Venna: The GRAMMY Award-winning saxophonist's self-titled debut album 'MALIK' - EP4

0:04Let's go. Let's go. Saxophonist, producer, artist, vibe curator. No, no. But he's one of them artists, like, it makes you think, like, music is deeper than this. It's crazy. If you like live music, the way in which he records, I think this is not perfect for you.

0:30All right, back again. What are we, episode four? Week four? Let's just get to it, mate. Let's start right away. What's the final of the week? What are we saying? Well, before we start, actually. I'm a bit hurt. Oh, here we go. I'm a bit hurt by a couple of things, but we'll get them out. People are going to think this guy is just some emotional guy. But we've been alternating vinyls each week, so I thought it was going to be my turn. Okay. But you've just snagged it. you've claimed and i've just been gracious enough to let you do it but go ahead what's the final of the week what are we saying what are we saying come on all right so my vinyl of the week our vinyl of the week yeah yeah yeah so yeah you feel included now yeah to be fair i like this album so i can't complain okay good good good so this is dave the boy who played the harp his third album long awaited four years after we're all alone in this together hmm yeah yeah yeah and this is the I don't know if it says it on the front yeah it does so this is the Stone Island Sound Presents yes and it's a limited edition sold out collector's edition so what is this Stone Island Presents Malarkey what's this what's this all about Malarkey what's this all the sponsorships on an album yeah that's a good question that's a good question I'll let you I'll let you have a little have a little look isn't this supposed to be isn't the album cover like yellow gold and stuff yeah so the part of the limited edition is it being like yeah different colorways and stuff yeah different colorways like the mirror reflective and obviously you've got the stone island sound logo yeah um on the front and inside as well mirrored spread here there's a lot going on geez louise yeah while you while you get into that i'll share some bits about it so um yeah stone island sound i did a bit of research because i didn't quite know what it was either it's easy to just look at the collab and be like oh sounds pretty yeah sounds pretty cool but I was like what does this actually what does it actually mean so um Stone Island Sound follows intertwining directions that complement the brand's rich relationship with music so I feel like you know even growing up like it's quite a thing that people would wear the brand in music videos or there's a culture that comes with the brand I think a lot of times yeah Stoney's been about isn't it exactly part of the gang for a while and so um yeah they've sort of um launched this alongside a bit of a tagline saying sound as a form of research uh which builds on one of their mantras as a brand that launched with the 2024 uh campaign community as a form of research whereby dave was actually part of i think 16 um i guess like famous faces you would say who modeled for that campaign in the summer spring of 24 last year.

3:16And that reflects, I guess, the brand's deep cultural roots. And it says that it embraces the community from all walks of life. And so the sound element as a brand, an offshoot of the Clovin brand. So they have a podcast, they have a playlist, they have events, and now they have product too. So this is the first ever physical product that Stone Island Sound has produced. And I guess when it comes to Dave, he feels like such a natural fit for it. Because alongside, like when they announced this, there was like a 15 minute video where Dave's in conversation with one of the Stoney archivists, basically.

3:54And Dave's like basically in like a sort of like in the round of all of his Stoney collection on rails. And they're sort of going through and talking through specific pieces. And there's like the jumper that he wore in the no words video of Mostak. Like there's the pink like bomber that he wore in the Samantha video with J-Has. And then it's just like all of the personal collections as well. So then they go through like what his first piece was. It was like a blue knitted jumper. And then he had the gilet. And then it's like all of the stuff through to like some of the shadow pieces. And like there's, yeah, I'll probably say like hundreds of pieces there.

4:31So it makes sense. He's obviously championed them for a while. He wears them at a lot of his shows. I think he had like a custom gilo for one of his shows one time and yeah he just rocks the brand heavy and then I guess as I wouldn't even say a pilot but as part of it on growing relationship they previously sponsored the kit the football kit for Dave's Santan cup yeah yeah yeah I've seen that which was pretty cool so that is for anyone who doesn't know an annual football tournament he holds around like to celebrate his birthday so they've sponsored that before as well so I guess this is kind of like the next um the next phase of that and i thought it's quite sick i was i must say i was in two minds about it because i like the colored vinyl of course yeah the main one's got like a yellow yeah there's a nice blue one but then i was like this because it's a special edition one i knew it would sell out um yeah because yeah when you said you had this vinyl i assumed it was the colored one but yeah i didn't expect it to be all platinum doubt and all shining like this so Part of me was a bit disappointed that it wasn't color, but I think it goes well.

5:36So the vinyl, I'll quickly show, is transparent. So let's get out this side quickly. So you've got two, it's a two disc, as we said, and it's transparent on one side. It's got like a sort of standard sticker. What's all the etching stuff? What's that? So the etching, it looks to be like, well, I should say there's coordinates, if you can see there, there's coordinates like in one part of it. And then there looks to be like, I guess, an etched roadmap, presumably of South London. Right. Streatham from where Day is from and the rest of it. I think that's really sick. I've yet to play it, but I'm excited about it.

