Ezra Collective have shared ‘Well Organised’, a new single featuring Jamaican vocalist Lila Iké and the latest preview of their fourth studio album Here Because Of Hope, due 18th September via Partisan Records.
The track was born when bandleader and drummer Femi Koleoso was spending time with Kinetika Bloco Youth Club in London. “They were playing steel pans and the most beautiful line caught my attention,” he has said. “I recorded it on my phone and lived with it. It had the emotion and beauty that I associate with dancehall, bashment, reggae and so many other beautiful sounds that come from Jamaica.” The steel pans from that session feature on the final recording, alongside a dubby low-end and an interpolation of Max Romeo’s classic ‘Chase The Devil’. When the track felt complete, the band called Lila Iké. “When it felt like home, we called our sister Lila Iké to furnish the house with love and good vibes.”
Here Because Of Hope is the most ambitious project of Ezra Collective’s career. Conceived as three spiritual and geographical movements, the seventeen-track album traces the movement of Black people across continents and generations, from the music of Africa through the rhythms of the Caribbean and home to the streets of London. Three interludes are narrated by BAFTA-winning actor Letitia Wright. Other collaborators include Pa Salieu on lead single ‘Only Love’, Leona Lewis on ‘All I Need’ and Libianca on ‘Most High’.
The album’s central question, posed across its full runtime, is one that has preoccupied the band throughout its creation: why does so much Black music born out of pain sound so joyful? “This album is the journey from that pain to joy,” the band have said, “and the connective word in the middle is hope.”
Ezra Collective tour in March 2027, with two nights at O2 Academy Brixton in London.
