room for an hour. They needed it to receive their gee-up from Wright, they explained. The club agreed. “It was the maddest thing,” says TJ. “Ian Wright’s the most charisma-driven person ever. He’s got us all standing round him and he’s like, ‘You know what, I’m so happy you guys only have a few days to prepare this because it forces you to be yourselves.’” That one line, TJ explains, immediately shifted the group’s entire mindset. “Now we’ve got a bit of history between one of the greatest Arsenal legends and our band. It’s absolutely insane, man!”
Wright, who made a voice-note cameo on last year’s third album Dance, No One’s Watching, obviously had no doubts about Ezra Collective when it came to the band’s ability to grasp an opportunity. The London-formed quintet, who meld jazz, Afrobeat, soul, funk, dub and samba in their jubilant, loose-limbed sonic brew, have had opportunity dancing to their beat since they first emerged from the jazz artist support programme Tomorrow’s Warriors as teens in the mid-2010s. “Every year, there’s a been a, ‘Wow, I can’t believe that happened!’” marvels TJ.
One of the biggest breakthrough UK acts of the last decade, they put on the most ecstatic showing of the night at the Brits and took home the award for Group of the Year. The statuette can go on the mantelpiece next to the Mercury Prize they won for the irrepressible grooves of their 2022 second album Where I’m Meant to Be.
Wright isn’t the only footballer who’s a paid-up Ezra Collective diehard. They also count Eberechi Eze, Héctor Bellerín and Alex Iwobi as friends and fans. “I’ve heard David Beckham’s an Ezra fan,” says Femi. “And we got reposted by LeBron James the other day,” adds TJ. “Not a footballer, but…”
The Arsenal bug bit early for the Koleoso brothers, who were born and raised in Enfield and had little say in the matter of who they were going to support, enlisted as Junior Gunners before they could kick a ball. “It was bestowed upon us,” says TJ. “Our uncle’s a massive Arsenal fan and has been since the 70s, home and away.”
The bassist adds that there’s more to it than simply following the family tradition, though. “The deeper thing is that for black men around that time, Arsenal was the team that made sense,” he says, name-checking Clive Chijioke Nwonka’s book Black Arsenal, which explores the relationship between black identity and Arsenal over the years. “I think we’re a product of that. I think a lot of young Arsenal fans are probably products of their dad or uncle falling in love with Ian Wright, Paul Davis and David Rocastle. No choice in the matter.”
Ezra Collective’s Femi and TJ (left to right) at an Arsenal game (top right); young Femi in his kit (right)
Ezra Collective’s Femi and TJ (left to right) at an Arsenal game (top right); young Femi in his kit (right)
“We’ve got history between one of the greatest Arsenal legends and our band”
“We’re just trying to do our very best at doing ourselves proud and keeping the message strong.”
Of course, part and parcel of being a football fan is that you can never rely on your team to be a constant source of happiness. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s a bit of problem when it comes to being in a band who deal in joyous, carefree grooves and it’s time to go on-stage and Arsenal are playing. “Ah, man, when the result is going badly while I’m on the stage…” Femi says in mock exasperation. “But now the crew members have started lying to me about the score. I’ll be playing drums and look over and mouth, ‘What’s the score?’ and they’ll be like, ‘2-0!’ I get off and we lost 3-1 or something.”
It can make for some intra-band friction. Back in November, the band were playing at Manchester’s O2 Apollo when the Gunners were taking on Chelsea, the team supported by Ezra Collective trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi. “We went 1-0 up and I remember thinking, ‘He’s gonna have a terrible gig if Arsenal win,’” laughs TJ. “Then it was 1-1 and I was like, ‘We’re gonna have a terrible gig!’” The game finished a draw. “That’s the only time we’ve dropped points and I was like, ‘That’s probably for the best.’”
At the core of Ezra Collective’s celebratory sound is always a message and, during his acceptance speech at the Brits, Femi was keen to salute the role of youth clubs in the UK and what they can do for the next generation. “This moment right here is because of the great youth clubs and the great teachers and the great schools that support young people playing music,” he said.
It’s a subject Femi spoke about recently with his friend Eze. “I said to him that football academies are the blueprints for youth clubs,” he explains. “They’re incredible. Whether the kid makes it or not as a Premier League player, I would argue, is irrelevant. Those children are looked after, taught how to deal with failure, taught how to deal with rejection, taught how to deal with success, shown humility.”
