In this interview feature, we get to know the most radicalist up and coming stars on the planet.       

This time we speak with Jordan Mackampa, whose beautiful modern soul is layered with blues and folk influences. 

Foreigner, his debut album is full of eleven masterful pieces of modern soul music. He is able to balance beautifully produced, mesmeric composition with relatable, politically-charged lyrics, while letting poignant messages merge with catchy, upbeat melodies. He is sitting on a back catalogue of equally impressive EPs and singles, but isn’t afraid to allow his sound to evolve into what we can hear on the album. Despite a polished, refined studio sound, Mackampa is also a prolific live performer. His self-proclaimed inability to feel nervous while on stage leads naturally into a bold performance every time, with a string of headline dates coming up soon around the UK and Europe. 

We were lucky enough to catch up with the British singer about everything from air piano to Gnarles Barkley. 

TMR: Which track that we haven’t already heard from Foreigner are you most excited for your audience to hear? Why?

Probably a song called ‘Tight’, it’s song I wrote for anyone who needs a message to say I’ll love you and hold you until you don’t need me to hold on to you anymore because you’re doing ok now.  

TMR: What was it about ‘Under’ that made you use it as the first single from the upcoming album?

 It felt the most ‘different’ from anything else I’d released in previous years, I released it one year apart from my last single ‘One In The Same’ with a brand new look/style behind me and my music.

  TMR: My favourite track on the album is the title track. How did you make that explosive, grandiose moment in the middle fit so smoothly between the quiet, isolated textures either side?

I knew from the moment I wrote the song, that section in the middle was going to sound exactly like that! Especially because the lyrics in that section are all about triumph but realising that success & growth, doesn’t come without change; as well as knowing that staying in a place that you aren’t wanted, but knowing that you’re entitled to be there too, is a tough road to navigate. So I wanted to showcase that battle through the musicality of the strings, change in time signature and fast paced drums.

TMR: How did you manage to marry the bouncy folk-soul of ‘What Am I’ with the bleak messages that exist within it?

It was a conscious thought between making a groove that fits well that gives you that ‘head bop’ moment and lyrics that actually say something, so that if you were to just sing the song acapella, you would stop & think about what the lyrics are saying and say ‘oh sh*t this is really powereful’!



TMR: There are political undertones in Foreigner (on ‘What Am I’ in particular), but is there anything you didn’t say in the album that you wish you had?

Everything I said on this album I meant, and anything I missed out on will be on the next one I’m sure!

TMR: What was your approach to the structure of the album? Do you view the album as a collection of songs that can be listened to in any order, or do you see Foreigner as one entity that needs to be heard as a whole?

Both! The way I see this album is kinda like being in a bookstore and looking at a shelf of stories to read, each song is a story and depending on what you’d like to hear, you pick the song that suits you at the time, but by all means listen to the album all the way through, think of it like an audiobook but without the voice of Morgan Freeman!

TMR: What was your first experience making music? What did it sound like?

Awful ahaha! The first couple of songs I wrote when I was about 7 or 8 were terrible, I’d steal raps from singers I saw on MTV Base back in the day, flip them and make them sound accurate to me - I hope to god the VHS footage never see’s the light of day!  

TMR: I hear everything from Marvin Gaye to Gnarles Barkley in your music. Who are some of the more leftfield influences on your writing?

Bombay Bicycle Club, Radiohead, Coldplay, Young The Giant, Moby, Death Cab For Cutie and sh*tload of Grime, UK Rap and Drill and yet somehow I still manage to make music that sounds like me! 

TMR: Having said that, who would be your dream collaborator?

I’ve been wanting to work with electronic dance producers/artists like SG Lewis or Disclosure for a very long time - I’ve got IDEAS!!!

TMR: Do you get more satisfaction from seeing the audience response to live shows or studio releases? 

Live shows - always. I played a show in Philadelphia for the first time last year whilst touring with Amber Run as their opener. During ‘Foreigner’ I watched this girl in the front row, eyes closed, air playing the piano to herself whilst I was singing the song on stage, as if she were at home with no one else around her, completely in her own world. I almost cried. That, to me, isn’t something you can replicate through Instagram reactions or Twitter retweets, which I was why I urge people to come to my live shows, you’ll feel all the feels in a different way, trust me!



By Dan Peeke