Ezra Collective met in 2012 as teenagers in the youth band of Tomorrow’s Warriors, a music education initiative at London’s South Bank Centre. The group, consisting of Femi (who also plays drums for Gorillaz) as drummer and bandleader, Joe Armon-Jones on keys, James Mollison on saxophone, Ife Ogunjobi on trumpet, and Femi’s younger brother TJ on bass guitar, are seen as pioneers of their city in a new musical era, where black genres such as jazz, grime, afrobeat and more, are fluidly joined together.
Their second album arrived last November 2022. ‘Where I’m Meant To Be’ is a celebration of life, an affirmative elevation of Ezra Collective’s hybrid sound and refined collective character. The songs combine cold trust with bright energy. The album, which also features Sampa The Great, Kojey Radical, Emile Sande and Nao, is full of call-and-response conversations between their ensembles, a natural product of years of improvising together on stage, and will light up sweaty dance floors and soundtrack summer dinners in equal measure.