Tony Njoku: ‘I wanted to see Black artists living my dream’

In ​‘CATA­TO­NIA’, the lat­est sin­gle from Tony Njoku’s upcom­ing album ALL OUR KNIVES ARE ALWAYS SHARP, a stripped-back hip-hop beat is over­laid with scat­ty, reverbed out strings and piano lines. Njoku’s voice, record­ed with dis­tance sings the extend­ed hook, before the instru­men­tal cuts for a split sec­ond as Lon­don par­ty poet and rap­per James Mas­si­ah steps in for his verse.

“Pack’s on the way / Stack’s on the way / Cat’s on the way / Got cat? Wan­na play? / I’m high off the yay,” he raps, before a sub heavy dub bass line kicks in towards the end of his cameo.

• Read next: James Mas­si­ah: ​“As much as the social con­tract is lost, there’s a free­dom with that”

With its haunt­ing-yet-intro­spec­tive, enve­lope push­ing style, it makes for an ear-open­ing intro­duc­tion into Njoku’s music, which blends clas­si­cal music influ­ences with avant-garde elec­tron­ics, rap and more. And it makes for an excit­ing pre­view into what will be Njoku’s biggest project yet, which fea­tures a host of influ­en­tial Black exper­i­men­tal musi­cians, from Mas­si­ah to Coby Sey, Gai­ka, Ghost­po­et, Space Afri­ka, Tricky and more. 

Njoku self-taught him­self clas­si­cal piano as a way of break­ing down the genre’s per­ceived fussy con­ser­va­toire white­ness and exclu­siv­i­ty. With its son­ic cock­tail of past and future, as well as its mul­ti­tude of fea­tures, the album makes for a cel­e­bra­tion of Black exper­i­men­tal­ism in con­tem­po­rary music, while claim­ing high­brow­ism for him­self and the Black com­mu­ni­ty. Ahead of his Stu­dio Njoku show­case at SXSW Lon­don, and to find out more about what drove him to cre­ate it, we asked Njoku: ​“What made you?”

When I reflect on the mak­ing of ALL OUR KNIVES ARE ALWAYS SHARP, what comes to mind first is my musi­cal lin­eage. The long thread of influ­ence stretch­ing from the artists I’ve admired for years to the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ties I’ve grown along­side, and deep­er still, into the her­itage that’s shaped my iden­ti­ty. This album emerged not just from a desire to make music, but from a deep­er yearn­ing to see myself rep­re­sent­ed in the son­ic spaces I’ve always loved. It’s an attempt to con­nect the per­son­al with the uni­ver­sal, to hon­our those who inspired me and to carve out space for oth­ers who might feel the way I once did.

From the moment I decid­ed that music was the life path I want­ed to fol­low, I became obsessed with find­ing artists I could not only admire but res­onate with. I was look­ing for con­nec­tion on two fronts: artis­tic and cul­tur­al. Emo­tion­al­ly, I was drawn to exper­i­men­tal­ism in music. Music that was expan­sive, abstract, beau­ti­ful, and almost cos­mo­genic in its qual­i­ty. I found that in artists like Aphex Twin, Björk, Radio­head, and Anohni. These musi­cians were inte­gral to my artis­tic DNA, and their influ­ence remains with me to this day. I devoured their records, lived in their worlds. But as much as their music fed my spir­it and as much as their jour­neys out­side their art has inspired me, I could not total­ly see myself through them.

• Read next: The mad extrater­res­tri­al pow­er of Aphex Twin

There’s noth­ing inher­ent­ly wrong with that, of course, they are some of my great­est musi­cal heroes. But their careers nev­er felt tan­gi­ble to me. Their tra­jec­to­ries, as ground­break­ing as they were, seemed to belong to a dif­fer­ent realm, one I could observe but nev­er ful­ly imag­ine myself step­ping into. Grow­ing up between Lagos and Lon­don, I rarely saw exam­ples of Black artists mak­ing the kind of exper­i­men­tal music I loved. Most of the music I saw asso­ci­at­ed with Black iden­ti­ty was defined by nar­row para­me­ters. And when that’s all you’re shown, it’s easy to inter­nalise limits.

That’s why rep­re­sen­ta­tion is so impor­tant. I think see­ing your­self in some­one you look up to can do worlds of good for any young per­son­’s self-esteem. I saw a video recent­ly of Vio­la Davis talk­ing about this, basi­cal­ly say­ing that there’s some­thing about see­ing some­one that looks like you liv­ing out your dream that makes it more tan­gi­ble. That it gives you the pos­si­bil­i­ty to look through your imag­i­na­tion and recon­struct what­ev­er restric­tive self-image you may have of yourself. 