6:10And then on the other side, if you flip it around, you can see the Stone Island sort of like compass logo on the flip of the label. So, yeah. So you have to play it, but have you listened to the album? Yeah. Obviously, yeah. I've listened to it a couple of times. Well, come on, first looks then. Come on, just quickly. First impression. Before we get into it any deeper. Yeah, it'd be rude not to. first impression uh yeah long awaited four years in the making i feel like i didn't quite know what to expect i guess um but i guess by virtue of the fact that it didn't have any singles with it i was like this is going to be like a full body of work that's going to be cohesive it's going to be clear it's probably going to be very musical and with a lot of content and that was exactly what he delivered um it's very good and it's very good from when he did the posters revealing the collaborators you you knew which way it was headed you got like james blake in there um obviously thames gym legacy couple people yeah um kano of course yeah uh i don't quite know how to describe i'm still like probably finding a way to articulate it properly yeah it's still it's still early days i think yeah um what about you yeah i liked it man i think to be fair it's probably it's probably an album that I prefer um because it's kind of almost like it's kind of magnum opus kind of vibes in it like he's gone for like this is just like well-produced music rather than him kind of going into like a lane um obviously James Blake as you know is like one of my favorite artists so uh yeah so and he's he's like credited in quite even the ones that he's not featured in yeah yeah and you can hear it you can either hear his vocals or you can hear him doing the chords and stuff you're like yeah yeah yeah we'll get into dave a bit later i think yeah one of our artist spotlights but i am interested so dave obviously this this this album is like one of the most lyrics heavy albums that you'll probably hear this year um so is it obviously we've spoken a bit about you like being a bit of a vibes man and this album is very heavy on melody without percussion and 808s too much and it's very uk rap and uk accent so how i'm interested what What is it that you like about it specifically, given your persuasion?

8:21Yeah. So for me, I didn't grow up really listening to grime and stuff as much as everyone else for some reason. I don't know why I was just like being difficult and a contrarian. And I was listening to like old school stuff when everyone else has listened to a lot of contemporary things. So I didn't get into UK music that way. So listening to stuff like this, it's not like super grime based. it's like more like melodic in terms of sampling and stuff. Like my favorite song is, was it my 27th birthday? Yeah. Which is literally just piano and like a vocal sample in the background. So it's very simple.

9:00And then because of that, it's very easy to kind of hone in on what he's saying. And you kind of, I mean, that song is like six and a half minutes or something like that. But because it's so clean, it's just like you can hear him telling the story. So, yeah, sometimes there are space for lyrics of that. like it's not i've been saying that all i care about is melody in that but sometimes there is but it's got to be framed in the right way okay cool interesting so it's good to know yeah my big him up third album third uk number one um special piece of music and yeah he's just he's the guy yeah we'll get into it deeper later and it's still early early days and like there's been a lot of like uh kind of uh social media like reactions straight off the bat like straight off the bat like it's just we don't need to be social commentators at every juncture it's like bro the album come out on a friday i'm seeing man doing full breakdives on saturday yeah exactly let's let's soak it in marinate let's soak it in especially it's clearly an album that needs to be like taken taken it so the guy's so intricate with his lyricism and stuff it's been like four years or something since he released like it was july 21 i think give it some time man it was wrong with you man jesus christ i mean my my take on it is that people have been starved of great rap music yeah from the uk and they're wanting to champion something which is great but in the wanting to champion sometimes it's like it's it's not necessarily let's talk about it but it's like what did you think is it the best thing ever how does it stack up compared to his other things i wanted him to go like like be like hard babe you know and he's not really that in this album he's kind of just like taking it to a new place it's like i've been in the studio with like amazing producers and like artists that i want to collaborate with and create like something that's gonna stand the test of time and i feel that this album does i i like yeah it's he's produced now three very good bodies of work i would say so um and this is just it's just slightly different like exactly i'm fine with it no i rate it i'm happy with it it's setting it's setting a standard and setting a level and also saying this is what i'm about now obviously the guy just turned 27 in it so like four years ago he was 23 and that was his second album things change it's a great it's a grown man it's a grown man i'll see a man in the comments saying yeah yeah it's solid but it's missing the sench feature and a drake feature i'm like bro we're not all just here for club tunes or for the sake of having a feature like every everyone on there has got their space to feature Yeah.

