We sat down for an exclusive interview with Stephen Bamidele, a Nigerian-born, London-based singer, songwriter, musician, and producer.
This show runs on 19th June at Ronnie Scott’s – Tickets here
THE CRASH! was written during a period of global uncertainty — how did that atmosphere shape the album’s themes and sonic direction?
The album was written in 2024, shortly after October 7th, and alongside the subsequent conflict we see now in Palestine. Trump was also running for re-election again, right-wing politics were and are still having an uprising, and things just felt really bleak. My own life felt a bit directionless and confusing, especially as I’d just turned 30. I was deep in a nihilistic rabbit hole. When I finished my first album, I knew I wanted the next one to be more fictional, or conceptual, as I’d been quite autobiographical on ‘Summing Up’.
So ‘THE CRASH!’ Is meant to be almost like a screenplay. It’s a human boy and an alien girl falling in love after a spaceship crashes. It tries to touch on stuff like purpose, war, coming of age romance, loss of innocence, and heartbreak. It was a cathartic way of expressing everything I was feeling in 2024, and also trying to do my version of a screenplay
Your music blends indie-soul, jazz, electronic textures and storytelling — how do you approach balancing experimentation with emotional honesty in your songwriting?
I try to be instinctual about it. When I sit down to make something new, my only question is Do I like this? How does it make me feel? I’m not looking to chase a current sound or copy another artist. That process is automatic now, if I finished a song, it’s because I was just really enjoying making it and it felt like the best thing I’d ever made at the time. ’Take Cover’ from the ‘THE CRASH!’ For example, being a 4 on the floor dance tune, it shouldn’t fit on the album. But because I’m producing the album, it’s all of my tastes and preferences, and lyrics that are true to me, so it all generally ended up working together, I think.
Many of your influences, from Frank Ocean to Kendrick Lamar, are known for weaving social commentary into deeply personal work — how has that informed your own artistic voice?
In 2015, I started listening to a podcast called ‘Dissect’. The host picks a classic album each season and breaks down each song line by line. The first season was ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’, and the amount of context and richness in the lyrics really inspired me to get better at writing. Kendrick really makes you feel like you’re in Compton with him, seeing what’s happening through his eyes, on all of his albums. Another example is Anderson. Paak has this one song called ‘The Bird’, where he just talks about his dad and his mum in certain lines, and it’s so emotionally resonant to me. It hit me that being personal and specific in a song is just as impactful as saying something universal or ambiguous. It can be daunting to really put your thoughts into a song but it’s really freeing and exciting to try and find a fresh way of saying something. Artists like Kendrick, Tyler the Creator and Frank Ocean understand their own psyches, but also understand history and the social context of where they are, and they also understand other art forms and incorporate them into their own work (video, theatre etc) and they’re able to seamlessly glide between self examination and looking at the world around them, and do that within a song to create a richer narrative. When I started making albums, I really wanted to do that, and will keep trying to with the next projects.
Your sound has been described as both futuristic and soulful — what draws you towards combining synthetic textures with more organic instrumentation?
My parents got me a laptop as a present when I was around 11/12. I’d already been playing guitar and piano by that point, and my family saw the spark. My older half-brother got me this software called Magix Music Maker, which was a really old, clunky DAW, and it was a free version, so what I could do was limited. It did what logic does, but way worse. But this ability to record songs I was writing (I’d just hold up a portable MP3 player to my guitar as a microphone and then import) – got me thinking about how songs sound as ‘records’ from really early on. When I got to upper school at age 13, we were taught Logic Pro. I got really into Radiohead, Modeselektor and James Blake around this time too – which made me realise you can fuse instruments with weirder/synthetic sounds to create something new.
Having performed everywhere from Love Supreme Jazz Festival to SXSW London, how does your approach to live performance change between intimate venues and large festival crowds?
Fortunately, my setup is really flexible. At its largest, it’s a 6-piece (drums, 2 guitars, bass, keys, vocal and backing vocal), but I do a lot of solo shows just vocal and guitar, some shows just my keys player and me, or a DJ playing my tunes while I sing. Occasionally, as a trio, too. It really just depends on the type of show, and I can bring whichever setup the occasion calls for. If it were up to me, I’d bring the band every time, but sometimes a quiet, intimate solo show is what is needed, and I really enjoy doing those as well.
As a producer as well as a songwriter and performer, how involved are you in shaping the finer sonic details of your records from start to finish?
I’d say it’s 70% me. For example, with ‘THE CRASH!’, songs like ‘If It Matters’, ’ Exoskeleton ’, and ‘Take Cover’ are 100% written and produced by me, and mixed by my good friend and collaborator Dave Bryce. My band and other close musician friends in Brighton play on most of the album, though, and Dave plays a ton of piano on it. But I craft the parts and edit stuff in my own time afterwards. We were at Dave’s studio doing all the fine-tuning and mixing right up until the end. I’m really, really possessive over the process if it’s music for my project. But luckily, over the years I’ve found people who don’t mind that and enjoy working with me regardless. I’m really grateful that my team let me flesh out my vision as I please and help me get it over the line