He says the government could take that template and mould it into other areas of society. “We’re great at it with football academies, so try and expose it to other walks of life and ways of looking after people. I was grateful we won that Brit because I was grateful for the opportunity to articulate something we all care about so much.”
It sums up why this smart, funny band are such a vital force in British music right now. There’s a reason they call themselves a collective – they want you to join in. There are lots of opportunities to do so too. Currently writing their next record (“I think we’re braver than we used to be,” says Femi. “We’re more experimental with the musical choices we’re making”), they have a huge summer coming up. There’s a date at the Sydney Opera House on the horizon, a slot high up the bill at Glastonbury, a massive outdoor show at London’s Brockwell Park and more.
“There’s lots of really wonderful bucket-list gigs,” says Femi. “We’re just trying to do our very best at doing ourselves proud and keeping the message strong.”
To fast-track his mind into tackling this mammoth, globally televised event, he went into football mode. “I was like, ‘This is like a massive match,’” he recalls, speaking with his bassist brother TJ over Zoom. If this was a big game, Femi reasoned, then the band would need a team talk and they’d need someone good to give it. Femi gave Arsenal great Ian Wright a ring. “He was so busy that week and he said, ‘I’ve got one spare hour on Thursday,’” Femi continues. “I was like, ‘Perfect.’”
Next, the 30-year-old made a call to Arsenal and asked the brothers’ beloved club if they could use a stadium dressing room for an hour. They needed it to receive their gee-up from Wright, they explained. The club agreed. “It was the maddest thing,” says TJ. “Ian Wright’s the most charisma-driven person ever. He’s got us all standing round him and he’s like, ‘You know what, I’m so happy you guys only have a few days to prepare this because it forces you to be yourselves.’” That one line, TJ explains, immediately shifted the group’s entire mindset. “Now we’ve got a bit of history between one of the greatest Arsenal legends and our band. It’s absolutely insane, man!”
Wright, who made a voice-note cameo on last year’s third album Dance, No One’s Watching, obviously had no doubts about Ezra Collective when it came to the band’s ability to grasp an opportunity. The London-formed quintet, who meld jazz, Afrobeat, soul, funk, dub and samba in their jubilant, loose-limbed sonic brew, have had opportunity dancing to their beat since they first emerged from the jazz artist support programme Tomorrow’s Warriors as teens in the mid-2010s. “Every year, there’s a been a, ‘Wow, I can’t believe that happened!’” marvels TJ.
One of the biggest breakthrough UK acts of the last decade, they put on the most ecstatic showing of the night at the Brits and took home the award for Group of the Year. The statuette can go on the mantelpiece next to the Mercury Prize they won for the irrepressible grooves of their 2022 second album Where I’m Meant to Be.
Wright isn’t the only footballer who’s a paid-up Ezra Collective diehard. They also count Eberechi Eze, Héctor Bellerín and Alex Iwobi as friends and fans. “I’ve heard David Beckham’s an Ezra fan,” says Femi. “And we got reposted by LeBron James the other day,” adds TJ. “Not a footballer, but…”
The Arsenal bug bit early for the Koleoso brothers, who were born and raised in Enfield and had little say in the matter of who they were going to support, enlisted as Junior Gunners before they could kick a ball. “It was bestowed upon us,” says TJ. “Our uncle’s a massive Arsenal fan and has been since the 70s, home and away.”
The bassist adds that there’s more to it than simply following the family tradition, though. “The deeper thing is that for black men around that time, Arsenal was the team that made sense,” he says, name-checking Clive Chijioke Nwonka’s book Black Arsenal, which explores the relationship between black identity and Arsenal over the years. “I think we’re a product of that. I think a lot of young Arsenal fans are probably products of their dad or uncle falling in love with Ian Wright, Paul Davis and David Rocastle. No choice in the matter.”
Ezra Collective’s Femi and TJ (left to right) at an Arsenal game (top right); young Femi in his kit (right)
Ezra Collective’s Femi and TJ (left to right) at an Arsenal game (top right); young Femi in his kit (right)
Read the full story
Sign up now to get access to this and every premium feature on Champions Journal. You will also get access to member-only competitions and offers. And you get all of that completely free!