So, I want­ed to see Black artists liv­ing my dream. Espe­cial­ly Queer artists and Black men who were express­ing them­selves freely in exper­i­men­tal spaces. That search has shaped much of my cre­ative life. And even now, I’m still drawn to find­ing a sense of com­mu­ni­ty with artists who come from a sim­i­lar cul­tur­al fabric.

• Read next: Nxdia: ​“Poems became an escape for me”

Many of the col­lab­o­ra­tors on ALL OUR KNIVES ARE ALWAYS SHARP are peo­ple I admired long before I ever imag­ined work­ing with them. I’ve been a fan of theirs for years. I remem­ber so vivid­ly the first time I encoun­tered some of their music. Like Tricky for exam­ple, Max­in­quaye was the sound­track to the first time I smoked a spliff. I must’ve been about 15 or 16, sit­ting around a park bench with a group of friends, in a town just out­side of Brighton. Some­one passed a joint, and some­one else pulled out a tin­ny JBL speak­er and played the album at full vol­ume. I remem­ber the drum loop on ​“After­math” feel­ing like it stretched on for­ev­er. I was com­plete­ly entranced. That expe­ri­ence ignit­ed some­thing in me, a desire to cre­ate music that could do that to some­one. Music that envelops and transforms.

I’ve had sim­i­lar expe­ri­ences with all the col­lab­o­ra­tors on the record as well, see­ing them express them­selves unapolo­get­i­cal­ly has been such an inspir­ing and allur­ing expe­ri­ence through­out my life. Like Ghostpoet’s son­ic evo­lu­tion over the years, from the beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed exper­i­men­tal hip-hop on Peanut But­ter Blues & Melan­choly Jam to the more live instru­men­ta­tion of ​‘I Grow Tired But Dare Not Fall Asleep’, which is equal­ly bril­liant, see­ing that kind of com­mit­ment to artis­tic growth real­ly puts the bat­tery in my back to want to keep evolv­ing and believ­ing in my vision. 

As I got old­er, I final­ly dis­cov­ered a broad­er lin­eage of Black exper­i­men­tal­ists who felt like they exist­ed in the same world I want­ed to be in. Artists like Fly­ing Lotus, Klein, Julius East­man, Blood Orange, Kelsey Lu, Actress, and Young Fathers. Each of them brought a dif­fer­ent lens to what it means to be adven­tur­ous in sound and spir­it. Young Fathers, in par­tic­u­lar, made a deep impres­sion on me. I stum­bled upon them com­plete­ly by acci­dent dur­ing a walk along the Årstaviken prom­e­nade in Stock­holm around 2014 or 2015. I saw a poster for a gig, bought a tick­et on impulse, and was blown away by the show. From the first synth squelch to the final ​“Thank you, good night,” I was trans­port­ed. Kayus looked like he was 10 feet tall, G had this wild inten­si­ty in his stare, and Alloy­s­ious sang like he was chan­nel­ing some­thing divine. It was tran­scen­dent. And when I learned that some of them shared a sim­i­lar back­ground to mine, it was even more affirm­ing. That per­for­mance gave me the per­mis­sion I didn’t even know I was seeking.

• Read next: Deep in the Atlantic Ocean, an under­ground music scene bub­bles

So when it came to con­ceiv­ing ALL OUR KNIVES ARE ALWAYS SHARP, I found myself reflect­ing on all these moments, these inspi­ra­tions, these peo­ple, these son­ic encoun­ters. I realised I had slow­ly built con­nec­tions with a num­ber of the artists I’d once seen as untouch­able. And many of them knew each oth­er too, though few had col­lab­o­rat­ed before. That’s when the idea struck me: bring these voic­es togeth­er. Cre­ate a project that not only cel­e­brates the indi­vid­ual artistry of each col­lab­o­ra­tor but also hon­ours the cre­ative com­mu­ni­ty that’s helped shape me. This album is my offer­ing back to that lin­eage, a deeply per­son­al yet col­lec­tive expres­sion of what it means to belong, to explore, and to imag­ine with­out limits.

ALL OUR KNIVES ARE ALWAYS SHARP is out July 11 via Stu­dio Njoku. Tony Njoku will per­form the album along­side spe­cial guests Gai­ka, James Mas­si­ah, Space Afri­ka and Ghost­po­et at SXSW Lon­don as part of a Stu­dio Njoku show­case on June 4.

Buy your copy of Huck 81 here.

Enjoyed this arti­cle? Fol­low Huck on Insta­gram and sign up to our newslet­ter for more from the cut­ting edge of sport, music and counterculture.

Sup­port sto­ries like this by becom­ing a mem­ber of Club Huck.