Theophilus London – ‘Tribe’
In the game of writing about new music, artist come and go. In the near-eight years I’ve been doing this though, there’s been a few artists who never quite broke out but remained. One of which is Theophilus London, who I first wrote about back in 2009.
Somewhat surprisingly, Theophilus is pitching at a bigger reach with his new album Vibes!, which is executive-produced by none other than Kanye West which probably just means he heard the songs walking past in the hallway and proclaimed them dope. Actually, “Kanye West decided he wanted to help the culture through my voice and music,” said Theophilus while presumably trying to keep a straight face. “He agreed to be Executive Producer after hearing ‘Neu Law’ in his car system while driving through Paris,” he expanded. Kanye features on a track too in fairness. Other contributions come from soul producer Leon Ware (Marvin Gaye, Teena Marie, Michael Jackson, Loose Ends, Bobby Womack), Soko and Dev Hynes.
Theophilus has been hustling as three of the album’s tracks feature in the new Apple ads for the iPhone 6. Anyway, the track I’m interested in today is ‘Tribes’ featuring Jesse Boykins III, an upbeat pulsing electro beat track which has always been the kind of thing Theophilus has done best. Production by Brodinski and Club Cheval.
The album Vibes! is out on October 27th.
