Ife Ogunjobi is a name familiar to anyone who knows about jazz music in the UK. As a trumpet player, composer, and producer, he understands the power of music and its effect on people. Having played instruments since the age of five, he didn't realise that experiencing Hugh Masekela live as a ten-year-old child was what shifted something within him. “When I heard him play the trumpet live, it was something I'd never heard before, and I was drawn to it”, he explains about his early experience with the instrument.
The rest is history, as he has since become a key member of the Mercury Prize Award-winning jazz collective Ezra Collective and has also joined the likes of Burna Boy, Wizkid, and Dave on stage. As a musician, Ife is somebody whose influences range from the likes of King Sunny Adé, Fela Kuti, Ebenezer Obey to Miles Davis, Tems, Dave, Skepta, Kendrick Lamar and Anderson.Paak to name a few. All of them represent the different parts of Ife’s musical identity and are presented on his upcoming EP, Tell Them I’m Here. The EP is a follow-up to his 2023 debut STAY TRUE.
As you press play on the five-track EP. You are presented with the vastness and richness of his musicality, primarily expressed through his trumpet, set against a production that captures aspects of Highlife, Afrobeats, Jazz, R&B, and Hip-Hop, all of which are stunningly captured across the project.
Beginning with “East Street Market” and ending with “Real One”, the EP not only transports sonically but also visually across the inspirations and locations that set the tone and form the scenes presented on the project.
Tell Them I''m Here feels like something new and modern whilst also capturing an element of nostalgia with an ode to Ife’s musical upbringing and his sonic DNA. It is a celebration of his identity, embodying freedom and his ability to express himself in any way that feels true to his identity as an African musician in the new UK Jazz space.
Ahead of his November release, we spoke with Ife about everything from his musical roots and cultural identity in relation to his music, playing the trumpet and what it means to be a trumpet player, performing with the likes of Burna Boy and Wizkid, the EP, the importance of staying true to one's identity and what it means to be a Jazz musician.
Hi Ife, first of all, it is great to be speaking with you. I wanted to start with the visuals for the project. When you listen to the EP, you can easily picture what the songs sound and look like. So how did you come to think of the visuals for this EP?
Yeah, it was really exciting on this project to be able to incorporate all the visuals. With my music, especially with instrumental music, there are no words, so there's so much room for interpretation. Music is one art form of communicating, and visuals are another way of doing it. The two of them working hand in hand to tell one story is really powerful. For example, with “East Street Market”, even though there are no visuals for it, I can paint a picture in my head of what it would look like. Even when I'm writing, I can literally see things. So when we're making that song, it just felt like a market to me, the closest reference I have to a marketplace that I go to all the time was East Street Market. That kind of energy, how busy it is, all the madness that goes on in that market. It felt like that track really, really represented it well. A lot of the time, my music paints pictures in my mind, and hopefully, it does the same for the listener, giving you room to explore and interpret things in your own way. In “Zimbabwe”, again, the way we wanted to create the visuals, I wanted that energy of everyone just literally having a party; there wasn't actually too much to it, but it's more like the song just gives me a bounce and an infectious groove that I can't escape. So I wanted that to be represented in the visuals. It's just ways of enhancing the music and telling the same story it tells. But now, rather than just music, people have the visuals to accompany it.
When you're writing the music, do you tend to put together mood boards, anything visual that informs you of the type of story you want to tell, or the picture that you want to paint with your music? Or is that something that comes out as you're making the songs?
It happens in different ways. With this project, it happened as we were making it. I could see the picture as it was being made. So, for example, with “East Street Market,” I started the song with my friend Gaten Judd, who was the producer on it. He came into the session, and as he was walking in, I was playing old school Highlife songs on YouTube, like King Sunny Adé and Ebenezer Obey. We didn't have a plan in our minds to make that kind of song; we were just going to make something from scratch. However, because of what was playing, we started making a song, and it became “East Street Market”. It was subconsciously in the back of our minds: the energy of highlife, even though it's not really a highlife song, still has that highlife vibe with the guitar and everything on it. As we're making it, I could see it sounding like something I could see, like it sounds like a place I know. And then I started associating that place with East Street Market. So then, because I knew what it looked like, I understood what it needed to sound like and the kind of energy I wanted the track to have.
In your mind, where do you feel like the marriage and your visuals come together in how you saw them for this EP?
With my music, whenever I'm trying to make music, it's not just something where I'm gonna put this out, and then everyone's gonna forget about it in like, four months or whatever. I always try to make timeless music that represents where I'm at in this moment in time. So that anybody who goes back and listens to it will find it still relevant. It still tells a story. Then, with the visuals as well, I give the visuals their own character, so everything works together.
Going all the way back to the beginning of this EP, where did it begin, and how did it come together?
The project started from a conversation I had with my good friend Gaeten, who wrote and produced the EP with me. We were talking about the kind of music I listen to, and many of my influences come from Afrobeats, hip-hop, and different UK-produced music. To tell the story of who I am and present myself musically, I needed to find a way to incorporate that into my music. It was about finding a way to incorporate the energy of where we are now in 2025 into the music, while balancing it with all of my older references. So I feel like this project truly does represent me, because you've got everything that's old school, from King Sunny Ade to Fela Kuti to Miles Davis and Bob Marley, all those older references which have now been mixed in with my new references, stuff like Burna Boy, Wizkid, Tems, Skepta, Kendrick Lamar and Anderson .Paak. And really bringing those worlds together. That is really what represents me as a person, and that's what comes through the music.
