Dave Okumu transforms the personal into a conversation

After spending almost 20 years in the music industry working with everyone from Amy Winehouse to Grace Jones, the veteran artist is finally embracing the spotlight to release his most intimate album – with a collaborative twist.

Dave Oku­mu is con­cerned about com­mu­ni­ty. Every­one is encour­aged to go down a soli­tary road at the moment, where oth­er peo­ple don’t mat­ter and you can just find every­thing out your­self online instead,” he says. Where­as my vision is about shared expe­ri­ence and cul­tur­al enrich­ment. I want to be around peo­ple that I love who inspire me. I want to have an embod­ied expe­ri­ence where we all feed into each oth­er’s growth.”

On a typ­i­cal­ly grey, rainy Lon­don after­noon, the 46-year-old pro­duc­er, song­writer and mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist is sit­ting in his Green­wich stu­dio com­plex, bathed in warm light and the spiced scent of burn­ing palo san­to. Over the past three years, Oku­mu has built this labyrinthine space as a phys­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tion of his col­lab­o­ra­tive ethos. In the airy rooms sur­round­ing his there is a hive of activ­i­ty – singer Rosie Lowe is down­stairs, while the oth­er spaces are var­i­ous­ly occu­pied by musi­cal direc­tor Avi­ram Barath, singer Eska, engi­neer Nick Pow­ell and a ros­ter of young instru­men­tal­ists and producers.

It’s a vibrant and lov­ing com­mu­ni­ty with a lot going on in each room,” he enthus­es. There’s operas being writ­ten, we made Yas­min Lacey’s record [Voice Notes] in this room, Eska’s daugh­ter even has her vio­lin lessons here. It’s its own lit­tle ecosystem.”

Com­ing to promi­nence in 2009 after form­ing the art rock trio The Invis­i­ble and earn­ing a Mer­cury Music Prize nom­i­na­tion for their epony­mous debut album, Oku­mu has since gone on to work with an envi­able list of col­lab­o­ra­tors. He has pro­duced, writ­ten or played with every­one from Afrobeat pio­neer Tony Allen to Amy Wine­house, Adele, Jessie Ware, St Vin­cent and Grace Jones, employ­ing his calm­ing bari­tone and genre-span­ning curios­i­ty to coax out stu­dio magic.

After spend­ing almost 20 years in the music indus­try, Oku­mu is now final­ly embrac­ing the spot­light to release his most per­son­al album yet. I released my first album under my own name in 2021, Knop­perz, but that was a remix record of [com­pos­er and pianist] Duval Timothy’s work, named after a choco­late bar I was obsessed with snack­ing on while mak­ing it,” he laughs, mak­ing the thick sil­ver rings on his clasped hands shake. For this new album, I didn’t want to make a soli­tary hero record,’ but I want­ed to see if there is a way for me to make a per­son­al state­ment about my life and to cel­e­brate my col­lab­o­ra­tive spir­it. I want­ed to do some­thing that gives me life.”

The result, I Came From Love, is an involved tapes­try of fre­net­ic post-punk, bounc­ing Afrobeat, squelch­ing P‑funk and emo­tive spo­ken word. Across its 15 tracks Oku­mu plays with his new­ly-mint­ed 7 Gen­er­a­tions band, which fea­tures The Smile drum­mer Tom Skin­ner and stu­dio part­ner Barath on synths, as well as trum­peter Byron Wallen, vio­lin­ist Raven Bush and poet Antho­ny Joseph, among oth­ers. Uni­fy­ing the range of groove-laden music is a deep the­mat­ic explo­ration into Black iden­ti­ty, with Okumu’s lyrics cov­er­ing every­thing from the sto­ry of 18th Cen­tu­ry slave girl Priscil­la to the 1981 New Cross Fire and even the work of French poet Aimé Césaire.

Just mak­ing some cool beats and get­ting famous friends on it was nev­er going to do it for me,” Oku­mu says. I want­ed to turn the telling of my sto­ry and iden­ti­ty into a con­ver­sa­tion, by includ­ing mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives that might share a sim­i­lar DNA to mine. That way, I’m invit­ing lis­ten­ers in, to bring the per­son­al some­where more universal.”