11:34And the features are very deliberate. Yeah. Very deliberate. So yeah, I'm here for it, man. I'm here for it. So yeah. Fourth vinyl of the week. So because you like it as well, I feel like we can own it. And that is our vinyl. Yeah. Yeah. You told me in advance. So yeah, we can share it. It's fine. It's fine. Like, but it's going to be my vinyl next week. So because the people might have been thinking like, you know, it's Lewis next, next week. Like it's going to give us a throwback. Yeah. They wouldn't have been listening to. Like what's the whole tune? but now they won't know they have to wait another week so maybe maybe that's a good thing so keep waiting bro um one thing that i wanted to bring up in our little opening opening segment that um obviously for those that if we've got a couple of viewers and listeners well viewers mainly that have consistently watched us now we've got some vinyls behind me um some records oh right yeah stuff they're probably thinking who these man obviously this is your gaps it's your your records they're like who are these guys and why the hell do they they have like some gold props on them like platinum records like what are they just ordering stuff online so do you want to say anything about that what's the crack of that yeah yeah um yeah so my day job um is in the music industry ever since i like graduated more or less like i've worked like started as an intern and then now like been like seven seven years in the industry now so yeah i work for record labels i've worked for three over that period of time and yeah this is kind of like these i should say are like kind of some of the perks every now and then that you get yeah when like a record hits a certain number of sales it gets like a status yeah certification status whether we seal the gold platinum etc what are those numbers do you know like what what do you have to do to be silver or gold and stuff yeah so singles uh silver is 200 000 sales okay gold is 400 000 sales platinum is 600 ,000 sales and then multi-platinum is like multiples of 600 ,000.

13:33Okay. So if I go double platinum that's 1.2 is what I'm saying. Correct. Maths is it. I feel like I've got tack over it. I'm sorry. Don't worry about me bro. And then albums is 60 ,000. I think I found out albums is easier for people to like be tangible because it's like that. That is an album sale isn't it? Like it's a clear vinyl I bought it once. Streaming the rules are kind of like a bit more sort of like ratios and stuff. Yeah, it gets a bit hazy. We can get into another time. But yeah, album sales, 60 ,000 is silver, 100 ,000 is gold and then 300 ,000 is platinum. So how many are they handing out in these offices and that?

14:14Depends, depends. It's like they just dish them out. Like you can get one, you can get one. Or is it like just a couple or what we said? Yeah, it's not. Do I just need to knock on the door and just like deliver some mail for these mad and then I'm in and I got a record or? I mean, so, one of the nice things about these is that they have your name on in it so it's like to Harrison and it's like in recognition of X amount of sales and then it's got the company and the certification and blah blah blah so yeah it's more like for the core team that's worked on the project so you know if people who might not know about the industry will be like more than likely like the label presidents will probably get it because they sort of like are the ones who like they're the CEOs of the company and then you'll have someone who's like led on the marketing someone who's led on like uh the a and r um the audience development which is like you know social media through to like crm and mailers um and then someone like me who does like i guess you would say commercial so like um everything from like your physical stuff like this um to like merchandising selling that sort of stuff online and then your streaming as well so like the relationship with streaming services where you click play on music um and how music is like discovered found profiled and promoted with those partners as well.

15:30So yeah, there's a whole lot of like moving parts. It's a lot happening. It's a lot going on. It's a lot going on. Man just makes a tune and it just, it's out. It's out. It's there. Who likes it? Anyone? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. It's a lot. All right. So we've obviously alluded to Dave already, but I'm curious, what else have you been listening to this week? A bag of tunes, mate. A bag of tunes. I'm actually, before I give off my recent rotations, I've got, I've got. Don't you dare be sharing another gripe i've got one more gripe this is the last gripe for the day the last gripe all right you're gonna have a quota of like one per episode i've got oh i've got three songs but you've been slacking this week i'm not gonna like you didn't do uh you didn't do any like research or anything obviously it's my time to do research and that but okay didn't do any follow-up material or anything like that uh recent rotations and that didn't weren't ready we were setting up and stuff i had to wait for you to write all your stuff down and do all of this and that.

16:26Like, it's just not, it's not good enough. It's not, it's not good enough. It's been a busy week. You're then delayed our start time by like an hour and a half. I've been waiting for you faffing about, bro. So you're going to try. You're a real slacker today. You're going to share this on camera with the first two episodes. You were late to arrive at my yard by an hour and a half. Yeah, that's just growing pains, bro. That's growing pains. That's like, we're getting into the system. Now we're running now. I'm here now, bro. You're trying to brush over. That's crazy. I'm ready now. Like, we didn't know what was happening then.

