Get to know Ezra Collective as they fight for their first Top 10 UK album

While you may recognise Ezra Collective as the (very deserving) winners of the 2023 Mercury Prize, for their second record Where I'm Meant To Be, you may not know a whole lot about them.

Hopefully, that's all about to change. With their third album Dance, No One's Watching, Ezra Collective have made their most accessible and commercial work yet. Known for their work as genre-bending jazz instrumentalists, the name of the new record betrays its themes of just letting go, going out with your friends and having a good time. 

Lacing together Afrobeats, Latin and even soulful, bone-crunching R&B, Dance, No One's Watching is a step up and out for the quintet, formed of Femi Koleoso, TJ Koleoso, Joe Armon-Jones, Ife Ogunjobi and James Mollison, who are right now on track for their first-ever Top 10 album on the Official Albums Chart. 

To celebrate, we linked up with band members Femi and TJ to get to know Ezra Collective a little bit better before their big chart breakthrough.

Ezra Collective first met in a youth club in London...and continue to help working class young people today

Femi and TJ tell us that they first met at a youth club project, something that's still running 12 years later.

"Our first ever 'moment' [as a band]," Femi elaborates, "was as the winners of a competition that got to play a 30 minute set at Ronnie Scott's. We needed a name for our band to play that slot...so Ezra Collective was born. We played a bunch of songs that we liked, and we just never stopped."

There's often a perceived barrier of entry to jazz as a genre - Ezra Collective want to change that 

As a genre, jazz is often misrepresented or mis-sold, and this - a perceived barrier entry for many people to start listening to jazz - is something the boy's are very keen to demystify in their work.

"I love that when people see us and hear us speak, and see the way we dress, we're just massive football fans and normal London boys," Femi tells us. "That provides an access point for people to get into jazz, because suddenly, it's like OK, they're not wearing suits and they're around my age. Maybe I can get into jazz as well. That's a very powerful thing."

TJ also stresses that the work Ezra Collective do is designed to give straight back into their community, a community that helped them become professional jazz musicians in the first place.

"There's a bit of a culture in the music industry sometimes as if there's not enough food for everyone to eat," he says. "I think that's a bad [mindset to have]. We're giving people time and we're giving them opportunities, and we want them to get into a place where they can help other people as well."

Their history-making Mercury Prize win in 2023 was an important moment for jazz, and London culture

When Where I'm Meant To Be won the Mercury Prize in 2023 - beating out the likes of Jessie Ware and Olivia Dean - Ezra Collective became the first jazz group to scoop British music's most esteemed honour.

"More than anything," Femi says, "we were proud. As London kids that play music, there's a real legacy of Londoners and the Mercury Prize; Ms Dynamite, Michael Kiwanuka, Skepta, Little Simz, Arlo Parks, Wolf Alice...these are all people we look up to. 

"To win, it was insane. And it's a very wonderful thing that we were able to shed a little bit of light on the UK jazz scene. We were the first jazz act to win the Mercury, but not necessarily the first to deserve it."

The band were already working on new music when they won the Mercury Prize - and they don't want to be defined by it

Both Femi and TJ acknowledge that the Mercury win was incredibly important for them as a band, but they were already working on the record that would become Dance, No One's Watching when they made history. This, to them, was very important.

"The Mercury Prize is amazing, but once it happens, you kind of have to forget about it and move on," Femi says,. "I think that's the key to it. I would say the same to [2024 winners] English Teacher, it's time to forget about it now and move on, because you don't want to be defined by that trophy. You want to be defined by things that last longer. You would never look at Ms Dynamite and call her a Mercury Prize winner. She's just Ms Dynamite. She was cold before, and she's cold afterwards."

Their first UK Top 10 album would be a landmark moment in their career

As Dance, No One's Watching holds steady to debut inside the Top 10 of the Official Albums Chart this week, TJ says that to reach the upper echelons of the Official Albums Chart for the first time in their career would be a "gift," and an important milestone in their career.

"We spoke about that invisible barrier to jazz," TJ says, "so if our album is in a position where it's in the Official Charts, in the Top 10, then we can look at each other and be proud that we're presenting this music to people who otherwise might think [jazz] isn't for them. 

"Femi always says you have to treat these kinds of accolades like gifts, if you get a good one, you celebrate. If you don't, you can't really complain. But if we do reach the Top 10, we'll of course celebrate it. And then forget all about it, and keep writing music."

Dance, No One's Watching is out now via Partisan.