Ezra Collective's, latest studio album, ‘Here Because of Hope’, signals a new dawn for the London-based quintet following a historic few years that saw the band become the first jazz act to win the Mercury Prize and win the BRIT Award for Group of the Year in 2025.
Shaped by an array of diasporic influences, ‘Here Because of Hope’ sees Ezra Collective trace the movement of Black music across Africa, through the Caribbean and onto the streets of London, celebrating the sounds, cultures and communities that have shaped generations of music.
Some of the most incisive lyrics on the album are found on ‘Only Love’, a juxtaposingly colourful track characterised by its wonderfully infectious Afrobeat riffs and unguarded lyrics. Drawing on personal grapples with violence and destitution, Pa Salieu verses: “I know about the sirens, but we got away / I'm coming from a poverty, but we still make a way”, cementing the collaborators’ joint manifesto of finding light in the dark.
From the dark, thunderous openings on ‘The Last Stand’ to the Metronomy-esque functionality of ‘Blow Your Trumpet’, irregular cadence and sonic bounds between experimental funk, reggae, and jazz throughout only amplify the surreal levels of talent between Femi Koleoso (drums and bandleader), TJ Koleoso (bass), Joe Armon-Jones (keyboard), James Mollison (saxophone), and Ife Ogunjobi (trumpet).
Well-versed in the therapeutic power of movement (note their 2024 hit with Yazmin Lacey, ‘God Gave Me Feet for Dancing’), this album stays true to the belief that dance and sound can change not just the world, but the self too. “This is healing / this is healing”, Lila Iké serenades on the standout single ‘Well Organised’. A homage to Jamaica's rich musical history, with its opening steel pan melodies and bold bashment influences, it stands proudly on the tracklist as one of the band’s most powerful sonic endeavours.
‘Sweet Echo’ and ‘El Corazón’ are tracks steeped in the tropical landscapes of the Caribbean, functioning to dial up the album’s fun factor while the likes of ‘Jubile Thinking’ bring the experimental flair that the fivesome have become most loved for to the surface.
Woven throughout the album is an all-embracing mix of collaborations, from Cameroonian singer Libianca on ‘Most High’ to London’s own Leona Lewis on the divine ‘All I Need’ , ‘Here Because of Hope’ finds its beauty in the breadth of talent behind it, across generations, genres, and geographies.
“How do you go through such hardship, such pain, such injustice, and then come out with a sound like calypso? / It’s that Afrobeat that makes you scream, init? / That dancehall blaring from the floor / It's the garage on that pirate station / That’s hope / It’s because of this hope, that I’m here” - poetic and positively goosebump-inducing, Letita Wright’s spoken word on the third and final interlude captures the very crux of the collective’s creative objective on the record: to make the tracks as meaningful as they are danceable, and as personal as they are playful. Though the album runs just under an hour, it’s hard to identify a track that feels like a filler, with every number feeling intentional and as reverent as the last.
Though critical acclaim is nothing new for the band, ‘Here Because of Hope’ manifests as Ezra Collective’s most resonant body of work to-date. Set against a zeitgeist of division and disconnection, the band’s highly anticipated return reminds us once again that our roots, history, and collaboration are what will carry us through the unknown together.
Ruby Brown
Image: ‘Here Because of Hope’ Official Album Cover
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