“We’ve got history between one of the greatest Arsenal legends and our band”
“We’re just trying to do our very best at doing ourselves proud and keeping the message strong.”
Of course, part and parcel of being a football fan is that you can never rely on your team to be a constant source of happiness. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s a bit of problem when it comes to being in a band who deal in joyous, carefree grooves and it’s time to go on-stage and Arsenal are playing. “Ah, man, when the result is going badly while I’m on the stage…” Femi says in mock exasperation. “But now the crew members have started lying to me about the score. I’ll be playing drums and look over and mouth, ‘What’s the score?’ and they’ll be like, ‘2-0!’ I get off and we lost 3-1 or something.”
It can make for some intra-band friction. Back in November, the band were playing at Manchester’s O2 Apollo when the Gunners were taking on Chelsea, the team supported by Ezra Collective trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi. “We went 1-0 up and I remember thinking, ‘He’s gonna have a terrible gig if Arsenal win,’” laughs TJ. “Then it was 1-1 and I was like, ‘We’re gonna have a terrible gig!’” The game finished a draw. “That’s the only time we’ve dropped points and I was like, ‘That’s probably for the best.’”
At the core of Ezra Collective’s celebratory sound is always a message and, during his acceptance speech at the Brits, Femi was keen to salute the role of youth clubs in the UK and what they can do for the next generation. “This moment right here is because of the great youth clubs and the great teachers and the great schools that support young people playing music,” he said.
It’s a subject Femi spoke about recently with his friend Eze. “I said to him that football academies are the blueprints for youth clubs,” he explains. “They’re incredible. Whether the kid makes it or not as a Premier League player, I would argue, is irrelevant. Those children are looked after, taught how to deal with failure, taught how to deal with rejection, taught how to deal with success, shown humility.”
He says the government could take that template and mould it into other areas of society. “We’re great at it with football academies, so try and expose it to other walks of life and ways of looking after people. I was grateful we won that Brit because I was grateful for the opportunity to articulate something we all care about so much.”
It sums up why this smart, funny band are such a vital force in British music right now. There’s a reason they call themselves a collective – they want you to join in. There are lots of opportunities to do so too. Currently writing their next record (“I think we’re braver than we used to be,” says Femi. “We’re more experimental with the musical choices we’re making”), they have a huge summer coming up. There’s a date at the Sydney Opera House on the horizon, a slot high up the bill at Glastonbury, a massive outdoor show at London’s Brockwell Park and more.
“There’s lots of really wonderful bucket-list gigs,” says Femi. “We’re just trying to do our very best at doing ourselves proud and keeping the message strong.”
To fast-track his mind into tackling this mammoth, globally televised event, he went into football mode. “I was like, ‘This is like a massive match,’” he recalls, speaking with his bassist brother TJ over Zoom. If this was a big game, Femi reasoned, then the band would need a team talk and they’d need someone good to give it. Femi gave Arsenal great Ian Wright a ring. “He was so busy that week and he said, ‘I’ve got one spare hour on Thursday,’” Femi continues. “I was like, ‘Perfect.’”
Next, the 30-year-old made a call to Arsenal and asked the brothers’ beloved club if they could use a stadium dressing room for an hour. They needed it to receive their gee-up from Wright, they explained. The club agreed. “It was the maddest thing,” says TJ. “Ian Wright’s the most charisma-driven person ever. He’s got us all standing round him and he’s like, ‘You know what, I’m so happy you guys only have a few days to prepare this because it forces you to be yourselves.’” That one line, TJ explains, immediately shifted the group’s entire mindset. “Now we’ve got a bit of history between one of the greatest Arsenal legends and our band. It’s absolutely insane, man!”
Wright, who made a voice-note cameo on last year’s third album Dance, No One’s Watching, obviously had no doubts about Ezra Collective when it came to the band’s ability to grasp an opportunity. The London-formed quintet, who meld jazz, Afrobeat, soul, funk, dub and samba in their jubilant, loose-limbed sonic brew, have had opportunity dancing to their beat since they first emerged from the jazz artist support programme Tomorrow’s Warriors as teens in the mid-2010s. “Every year, there’s a been a, ‘Wow, I can’t believe that happened!’” marvels TJ.