16:53I knew what was happening. I was ready. We're recording at night, recording at day. We didn't know what was going on. Now we've got a routine. Trying to come back. I didn't know what I was jet lagged. You're mucking about. Anyways, recent rotations. I've got three. How many have you got? I've got two. Two. What's going on? Quality over quantity. I think my quality is quite good. Do you want me to go first? Yeah, because you've got three. We'll alternate. Okay. Okay. I've got my card. My card's over here. So petty, bro. All right. I have two new. and one it's not it's old because it's crazy 2015 it's like 10 years ago so uh i guess it's old in that room it's like last decade get me catalog now but it's contemporary to me still because i'm bumping it all the time so number one is leon thomas it's got a new ep called folks uh leon thomas is the guy uh i'm liking where this kind of soul r &b vibe is going lately uh in in the r &b scene in general so i'm here for it he's doing like a lot of like instrumentation and stuff like that it's all like real music so i'm here for it so but the song i'm going to choose out of that ep is my muse so yeah give it a listen to big big tune yeah big ep uh So that's my number one.

18:14Number two is, again, is an album that's released this month. It's Mick Jenkins and Emile. Released an album called A Murder of Crows. And I've got two songs from that, actually, to be fair. One of them is a single, Coco Gauff. And one is Words I Should Have Said, which has Eni on it. And Eni is... She goes in, bro. She goes... No, I heard from her in a minute. This is what I'm saying. I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad. This is why I was here for it, bro, because she's out here. All right, cool, cool. The collaboration from Mick Jenkins and Emile is mad in itself. Already, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you have Eddie on top of it.

18:53I was like, okay, this is crazy. So, yeah, definitely the album in general, because he's produced the whole album. So, it's all just clean, isn't it? Yeah. And I think it's a good, I thought I'd mention that because it's a good tie-in with Spotlight Artist, who's going to be better today. So, I thought we'll go in. We'll go straight in, you know? Why is it called Coco Gauff? Is there like a... Yeah, so Mick Jenkins, I don't know if he's got this theme of doing like songs about like sports, like sports personalities and stuff. Because one of my favorite songs of his is Scottie Pippin, which was from his album a couple of albums ago.

19:31Again, that must be like 2021, which is like four years ago, which is crazy. With Serpent with Feet, you know, the singer? Good singer. Give it a go. If you haven't listened to it. I've never heard of Serpent with you. Yeah, so give them a go. Anyways, so yeah, I don't know if this is kind of like a second iteration of that because it's the same type of production behind it as well. It's like a lot of, again, real instrument samples. So yeah, that's why it's Coco Gauff. And he makes references to Coco Gauff in the song. So that's my two. uh third the one more than you this is the difference maker basically the differentiator between uh 2015 i think is one of my i keep saying this i keep saying this is my favorite this is my favorite so these men are gonna be like how many favorites does this guy have but it's gonna be is this is like my one of my i'm trying to say not say favorite this is a song that I enjoy a lot and that came out at that time came out in 2015 and I was like this is one of the best songs I've heard in a long time and it's Vince Staples North North so pure hip-hop um damn that's 10 years old yes 10 that's what I'm saying it's 10 years old because I still I wanted to give a song that I listen to regularly and like might be one of my gym tunes that I keep on referring to and that and that is one of them um yeah vince staples i've been listening to him since like i was listening to like tyler the crater and i was sweatshirt and like odd future back in the day and he was kind of always adjacent to them and he was featured quite a lot in their songs and i was i was like who's this guy and then he started releasing obviously songs by himself and i'm like okay he's clean and obviously we've seen him live as well um and he was actually pretty good life so i can't i can't complain in it i can't complain so yeah north north so if you haven't given a listen to you what are you doing uh but and where do you need it you're 10 years too late now you're not too late because it still sounds like a very good song yeah it's still it still sounds like it could you could release it like this year yeah i feel like his music is quite timeless in the sense of yeah yeah a lot of his songs um he's kind of not experimental but he's slightly different to everyone else and it's got a unique sound so uh yeah so there's my three so i think that's three pretty sturdy sturdy choices i've gotten hard hitters this week it's not i've gone like oh yeah this is the new artist i've gone like big artists big tunes what are we saying so what have you got all right cool guys taking region rotation as a competition i see well i'm not going to entertain that because uh i don't stoop uh however i have two as you have uh alluded to god come on what's the two then um so two um i'm gonna start with uh uh an established artist to everyone well i would imagine a lot of people will be familiar with and that is mariah the scientist yeah uh she has a relatively new album out called heart sold separately okay uh which i have listened through to the whole time yeah recently uh 10 tracks uh includes uh burning blue and is it a crime which are like the two sort of like what's the what we saying what's the setting for listening to mariah what's the same bro it's straight r &b in it straight r &b is talking about relationships the struggles sort of like within relationships and uh interestingly you say that because i can segue into one of my points uh which is uh about the artwork so it's um like her as a toy green soldier essentially okay on a pink backdrop um and that is representing the war on love essentially in her words and uh yeah the emotional battles within relationships so that is the vibe that it uh that it is uh i guess in front of um and yeah for her like i think i first came across her with uh always and forever the tune with little baby yeah and that um yeah that's just been my tune for a while and um yeah it actually wasn't too long i think it's 2020 um and yeah i've just been checking for her ever since uh yeah that album's good that was good it's just good r &b you know um so that is yeah i think i was listening to it on my commute to be fair which is necessarily the best backdrop for r &b but um when would you listen to it i'll say like sunday afternoon chilling um or if indeed you are in your fields at any point then go ahead but as i say about the artwork she's um obviously it's obviously the green soldier thing and she's also cleverly like replicated that on stage as well so she's got like a whole um i'll say outfit i guess is what you would describe it which is like custom made like toy green soldier so he's got a helmet and some like uh like arm patches and straps and stuff and it's like all the same palette and it is made to look like that sort of plasticky material like rounded curved edges and stuff it's very really cool um so that's i think a really clever way of bringing bringing album yeah keeping it on theme so that's one uh would recommend if you haven't checked it out uh she's a g uh second one today is uh an artist called laza i believe that is how you say it apologies if it's not it's spelt l-a-z-a okay and the second a has like um an accent on it i think it's like the flat accent so i don't really know what sound that makes okay okay but um her like she distributes through i think her own label called la la land so i would assume it's larser yeah okay i hope so yeah okay but she uh yeah i discovered her recently she's from seattle in washington and um and helpfully i thought i feel like it's not the easiest to describe it it's like a bit of rap a bit melodic but for me the production was what stood out like it's very bouncy and it's quite um it's quite quite unique in that sense and although i say rap it's not sort of like um glorilla or cardi or sexy type rap it's like i don't know she i guess reminds me a bit of amore and sort of like okay her vocal tone is like relatively high i would say well not high pitch but like it complements the bounciness of like 808 really nicely uh by by contrast and so i would say check her out two tracks specifically one is called open till two and a second one is called tell the difference and that is with sango uh who she's worked with a half the time okay okay yeah i thought that might prick you all right you might be you might be winning this you know you might you've brought it back there you i was like okay i'll check out he wasn't trying to hear okay and i check it for real like she's really she's really good and um i'm only like one ep deep i think so i need to like check out the whole catalog but yeah would um would highly recommend her so those are my two strong two man strong two right artist spotlight venner let's go let's go so this week south london saxophonist producer artist overall overall like vibe curator and that you know so i'm gonna list off a quick bio because i'm not gonna go too deep in and maybe we can have a little discussion through it right sounds good so 26 years old south london when i know everyone's i know we'll get into that in a second we'll get into that in a second he's 26 years old yeah from south london went to school in like lucium and their men's and that um started playing saxophone at 12 um and then by 14 he was kind of already like a musician in bands and stuff like that and then started creating his own music at 17.

27:22He's Grammy Award winner from his work from Burner Boys album Twice as Tool. He has cited some of his biggest influences as Terrace Martin, Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, which Terrace Martin is heavily involved in, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the big JD, jay diller do you get me so uh a quote from him as well uh is he wants to be the pioneer of the next movement of music that will last forever so this is the type of voice that we're dealing with this week i hear it so question when did you first clock on to venner what were you saying what's the timeline i think it was 2018 i want to say i think the first time i properly clocked it well i'll say this i saw him at a nux show yeah um and that was when nux had just done uh the i want to say nrg 105 project the one with the orange artwork yeah and he had a show for that that was um at like colors hoxton i think yeah i think it's four weeks or something else but it was there and then i come out and played obviously they've worked together i think anyhow yeah and he played he played sacks for home um yes and so he he come out and did that live and i was like this guy's flipping cold yeah uh he's so nonchalant with it as well and i i think i had an awareness of him prior to that because when they said when nuts were like bringing out a banner i think i knew of him but i think that seeing him live definitely cemented it for me and i was like i need to like properly check him yeah it's difficult to get the timeline for this i'm not gonna lie after research because obviously he spent a lot of his time as a session musician yeah exactly even with Nux which I think Nux is probably the avenue that a lot of people discovered Venner I would say certainly for me I think that was the first time I I listened to Nux again he's one of the few UK artists that I kind of listened to quite a lot and then yeah all of a sudden I'm seeing Venner being involved but I'm not but he's not like a rapper or anything and I was thinking at the time i'm thinking who is this guy he's producing the albums and stuff and then i realized obviously it's the he's producing and he's like putting his saxophone in all these tunes and that making it all jazzed up and that so so yeah it's hard it's hard to get the timeline um what i found is uh 2019 was kind of when he started getting credited for things okay um so he was a session artist on uh on a green tea peng ep ep in 2019 um he is in burner boys african giant on anybody in 2019 oh man that's him he's actually in the beyonce the lion king soundtrack yeah in 2019 as well so that year was crazy for him but at this point he's still not um a featured artist but he's in the credits so he's still like a session i mean that gets you in the room with a lot of people if you need if you order right yeah so a couple of more artists that he's he's featured in or been a part of his obviously nux that we've mentioned snow allegra uh cody radical planet geyser jack james mick jenkins macego so it's like a some like artists some like music impressive it's impressive big music big music and so like 2019 what's that six years ago so he's like 20 years old like goodness rocking up into these things which is just insane um yeah so yeah yeah i'm the same with you i think through nux and then just popped up in different things but i never saw him i've never seen him live or anything like that which is something i really want to do um for me just my quick feelings about his music in general yeah I think it's obviously it's very rooted in jazz and can still be called jazz I guess it's kind of a blend from jazz to UK hip-hop and I think it's kind of he's kind of got his he's kind of redefining his own thing which is quite cool but I think it is a lot of it is quite escapism music but interestingly enough he actually has said he doesn't think that he would like to think it's like more intentional in his music um which is quite interesting which is what he said for this album okay um which uh which is quite cool yeah so he's 26 uh which is quite young well young pet to us i guess but if you listen to his music it's very grown man mature mature like i thought i think he's in his 30s for sure right i think he's he's figured things out like sophisticated yeah i like learned a lesson and he's like i'm gonna pour this emotion into my into my production yeah exactly exactly so So we're talking about his first album.

32:19That is called Malik, which was released this summer in June, I believe. But don't quote me on that. He's had two EPs before. So his first EP was Venology, which was 2021. And then he had Equinox in 2023. Okay. Right. That makes sense. I was under misconception that Equinox was an album, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's an EP. because that was probably, Equinox is probably the body of work that I listened to in its kind of entirety. But like for the first time in terms of Venner, before it's just kind of, I'd see his name and I'm like, oh yeah, this is going to sound good. And I wasn't really searching.

33:01I didn't know he had his own music. Yeah, because I feel like he's done stuff with Emil and people like that. And it's like just funky, great musical collaborations. But now he's obviously in his own right fully. like emil there's there's like a circle of artists that kind of a similar vein i would say and that collaborating with him quite a bit i've listed five here just to remind myself and people so i've use of days which is his i think um i think he's signed to use of days because they're both under the same record of cashmere thoughts is the record label that this is released under and uh which is an imprint on Brownswood recording, which is what Yusuf Deyze is attached to.

33:46So I really, I'm not like you, I'm not from the industry, so I don't really know how all that works. Yeah, it sounds confusing. Yeah. So, but I think he's under Yusuf Deyze or they're the only two artists in that label. So, and that's why he's featured quite a lot in the new album as well. Yeah. Ezra Collective, Emil, Mansell Brown, Marco Bernardis. I don't know how to say that. so we're gonna have to look at that one but that there are a couple of the the uk artists that are like uh producers and musicians um that also release their own music which i always find cool it's hard to it's a hard transition to be go from a session musician to all of a sudden releasing your own things um which i think he's done really well and so of those artists that i've mentioned so do we do we call do we call it jazz what are we saying or is it a new is a new genre all those artists kind of in that same bag of kind of jazz uk hip-hop what are we thinking it definitely started as jazz yeah and i think when you when you start and you're so prominent on the saxophone i think people always gonna like reference back to that and then call you jazz yeah by virtue of that but i do think that he's to your point really about what you said about like the the real instruments yeah and using all of that and it being like live recordings and him the the quote about um like real music that's long lasting type thing like yeah i think it transcends that um but i also think it's probably a bit too um like blinkered to call him one genre I think it's just like it's just great music and musicality I think he's moved away from traditional jazz in a sense of like um what you might expect that to be the fact that one of his biggest influences Terrence Martin who's a U.S.

35:49saxophonist that does production and releases his own music as well um I think it kind of he is kind of like the UK version of that um um there a part of uh obviously i've mentioned a couple of episodes about like neo soul and that's kind of music that i listened to but a part of that movement um in like the late 90s slash early 2000s was um neo soul but experimental jazz slash soul slash black black music in general which had like quest love from the roots it had like jay dilla had like q-tip uh d 'angelo um that were all doing this production and they were all kind of doing things like rooting in like old school soul or r &b but kind of trying to take it into new new levels and yeah one of the kind of artists that he said he would love to collaborate in the future was erica badu q-tip and actually anyone from the soul aquarians era which is basically they are the producers from the soul Aquarians era a couple other artists are like Bilal, Common, Mostef, Tyler Qualley those type of artists so it's almost it's almost like he's kind of doing a UK reflection of that sound which I find really interesting so it kind of doesn't it's got a lot of rootings in jazz but But it's not.

37:19Yeah, it's not. It's not. Because one of my next questions is kind of, if someone doesn't like jazz, because not everyone likes jazz. For sure. Could you still play Venna and change their mind and say, like, listen to this, you'll have it. Defo. Because, yeah, I agree. My missus doesn't, she's not. I listen to jazz all the time. She's not hugely on it. But I made sure, especially leading to this, I was playing the album a couple of times trying to see if I get reactions here and there. And she was like, oh, what's this? Especially in this album in particular, there's some actually like really well built songs.

38:00So, for example, the Georgia Smith single, which is called Myself, I believe. It's just a good song. And you would probably call it like it's close to Neo Soul. It's kind of impossible, really. and yeah I think anyone who likes kind of good good music with like feeling would enjoy that yeah I think so and I think if you're someone who if you're someone who likes music and you would enjoy the idea of going to a show and seeing a full band perform then I think irrespective of whether you want that to be led by electric guitar or whether you want that to be like you know even a pop act I think if you like live music yeah the way in which he records I think this is like perfect for for you and yeah irrespective of genre I think it is definitely different to jazz and I can understand why jazz might not be to everybody's liking but just because music has like brass instruments within it it doesn't mean that it is jazz by like arrangement and nature yeah yeah and I think to be fair I think jazz artists or musicians are like the first to say this isn't jazz because it's like that the the genre in itself is about kind of constantly changing and being different right and like testing new grounds so it's yeah it's yeah it's kind of a not an insult but like i don't think they want to be just jazz anyways do they so it's always interesting i think benna we did we're doing vena this week sasha keble last week um koji radical the week before these are kind of all artists like very rich music um but we touched on it um last week i believe a little bit it's not necessarily like algorithm friendly right um there's no like 50s 15 second tiktok moment or anything like that um can can someone like venner ever go like completely blow up and go like viral if you will or does that even matter to him i'll answer the second question first i think just by his approach to things and how laid back he is yeah guy i would say no it doesn't really matter to him yeah however i don't think anyone would ever be like averse to that in a sense of like it brings you new audience and you know if streams and your song increase and blah blah you could sell tickets and do more revenue which is obviously always a good thing um and he's established like such a core audience of people who know him loving for the music i think nux is an interesting case study with this because even he like popped on socials with like los pollos hermanos yeah um which is like a random one and a half minute sort of snippet which transpires like i heard from his manager that he wrote that for like a puma ad oh so it was only that's why it's only one verse because he was like going back in to write the second one his manager was like this is all they need this is all that they've asked for we don't need to be making it into a fully fledged song wow um lo and behold i think like his i think it's his biggest streamed song to date um and that was something that went on and like did crazy on on socials hence why it's got so many streams and it's like he there was never any intention of that and i think right music does that find find its home eventually yeah so you don't you don't think like looking into bigger things not like a problem with the current landscape and how music is received like i feel a lot of the time there's no reward for like proper like musicianship uh and it's all it's a lot of it is like branding essentially right like is that is that an issue or we is it is it fine like is it like the way the way we was talking about like dave and stuff there's not again that the album's not like uh it's not exactly social media friendly in it like um right and is is that is that a problem is that a problem for the artists or uh is that a problem for like their legacy nah like personally you know like obviously as we alluded to like i'm in the industry and stuff and you see so often that like you've got teams dedicated to audience building and dedicated to social media and dedicated to content and what's going to be the most shareable the most hooky what is you know not and this doesn't impact the A &R i.e.

42:19the music making process but once the music is brought to you then you're like okay what of this feels like it's got potential for people to create to basically is there a trend worthy lyric in there is there a transition video worthy drop in there and those sorts of conversations but I don't think it's an issue I think those things are like if you're going for commercial success or used to being you know top of the charts and stuff then it makes sense that you're wanting to use every like thing in your arsenal to make sure that you stay there yeah um but i think for people who wear music is you know just the the purity of it is the goal then i think it's it's an added bonus isn't it yeah it's added bonus and then i look at someone like cleo soul who obviously we've spoken about a touch before and like she similar to you know someone like a j cole or whatever is like she comes back and she's like his album drops it and then kind of disappears and people you know people still love it she's got a great audience and she's an artist where it's like if you know or even if you know you know to make it sound niche but if you know good music then she's going to come into the conversation in it and you look then she's gone and done like they did with with salt they did drum sheds and sold like tickets that were like i think 100 pound each and no one knew what it was going to be but because it was because of the scarcity like it generated such a demand and people loved it and then she obviously did all points east which for i think some reasons is slightly out of her control wasn't the best experience but again like you draw you build it draw a crowd that's like over 30 000 capacity and you know sell tickets and stuff so i don't think it's an issue i think it can be a catalyst for some artists and i think it can be a bonus for some um but i think i don't ever think anyone should be chasing that as like the uh the sort of golden goose if you will oh i was gonna really try to release some music and become the next guy but go for it go for it each to their own yeah no i no i i completely agree to be fair i think yeah for someone like venner i think um even if you listen to him speak and kind of listen to his interviews and stuff you can see like it is like a proper like artistry like uh very much um you can tell like the way he makes music is going to be through like sessions and just with a bunch of musicians and kind of seeing what kind of comes out of it it's all very feeling and you you feel that when you listen to his music so yeah for sure have you listened to the album like the whole i have not i've not listened to Malik know.

