MUMBAI: Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer, and songwriter Jordan Rakei shares his latest single “Clouds”, the third single to be released from his third studio album via Ninja Tune, titled ‘What We Call Life’.
Following global conversations that have taken place over the last 18 months around race and discrimination, the track sees Jordan reflect on his own mixed race heritage (his father is a Pacific Islander, his mother white) and the privileges that his light skin has afforded him in Western society. “That whole movement made me think about this a lot, and then therapy enabled me to write about it,” Jordan comments. “I’d never been that open about this in the past.”
‘What We Call Life’ represents a conscious shift from Jordan to write more openly from the heart. Something that he attributes to listening to singer-songwriters like Laura Marling, Scott Matthews, Joni Mitchell, and John Martyn while writing his new record. “Their lyrics are usually very honest, and sometimes not even ambiguous,” he says. “I was jealous of how open they were, when my stuff in the past had been more like commentary.”
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Jordan Rakei – “Clouds” (Official Audio)
Such introspective subjects are a departure from Jordan’s last album, 2019’s ‘Origin’, which raised big questions about the way that technology and social media interferes with our sense of humanity. ‘Origin’ received praise from notable platforms like The Observer, Mixmag, Complex, and GQ, earned an unexpected shout-out from Elton John, led to a collaboration with rap legend Common, and saw Jordan give a show-stopping performance for NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. No stranger to collaboration, Jordan is closely associated with friends and collaborators like Loyle Carner (with whom he co-wrote, produced and performed on “Ottolenghi” and the Jorja Smith-featuring “Loose Ends”), Tom Misch and Alfa Mist. He has also joined Chic’s Nile Rodgers for a writing session and recorded with Terrace Martin, producer for Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, and Herbie Hancock. Besides being a lyrical step forward, forthcoming album ‘What We Call Life’ expands Jordan’s sonic vocabulary too. While the heart of the record will be familiar to fans of his neo-soul and hip-hop-infused work, here Jordan dives deeper into his sound world, merging electronic with acoustic, and rugged grooves with ambient atmospheres, to create something richer, more detailed, and more textural than before.
