Tony Njoku in The 8 Playlist: shows us his favourite string arrangements

We had a friendly digitized chat with the notorious avant-garde musician Tony Njoku and squeezed out a sample of some of his reference bangers.

If there’s anyone who’s managed to avoid the death-grapple of current musical genres it’s Tony Njoku, a British-Nigerian composer hailing from  South London, who has patiently earned his share of public notice over the course of the last two years as he started publishing works quietly on his Soundcloud and then a Bandcamp, stating his intention “to bring something new into the cultural conversation”.

So, we got in touch with him, and when we asked him about the usual “process of becoming an artist” he gave us the earnest reason of all: he just loves making music.

“Well, you know what? I just really love making music, man. I feel like all my life I’ve been searching for the right medium to express myself in. In a way i’m still searching but I’m in my music phase of art making at the minute. Music has brought me so much joy and insight. And i’ve met the best people through music.”

And “insight” is a word to expect from this man, as his lyrics are heavy reflections on deeply emotional subjects: he’s described his allegedly most romantic track “structurally (…) as a Greek tragedy; from plesure to suffering to catharsis” which is an unusually mature point of view on how relationships go (we’re talking to you ‘can’t get over my ex’ types!).

On a whole his first album has been described as “alternative” and as electronica with a flirt towards jazz and psych. When asked to describe his upcoming album, H.P.A.C., he said:

“Sonically, for me, it’s a psychedelic blend of electronic music, african and indian music, pop music and so on. Lyrically it’s quite poetic and abstract. On the surface I guess all the songs could seem quite disjointed and separate in meaning, but I feel like they came from a stream of consiousness, hence lyrically all the songs are connected and form a complex narrative that I hope comes across.”

So we know we’ll be getting more of the sensual, kinda drunk with spiritual revelation, kinda harrowed by the world songs we’ve come to appreciate. From the beginning of the year he’s been touring in UK, and he’s expressed wishes to take his act to African and Latin American countries. On the latter, we’ll be keeping our eyes open and our PR department hyped up 😉

Here you’ll find a specially tailored playlist featuring some of his 8 favourite string arragements tracks: