Sam Akpro’s debut, Evenfall, is a record you feel as much as hear. Backdropped by South London noir, tales of friendships forged in skate parks and days spent chasing the night contort and combust. Ambient sounds slouch around dark corners, race you down tracks, push you through crowds and lift you into the sky. Guitars wail, saxophones squeal and woozy, languid beats drip and morph like oil in water. Suddenly, you’re floating across jazz rhythms alongside muffled vignettes of forgotten conversations – next you’re running over drumloops, splashing through puddles of reverb down streets warped by adrenaline. It’s a record that immerses, a wake-up call that chimes when the sun begins to set. As with many works of great cultural virtue, Evenfall is released alongside a manifesto, penned by South London musician, wordsmith and curator of spoken word night Adult Entertainment, James Massiah. 

James Massiah: How’s things with you?
Sam Akpro: Yeah, alright. Just been getting waved a lot really, to be honest. [James laughs] Trying to figure out music.

JM: You like the thing I wrote? [James’ manifesto for Sam’s record]
SA: Yeah man, it’s hard.

JM: Love. When I finished it I was thinking it might need some edits, but I read it back and was like, “Man, this is actually kind of cold.”
SA: The one-take thing is pretty good, you know.

JM: So, what have we been up to other than…
SA: Other than… [both laugh] Hedonism. Just working on stuff. Thinking about the future, about what I’m trying to do.

JM: I tell you what, do you know I saw that the other day? A video from when you played at Paradise Now [an event organised by Obongjayar]. It was mad. I was DJing that night as well. I was like, “Rah, Sam Akpro is not one to miss.” Do you like performing, yeah?
SA: Yeah. It wasn’t something that I thought I would be doing [because] of my personality? I guess because it’s very different to how I am.

JM: It’s fun and interesting. I like translating the music that I’ve made into a living, breathing thing. Do you know Babacar [N’doye]?
SA: Nah.

JM: I was actually with him this weekend. I feel like you guys need to meet. He’s a model but he’s got his hand in a lot of pies. I want to make you guys connect. He inspires me, and we talk about my tunes, my music. How you describe it [reminds] me of how he speaks. Another time. How did we meet?
SA: At your gig, innit.

JM: Yeah, because [Tommy] Wallwork was bigging you up so much. That was what it was. It’s funny because London’s like that – I guess, the ‘scene’ is like that. Where you’ll hear someone’s name first and get a sense of who they are, then you form a full picture in your mind. I tell you the truth, man, like you’re blessed, you’re calm, but from how he was describing your music I was thinking it was going to be some uncontrollable youth! [Sam laughs] Unruly. I guess you must have that energy in you, it comes out, but you’re so level.
SA: I think I’ve just become a bit more mature. I’ve been doing music since I was twenty. I was doing a lot of stuff before the music, you get me? Whatever it was, like graffiti, all this other shit.

JM: Skate as well, right?
SA: Skating, yeah. You know, just finding ways of making money. I’ve gone through a lot of different layers as a person to get to where I am now, which is more hyper-focused on one thing.

JM: Do you consider yourself a producer?
SA: Yeah, a producer mainly. When I started I was just making beats, then I was putting my voice on the thing and people were like, “Ah, yeah, yeah.” [James laughs] I was like, “Fuck it.” I think about the lyrics and that, but more on production. I’m quite nerdy with that shit. What about yourself? How do you see yourself as an artist, producer, lyricist?

JM: So, we just posted the single that’s come out with Lord Tusk [Open Up]. He produced that one, and it’s so funny because you have to take into account that there’s more than one way to skin a cat. So even if you do say ‘producer’, I’ll see him and how he works and think, “Rah, I’m not a ‘producer.’” [laughs] Because he’s so meticulous with it. But then at the same time, I think I’ve got to give myself credit for the fact that, even when I’m like, logging on to Logic, and it’s taken me what, three, four years to finish an EP. That’s my process. I’m a producer, I’ve just got a different process. My EP, True Romance, came out this year and I produced that all myself. I’m so proud of that project because I just listened back to old beats of mine and I’m like, “Rah, this ain’t hitting nothing.” But when I first made them, I loved them! Because you’re getting something out, it’s just the creativity that’s good in the first instance. But I think once people start to appreciate it, play it out themselves or hit you up like, “Yo, I heard that tune you made and I enjoyed it,” or “It made me think about this moment in time.” I had people telling me this heartbreak tune got them through their heartbreaks. That’s what it’s about. So yeah, producer, poet, artist. But it’s funny because working on stuff now I’ll say I’m a writer. It almost gets to the point where it depends who you’re speaking to.
SA: I hear you, man. Contextualising it for different groups of people. That [True Romance] EP is sick.

JM: Thank you, man. That whole record is about a particular time in life. During the time I made it, there was just a whole bunch of fuckery in my life. A lot of it was down to my own short-sightedness. I guess you’re riding high, everything’s blessed, and you get caught up in the blessedness of it all. You forget that you have to grind, you forget that you have to get some sleep and go to the gym and have something of a routine, go studio and have a practice. People tell you that you’re sick, and you start to love that. [laughs] You just want to be out all the time enjoying it. So yeah, that record was me kind of crash landing and picking up the pieces, I guess. What was the inspiration behind your record?
SA: The same kind of thing. A build-up of experiences in the last three, four years of making music and just living at the same time. The title of the album, Evenfall, the definition is the onset of evening into dusk. Especially during the summer, that’s my favourite time of the day, when it’s like 7pm, it’s getting slightly dark, kind of orangey, and then it goes darker. Everyone’s still active as well. That’s when my day’s starting. [both laugh] That’s just the vibe really, I try not to go too conceptual.