One of the biggest breakthrough UK acts of the last decade, they put on the most ecstatic showing of the night at the Brits and took home the award for Group of the Year. The statuette can go on the mantelpiece next to the Mercury Prize they won for the irrepressible grooves of their 2022 second album Where I’m Meant to Be.
Wright isn’t the only footballer who’s a paid-up Ezra Collective diehard. They also count Eberechi Eze, Héctor Bellerín and Alex Iwobi as friends and fans. “I’ve heard David Beckham’s an Ezra fan,” says Femi. “And we got reposted by LeBron James the other day,” adds TJ. “Not a footballer, but…”
The Arsenal bug bit early for the Koleoso brothers, who were born and raised in Enfield and had little say in the matter of who they were going to support, enlisted as Junior Gunners before they could kick a ball. “It was bestowed upon us,” says TJ. “Our uncle’s a massive Arsenal fan and has been since the 70s, home and away.”
The bassist adds that there’s more to it than simply following the family tradition, though. “The deeper thing is that for black men around that time, Arsenal was the team that made sense,” he says, name-checking Clive Chijioke Nwonka’s book Black Arsenal, which explores the relationship between black identity and Arsenal over the years. “I think we’re a product of that. I think a lot of young Arsenal fans are probably products of their dad or uncle falling in love with Ian Wright, Paul Davis and David Rocastle. No choice in the matter.”
Ezra Collective’s Femi and TJ (left to right) at an Arsenal game (top right); young Femi in his kit (right)
Ezra Collective’s Femi and TJ (left to right) at an Arsenal game (top right); young Femi in his kit (right)
“We’ve got history between one of the greatest Arsenal legends and our band”
“We’re just trying to do our very best at doing ourselves proud and keeping the message strong.”
Of course, part and parcel of being a football fan is that you can never rely on your team to be a constant source of happiness. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s a bit of problem when it comes to being in a band who deal in joyous, carefree grooves and it’s time to go on-stage and Arsenal are playing. “Ah, man, when the result is going badly while I’m on the stage…” Femi says in mock exasperation. “But now the crew members have started lying to me about the score. I’ll be playing drums and look over and mouth, ‘What’s the score?’ and they’ll be like, ‘2-0!’ I get off and we lost 3-1 or something.”
It can make for some intra-band friction. Back in November, the band were playing at Manchester’s O2 Apollo when the Gunners were taking on Chelsea, the team supported by Ezra Collective trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi. “We went 1-0 up and I remember thinking, ‘He’s gonna have a terrible gig if Arsenal win,’” laughs TJ. “Then it was 1-1 and I was like, ‘We’re gonna have a terrible gig!’” The game finished a draw. “That’s the only time we’ve dropped points and I was like, ‘That’s probably for the best.’”
At the core of Ezra Collective’s celebratory sound is always a message and, during his acceptance speech at the Brits, Femi was keen to salute the role of youth clubs in the UK and what they can do for the next generation. “This moment right here is because of the great youth clubs and the great teachers and the great schools that support young people playing music,” he said.
It’s a subject Femi spoke about recently with his friend Eze. “I said to him that football academies are the blueprints for youth clubs,” he explains. “They’re incredible. Whether the kid makes it or not as a Premier League player, I would argue, is irrelevant. Those children are looked after, taught how to deal with failure, taught how to deal with rejection, taught how to deal with success, shown humility.”
He says the government could take that template and mould it into other areas of society. “We’re great at it with football academies, so try and expose it to other walks of life and ways of looking after people. I was grateful we won that Brit because I was grateful for the opportunity to articulate something we all care about so much.”
It sums up why this smart, funny band are such a vital force in British music right now. There’s a reason they call themselves a collective – they want you to join in. There are lots of opportunities to do so too. Currently writing their next record (“I think we’re braver than we used to be,” says Femi. “We’re more experimental with the musical choices we’re making”), they have a huge summer coming up. There’s a date at the Sydney Opera House on the horizon, a slot high up the bill at Glastonbury, a massive outdoor show at London’s Brockwell Park and more.
“There’s lots of really wonderful bucket-list gigs,” says Femi. “We’re just trying to do our very best at doing ourselves proud and keeping the message strong.”