44:55So I've got to persuade you to listen to it. Will you listen to it after this? Why should I? I need to know. I've seen the artwork. I've seen a couple features on there. Yeah. And I'm obviously already a fan. I've not got around to it. So is it different to his previous stuff? Obviously I know it's being self titled. I feel like it's sort of like a statement and encapsulating this is me. Yes, exactly. That was one of my points that I was going to bring up to be fair. I think it it feels personal the album for sure um again the same way you mentioned dave the features feel feel very deliberate and like they it doesn't feel like anything's there just for like this is the single we gotta go crazy kind of thing um yeah so yeah a lot of great music musicians and artists that are involved in this i would say yeah don't be dissuaded just like dissuaded if if you're just thinking oh it's jazz i'm trying to i'm not really trying to be all jazzed up and stuff i would i'd say yeah the georgia smith single is kind of a great entry point i would say because it shows you that there are different things in the album like there are very like my favorite song is actually the last song on the album which is called eternal reflections which is which is with use of days and i mean as the song the song title suggests eternal reflections it's like it is super reflective super jazz hella pensive like it is like yeah it's quite emotional it's quite like a long like a long song as as like a jazz song would be as well um but yeah and that that's from somebody who likes jazz and stuff but then i would equally say one of the singles my way um which uh benna did a colors show for as well yeah is uh a great entry point as well so give that a watch if you haven't and yeah that hopefully that will get you onto the album quick shout out as well to uh will komodo um that we've met the sound engineer and guitarist who features on that song as well oh i swear yeah yeah so he's he's the guitarist on on that song i'm not sure i'm not sure a couple yeah right i'm sick it's crazy bro what's mom like yeah i know i someone who's involved in this album yeah so um shout shout out to will when settings for this like when to listen to this and stuff i would say it's a mixture it's as i said it's like some of it is like feels like kind of escapism like i can i can play it um like around the house and like when i want to be set in a certain mood i'm like a oh i know you're very much like you guys host and do like dinner parties and stuff like that so it'll be great for that because they'll be like who's this smooth guy like what's going on so it'll be great stuff like that yeah yeah but i think it as benna wants as well i think it is good for like intentional listening as well i think like yeah if you sit down and you kind of listen to all the things that are happening in in the songs and in the album i think it would be very good um so yeah man that's that's that's me man that's me it's a good album any questions anything that you want to know more

48:18when you say it's personal like is it personal in like the feeling that the musicianship evokes or is it like yes lyrical yeah I wouldn't say it's super lyrical I mean there's loads of songs with like no lyrics at all which is which kind of leads to like lends itself to people saying it's like escapism and kind of more jazzy and stuff um but it's like certain art like artists and musicians like you can you know it's them all you have to do is hear like you can hear venners tones and stuff uh and if you're i think i mean i don't really know like i'm not a musician and stuff or whatever but i feel if you're like a really great musician like you can almost tell a story just through sounds like one of my favorite again i've said my favorite again uh my but my favorite jazz musician is miles davis um and like if you listen to some of his albums like sketches of spain and stuff it like you just listen to it and it takes it takes you there you can feel you're in like 1950s spain like and i don't even know i don't know about anything you've been historically or like geographically i don't you know about that yeah but i you feel that straight off the bat you get me that's such a talent to be able to convey a time yeah and a feeling through it's like speak it speaks to you it's like it's proper it's proper cringe saying that but no no but he's one of the artists like it makes you think like music is deeper than this like it's crazy like uh it's not surface level it's almost you almost feel like there's so much more that you're not even understanding in it kind I think you get me and some like some lyricists and stuff it's like that as well like you need to like listen back to it to hear deeper like deeper things and stuff like that and I feel you can do that just with instruments so yeah definitely definitely listen to Venner listen to Malik the album and yeah we're gonna check it out this week do it man Malik is gonna be on it's gonna be on yeah well maybe we'll check in the next episode you can let me know quick that's a homework let me know how you feel maybe you could actually do some type of homework this time you know goodness goodness so yeah the end of episode 4 it's been a very UK centric episode today we've been going through Dave we've been discussing Vemma all of the great music coming out of London coming out of the UK it's great to see you yeah South London has been on the map today isn't it so yeah shout out to them man producing a lot of good artists and good music so keep it coming cool well yeah I think that comes to the end of episode 4 let's call it there let's wrap it up and it's been good and I guess we'll just see everyone next episode I guess so alright cool peace