Free your body: Ezra Collective are bringing dancing back to jazz

Like Olabisi Ajala, the Nigerian travel writer and journalist whose infamous trek across 87 countries on a Vespa scooter is immortalised on the album’s rhythmically grandiose lead single ‘Ajala’, Ezra used all they saw, touched, tasted and experienced on dancefloors across nations like Nigeria, Australia, Ireland, Turkey, Spain, New York and more to form the record’s stimulus.

Their time in Nigeria came via a humbling opportunity to perform at Femi Kuti’s fabled New Afrika Shrine, the open-air nightclub in Ikeja, Lagos State. It’s created in the image of the original Afrika Shrine venue founded by his father Fela Kuti, which burned down in the 1970s. “Playing in a Black country for the first time was very, very, very deep for Ezra Collective, I saw so much of the culture I’ve known, lived, and grown up with in its most authentic version,” Femi emphatically states with a still noticeable essence of pure wonder and gratitude. It also signalled a posthumous co-sign from a landmark figure central to Ezra’s musical ecosystem. “That building’s significance to our musical identity goes without saying”, Mollison comments. Ife, however, was most moved by his encounters with the crowds in Japan. “It’s always interesting to see how everyone’s choice of dance can vary culturally. The way those guys jumped from minute one all the way to the end was crazy. Especially because you’d tend to think they’re more reserved,” he says.

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It was during this trek that the album’s title was born. “On-stage early last year, I remember saying to an audience, ‘The only dance I want to see is a dance like no one’s watching. I’m going to give every single person here permission to dance not mosh, not jump, but dance’,” recalls Femi. When I push on why he makes a point to specify the ban on moshing, Femi says: “They provide a hiding space that dancing doesn’t. The problem is people feel a self-consciousness with dancing. The beauty of a mosh pit is everyone looks mad and no one cares. That’s what a dancefloor should be like but it isn’t. I wanted to make that distinction.”

This distinction is made abundantly clear by the album’s striking artwork. When I note that it reminded me of Marvin Gaye’s 1976 classic ‘I Want You’, Femi confirms that was deliberate. “It’s the most perfect depiction of what I believe the dancefloor should be. They’re not even looking at each other. They’re just in the moment,” he says. Indeed, when looking at that original iconic painting by Ernie Barnes, it’s hard not to notice the arched backs, the expressive faces, the complete loss of inhibition. It epitomises what dancefloors should be — a place to bring our collective guards down, a place where we can momentarily disarm our perceptive armours. A restorative place where everyone can be brought to the same level. “That picture became our mission statement,” declares Femi.