The lit­er­ary and his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences can serve to com­pli­cate Okumu’s per­son­al sto­ry as much as they con­tex­tu­alise it, but in hear­ing him recount his child­hood, it is clear that his iden­ti­ty has always been dif­fi­cult to pin down. I have Kenyan par­ents but I grew up in Vien­na as the youngest of eight sib­lings,” Oku­mu says. I was spoiled and indulged and I loved the feel­ing of togeth­er­ness we had in our house. We would always have friends of my par­ents com­ing to stay with the 10 of us and that informed my out­look deeply in real­ly valu­ing a feel­ing of shared experience.”

At home, life was com­fort­ing and for­giv­ing, but out­side Oku­mu expe­ri­enced anoth­er world. My mum would caress my body and rub cream into it after every bath, mak­ing me feel so delight­ed and val­ued. But when I walked the streets of Vien­na, I was some­thing dif­fer­ent,” he says with a pause. Peo­ple would open­ly shout racist abuse or invol­un­tar­i­ly put their hand into my hair. It was painful and alien­at­ing try­ing to under­stand my place in this world.” On the fam­i­ly trips back to Kenya, things were still uncom­fort­able in a dif­fer­ent sense. I was dis­con­nect­ed from this place that my par­ents talked about. It didn’t always feel like a home­com­ing,” he says.

“For this new album, I didn’t want to make a ‘solitary hero record,’ but I wanted to see if there is a way for me to make a personal statement about my life and to celebrate my collaborative spirit. I wanted to do something that gives me life.” Dave Okumu

Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion came in the form of music. Specif­i­cal­ly, the open-mouthed, dark-skinned defi­ance of Grace Jones. Ms Jones came rip­ping into my life via my sis­ters. I remem­ber pick­ing up a copy of Slave to the Rhythm in one of their bed­rooms and I thought the cov­er image of her mouth spread wide open was so beau­ti­ful and strik­ing and scary,” he says with a smile. I felt like she was scream­ing, be your­self!’. Not even that it’s okay to be your­self, but it’s essen­tial to be your­self. It was so pow­er­ful to see this woman with the same skin as me being so uncom­pro­mis­ing. It was utter­ly life changing.”

Years lat­er, serendip­i­ty and his work with Jones’s prin­ci­pal col­lab­o­ra­tor Ivor Guest would lead Oku­mu to become part of her pro­duc­tion team, craft­ing the fol­low-up to 2008’s Hur­ri­cane. The album is still under­way. Things are on a dif­fer­ent timescale with Ms Jones,” he says. She’s so in tune with her­self that even if her process infu­ri­ates you, that is the way it has to go. She lives to be out in the deep and it’s a beau­ti­ful thing to behold.”

That uncom­pro­mis­ing pur­suit of cre­ativ­i­ty is ulti­mate­ly Okumu’s inspi­ra­tion. There’s a hand­ful of peo­ple I have worked with who have grasped the vital­i­ty and the pulse of life, no mat­ter their age,” he says. When you’re around those who have tuned into what mat­ters most to them, it’s irre­sistible. Grace embod­ies that and Tony Allen was cut from the same cloth too.”

Record­ing in Paris short­ly before Allen died in 2020 to pro­duce the fol­low­ing year’s joint record with Joan As Police­woman, The Solu­tion Is Rest­less, Oku­mu describes how the drum­mer turned up hours late to their ses­sion and sim­ply began play­ing with­out say­ing more than a few words. We went for four or five hours non-stop and it was like the best swim in the ocean you’ve ever had,” he says. Stand­ing beside Tony and play­ing with him enriched me, it showed me things that no mas­ter­class or degree could.”

While there are sad­ly no oppor­tu­ni­ties left to play with Allen, Oku­mu recent­ly man­aged the near-impos­si­ble with anoth­er guid­ing light. Grace Jones lends her inim­itable, defi­ant voice on two tracks of I Came From Love, mark­ing a rare guest appear­ance for the singer. Her bari­tone opens the record, ven­omous­ly recit­ing 18th Cen­tu­ry slaver Elias Ball’s mot­to to do two things with your mon­ey: buy land and buy young slaves” over a lament­ing choral sound­scape. As the record pro­gress­es, Oku­mu sets out his ener­getic protest of this his­to­ry of sub­ju­ga­tion, thun­der­ing through a propul­sive bass riff on Blood Ah Go Run” and entreat­ing to fight for sur­vival”, while My Negri­tude” har­ness­es a deeply funky Afrobeat syn­co­pa­tion beneath poet Antho­ny Joseph’s read­ing of Aimé Césaire’s text on the vital­i­ty of Blackness.

