Inside Orii Jam, the London-based jam session putting Black and queer creatives at the forefront

What impact has Orii Jam had on the local music community in London?

We hope that Orii Jam has been a positive force within the local music community, driving collaboration, support and togetherness. We’ve seen artists such as Sunshine The Afrooist, NuAloe, Mar!k, Nayana AB, and Yumé Net develop over the years, from releasing killer tracks to producing debut albums, and playing at Cross The Tracks. We’ve seen collectives like Da Community and bands such as Oreglo, Xambi, and Abeng, who met and formed through Orii Jam, headlining shows. We know that Orii Jam has inspired many musicians from our weekly jams to start their own jam sessions – Mezzo’s Corner (Mezzo), Donut Jam (Charley Flynn), Kolakale Kollective (Asaph Kolakale), and The Five Points Project.

We hope for Orii to continue to be a space for artists to connect to like-minded creatives, and build their own projects outside of the jam space. We launched a new series around a year ago called Orii Takeover to do exactly this, inviting peers, collectives, bands, and communities within the local scene and beyond to come and take over Orii Jam. This allows us to utilise our platform to continue pushing the culture, spotlighting grassroots talent and collaborating within the scene, hosting names such as Colectiva, Da Community and Peng Femme.

Can you tell us about some of the offshoot projects you’ve created alongside your regular jam sessions?

We’ve launched several offshoot projects since our conception, including Orii Cypher, Orii Club, and Orii Presents, which we recently debuted at The Southbank Centre with round two set for October 4, 2024.

Orii is as multifaceted as the artists we welcome week after week at our jam sessions, and so we feel called to give a face to the DJs within our community, to the rappers, to the videographers, etc. We are consistently working on new concepts, new ideas and new projects in order to spotlight the array of talent we have surrounding us.

Our latest concept is Orii Club, which we launched in Paris last year at Djoon, welcoming Shy One, Wakanda and Neue Grafik. Our recent collaboration with Keep Hush invited our favourite London DJs for a day party at The Fox and Firkin – you can watch the full live stream back on Keep Hush’s Youtube. We’ll also be bringing Orii Club to We Out Here this year with Damantal Messiah, supported by Monkey Shoulder.

We’ll also be launching a brand new concept on August 22 at MOKO – Orii Iyika. Inspired by the principles of “Iyika” – unity, revolution and eternity – we’ll be inviting emerging artists to debut intimate performances, showcasing themselves and their artistry, emphasising the transformative power of storytelling and music in fostering connections among people.

We are also working on an album… more to come on that soon.

Essentially, we are working steadily but surely in building an outlet for all creatives to have a space within Orii Community. Stay with us.

How important is Orii Jam for nurturing new talent and platforming emerging artists?

This is the core mission of our organisation – all of the artists we know and love came from the grassroots – and in order to continue pushing culture we have to nurture new talent at the source. In hosting bi-weekly jam sessions, we hope to continue to provide a space for new talent to develop; for artists to figure out who they are musically and what they have to say; for vocalists to connect with producers; for sound engineers to train their ear; for photographers to hone their skills, etc.

We will continue to platform emerging artists through projects such as Orii Presents, showcasing emerging talent and providing them with the opportunity to perform within local institutions, through our performances at festivals, inviting artists to play at the likes of GALA and We Out Here, and our newest concept Orii Iyika, which will allow artists to tell their stories and perform their first headline show.

Can you tell us about some of your favourite memories or rewarding moments at Orii Jam over the years?

One of our favourite memories was Orii Jam at We Out Here – we held a 2.5 hour jam session on the Saturday and saw every young musician from the festival coming through to perform! There was a queue round the back of the stage and musicians lined up with their instruments ready to jump on stage and jam. It was a beautiful moment for us all, and really opened our eyes to the scene beyond London, encouraging us to try and bring Orii Jam to other cities across the UK.

A hugely rewarding moment for us was performing at The Southbank Centre, showcasing the likes of Benji Appiah, Doom Cannon, Zamar Eden, Lizzie Berchie, Blue Lab Beats and so many more incredible artists. That’s when we realised how far we’d come as a community and it hit hard.

Finally, our birthday celebrations are always memorable, our first year celebration at fabric hosted by Rhythm Section, and our recent third year celebration at The Jazz Cafe. It always feels special to celebrate another year of Orii surrounded by so many incredibly kind, loving and talented people. We feel truly grateful for the community we’ve all built together.

Where do you see your project in 5 years?

In 5 years?! We hope for a lot… we’re ambitious! Number one, we hope for Orii to still be jamming every week. Our jam sessions are at the heart of what we do, and we hope Orii will always be an accessible space for all musicians in our scene.

We’d like to be a fully-fledged label, developing, producing and releasing artists, instrumentalists, producers and bands within our community. In building Orii from a grassroots jam into a label supporting POC and LGBTQ+ creatives, we hope through our continued development, Orii will become a sustainable organisation with the capacity to continue to support these young creatives with performance opportunities and work in the future. Our aim is to become a launchpad for their careers, and continue to act as a home for young creatives in London and across the UK.

We hope to have released a couple of albums, have a few national and international tours under our belt, and continue bringing established and emerging artists together in different spaces.

So yeah, nothing major, just your usual 5 year plan, right?

Find out more about Studio Monkey Shoulder here, and listen to Orii Jam’s playlist below.