JM: I’ve got a friend and when we jam together she makes fun of me for my selections because she thinks that I’m moist with it. She’ll play like, really hard stuff, really conceptual, like math-metal and math-rock, far-out stuff. And I’ll play, I don’t know, ‘mainstream bands.’ I play Slipknot or whatever.
SA: I fuck with bait music though, innit. [James laughs] You just like it, if something’s really experimental it’s hard to… [You] listen to it a few times and then you get it.

JM: Ultimately, good music is music that you like. I feel like there are people whose approach to it is almost like they’re trying to crack music open. And that’s good, that’s important. In production, those people are important because they find new ways of working that end up becoming ‘mainstream,’ or the accepted way. So this friend of mine, I enjoy jamming with her, even though she’s a bit of a troll. [laughs] There’ll be times when she’ll play a tune and I’m [like], “I know you’re just trying to ‘out-tune’ me, but this one’s actually good.” [laughs] Who are the people that you see as references or points of inspiration?
SA: I’ve got a few. Miles Davis is one. I read his biography and the way he thought about music in terms of trying to change all the time. He was doing jazz but he was trying not to stick to that one thing. So I fuck with Miles Davis for that kind of shit. Yves Tumor is another one.

JM: Yeah, trust.
SA: Blending sampling with live music and experimental. It’s what I’m into, all different types of music making.

JM: I definitely see that. I’ve actually got a tune with them that needs to come out.
SA: Oh really?

JM: Yeah, it’s unreleased. Maybe 2025 we’ll get that out.
SA: That’s sick, I can’t wait to hear that.

JM: When we link up I’ll play it to you.
SA: Word, word, word. And then, I would say Dean Blunt.

JM: Legend.
SA: Especially when I was starting and trying to find a Black artist to look to for doing out there shit. It wasn’t even through music, it was that Boiler Room thing.

JM: The panel talk? [Dean Blunt participated in Boiler Room’s Black Lives Matter UK roundtable]
SA: Yeah, that was the first thing I saw. I was like, “This guy.” [both laugh]

JM: I’ll tell you a true story. I was in Mitcham at my parents’ place and that was happening in Brixton. I was watching the livestream and as soon as it kicked off, I jumped on my bike and cycled as fast as I could to get down to the Black Cultural Archives. I saw him out there and we like, chopped it up. I was like, “Yo, what happened? What went down?” And we put the world to rights in our own way. Looking back, that’s become quite an iconic moment. I think it really did… When I say draw the lines, just as far as where people are at intellectually or in their heads. I think there’s room for a more nuanced conversation when it comes to things like race, art, culture, community, class, where it isn’t just like…
SA: …Black and white?

JM: A Black and white thing, you know? Yeah, man. That was important. As I talk to him and jam with you, I’m like “Yeah, this is people.” I’ve got older bredrens who are in their 40s or whatever and they’re like, [moaning about the younger generation]. And I’m like, “Nah, you need to hear Sam.” What with generations and ages and stuff, I hate that kind of conversation. Really and truly, it’s just people who get it. Whatever the thing is that you’re talking about, some people just get it. It isn’t about them being from a certain place or a certain generation. It’s just some people catch on to the different points of reference.
SA: Definitely.

JM: Are you into film as well?
SA: Yeah, I like films. I like random shit. Some of my favourite films are like, Mission: Impossible, stuff like that.

JM: What about the Bourne trilogy?
SA: I’ve never watched the Bourne trilogy, you know.

JM: I’m begging you, please, please, please. Watch the first one and if you don’t like it, I’ll put my hands up. But if you like it, then just chain- smoke them back-to-back.
SA: I will. There’s a director I like called Mike Leigh. He’s a British director, but he makes films deeply rooted in reality.

JM: I just Googled him. Secrets & Lies, Naked, Hard Truths.
SA: Yeah, Secrets & Lies is an interesting one. It’s this Black woman who finds her biological mother living in poverty, and her mom is white – it’s some weird, crazy story. It’s really cool, it’s not something that you see every day. There’s this other one, Naked, which is probably one of his most popular ones. It’s quite dark. It’s about this guy, he’s done something bad in Manchester and drives down to London for the weekend. He links up with his girlfriend who he manipulates, and then there are these other stories going on within his story with his girlfriend’s housemate who’s abused by this guy who’s the landlord, some really rich don but he’s just a weirdo. It all takes place over a weekend in London.

JM: Do you want to shoot your own stuff at some point?
SA: I mean, if I was to do something like that, I would do it through shooting my own thing and having the music tell the story underneath it, like a score. That’s just very difficult. Would you do something like that?

JM: I guess I’ve done that over the years, little clips, poetry stuff or freestyles. But I do think more and more that I want to find different ways to express the ideas and concepts that I have. Even as far as writing essays, non- fiction stuff, but also scripts. Not even necessarily like… I guess I want them to be performed on stage or as a film. But I just enjoy that process of writing dialogue and inventing conversations. I enjoy conversation, I think there’s an art to it and I like to explore that. I think even more than directing, I’d like to do more writing, scriptwriting and screenplays.
SA: What’s the process of that?

JM: The thing is, I really do appreciate people who study these things, because there is definitely a certain amount of rigour, or there’s an accepted way of doing things, a process. I guess I go with a feeling. I’ve got a visual idea, and then go from there. Humour is a big thing for me, so I try to think of funny situations or things that make me laugh. Usually I am talking about something serious, a serious message, but having humour is a really good tonic for getting the gin through.
SA: Deffo, for sure.

Sam Akpro plays Moth Club on April 24th.