You nev­er quite know if it’s going to hap­pen with Grace but that’s what makes it excit­ing,” he says. I went over to her apart­ment with the record­ing equip­ment, feel­ing open to what­ev­er might hap­pen, and left with these two tracks. It’s such a full cir­cle moment to have my child­hood idol on my own album.”

As the record nears its release, Oku­mu is also think­ing about anoth­er child­hood – that of his five-year-old son. He’s into his own music and it’s such a crazy mix, from John Coltrane to Kraftwerk and Bo Did­dley,” he laughs. He set the tone for the album based on the music he’d play around the house when we were record­ing. He’s part of its fab­ric and I hope that as he lis­tens and grows old­er, he finds the con­nec­tion and com­mu­ni­ty in it as well.” Since, in Okumu’s world, there is no self worth explor­ing with­out every­one else includ­ed too.

I Came From Love by Dave Oku­mu & The 7 Gen­er­a­tions is out on April 14th via [PIAS].

Fol­low Ammar on Twit­ter.

Enjoyed this arti­cle? Like Huck on Face­book or fol­low us on Twit­ter.

You might like

A man with long curly hair and a beard wearing a green jacket against a dark blue background with "Analogue Appreciation" text in yellow.
Music

Analogue Appreciation: Joe Armon-Jones

All The Quiet (Part II) — In an ever more digital, online world, we ask our favourite artists about their most cherished pieces of physical culture. Today, it’s keyboardist, producer and Ezra Collective member Joe Armon-Jones.

Written by: Joe Armon-Jones

Saturated green and white image of a person's face with text overlay stating "CAPITALISM IS EXPLOITATION, PERIOD"
Music

Yaya Bey: “Capitalism is exploitation, period”

do it afraid — Ahead of the release of her second 18-track odyssey in just over a single year, we caught up with the prolific singer, discussing the pitfalls of the music industry, European ‘voyeurism’ framing her previous album and breaking narratives set upon her by others.

Written by: Isaac Muk

A woman with curly blonde hair wearing a black dress and making a peace sign gesture in front of a dark background.
Music

Nina Utashiro builds disquieting, macabre sonic worlds

Huck x Eastern Margins — We caught up with the Japanese-German rap experimentalist ahead of her performance at Huck’s SXSW London joint event with Eastern Margins.

Written by: Isaac Muk

Smiling people enjoying a night out, one person wearing a red hat and jacket.
Music

Huck teams up with Eastern Margins for a special SXSW London showcase

From Shibuya to Shoreditch — Taking place at Village Underground on Monday, performances will come from MONO, Nina Utashiro, Ena Mori, Jianbo, LVRA & Soda Plains.

Written by: Isaac Muk

A person in a grey jacket stands against a mountainous, foggy landscape. The image has the text "huck presents Analogue Application" overlaid in yellow and green.
Music

Analogue Appreciation: Shura

I Got Too Sad For My Friends — In an ever more digital, online world, we ask our favourite artists about their most cherished pieces of physical culture. Today, it’s English singer-songwriter Shura.

Written by: Shura

Cello player and bearded man seated with text 'Spaces Between the Beats' in the background.
Music

After Assad’s fall, Syria’s musicians rebuild from the rubble

Spaces Between the Beats — Following decades of dictatorship and 14 years of civil war, the country’s classical and creative scenes have an opportunity to build from scratch. Andrei Popviciu speaks to the people hoping for a flourishing new era of art and sound.

Written by: Andrei Popoviciu

Huck is supported by our readers, subscribers and Club Huck members. It is also made possible by sponsorship from:

Signup to our newsletter

Sign up to our newsletter to informed with the cutting edge of sport, music and counterculture, featuring personal takes on the state of media and pop culture from Emma Garland, former Digital Editor of Huck, exclusive interviews, recommendations and more.

Please wait...

Accessibility Settings

Text

Applies the Open Dyslexic font, designed to improve readability for individuals with dyslexia.

Applies a more readable font throughout the website, improving readability.

Underlines links throughout the website, making them easier to distinguish.

Adjusts the font size for improved readability.

Visuals

Reduces animations and disables autoplaying videos across the website, reducing distractions and improving focus.

Reduces the colour saturation throughout the website to create a more soothing visual experience.

Increases the contrast of elements on the website, making text and interface elements easier to distinguish.