You are known to be a trumpet player, and so, for you, what was it that first made you pick up the trumpet and select that to be the instrument you knew you wanted to play? How did that start for you?
I started doing music from as young as I can remember. My mom got me involved in music school and playing instruments from around age five or so. I played the piano when I was really, really young, but I didn't start playing the trumpet until later. It was around the age of 10 that I saw Hugh Masekela perform live, and when I heard him play the trumpet live, it was something I'd never heard before. The energy and the sound of the trumpet were entirely new for me, and I was drawn to it as soon as I heard it. After I saw that performance, I wanted to start playing trumpet, because the trumpet has such a unique sound that you can tell a story in that instrument in a way that you couldn't do on other instruments. And then from then, the rest is history. When I play trumpet now, a lot of it is based on that initial encounter that I had with the trumpet, and in trying to tell my own story and show my own personality through that instrument, because that's what initially drew me to the instrument in the first place.
Having played it for as long as you have, what would you say you have learned, not just in terms of the technical skill of playing the instrument, but what has playing the trumpet taught you?
The biggest lesson I've learned through my years playing the instrument is that you have to tell your own story through that instrument. There are so many trumpet players out there in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people play the instrument. But what is it about it when you play trumpet that defines your sound, and that's the most important thing. I know they are better trumpet players than I in the world, but as long as I'm trying to be my authentic self through the instrument, nobody else can really replicate that. So there's no point in my trying to play like somebody else, because they can already do that better than I. I have to focus on what I'm trying to say through the instrument and make sure it's communicated to whoever's listening. Whenever I play now, whether it's recorded or whether it's live, I'm always trying to connect with the audience and really make them engage with the story I'm telling through the instrument. And that's what music is meant to do at the end of the day, it's meant to make you feel something.
Through your own development and growth as a musician, discovering the type of music you wanted to make, how was the process of finding your sound and developing it into the style you play now?
I definitely discovered my style of music later, from when I started playing. In the beginning, when you are learning music and learning how to play instruments, a lot of it is about imitation. So you copy something else to learn, and then you repeat it back. I got to know the kind of music I wanted to play when I started playing a lot with Burna Boy and Wizkid and doing those shows. When I was playing live, it dawned on me that this is such a big part of who I am as a person. I'd been doing jazz for so long, and then when I was doing those tours, I just completely forgot. I've been listening to Don’t Dull by Wizkid since I was a child. I've been listening to Burna Boy and Wizkid for years. So, getting that Afrobeats influence and all the influences I had growing up became much more important to me because I realised this was a whole other part of my personality that I wasn't really tapping into. So then I just made a conscious choice to balance both sides of this, because they both represent me in different ways. Like, you can't get Ife without jazz, and you also can't get Ife without Afrobeats, hip hop, grime, or funky house. It doesn't exist. Now, when I'm making music, my main focus is generally to be myself, unapologetically, and the only way I can do that musically is by drawing on all the different influences I have. So that is the thought process that made me start interjecting these influences and genres into my music. And that's kind of why my music and how my jazz influence changed slightly from being just jazz to being more of a multi-genre type of music.
As you’ve spoken about performing with Wizkid and Burna Boy. You are somebody who has been on many stages around the world and played with many artists and other musicians. So, how would you say you have been able to develop your performance style and how that has grown through the years?
As an instrumentalist, live music has always been a massive part of my life and what I do. So whenever I'm stepping into that realm, I'm always just curious about new things that are popping up. And a lot of the music I play thrives when it's live. Studio music is great and beautiful, but listening to recorded music and listening to music live are different things and different experiences. The live experience involves considering the elements and energy you can bring from recording the song in the studio to the live performance. I think that's the essence of playing live, and I've been very privileged to perform with the likes of Burna Boy, Wizkid, Ezra Collective and what makes all of those people such great performers in their own right is that they're able to get the energy from the songs that they recorded. They bring an energy that you can't feel through a speaker. You can only feel it when it's live. The biggest challenge and importance when you're playing live music is to bring a different kind of energy. It's like getting another perspective or aspect of the song when you attend the live show.
The title of this EP is called Tell Them I’m Here. In relation to this music and this project, what does the title mean, and how does it capture the essence of what you want people to take from when they listen to this EP?
It is literally showing people this is what I'm about. This is all the influences, all the sounds you're hearing, the way I put it together with the visuals and everything. This is who I am, in a nutshell. And it's me putting that personality and that identity into the world. But then also it has a bit of of a dual meaning, because now that I've had the confidence to put that out into the world, the meaning of Tell Them I'm Here is almost like I hope somebody else who has a dream or any ambition to do their own project, whether it be music or whatever it is, just in life, when you have an idea or an ambition. You're really passionate about it and really convinced about it, you have to be so headstrong about it, to the point that people think you're almost delusional, like this guy's crazy. Why is he still talking about this project that nobody cares about? Because it's like, unless you have that kind of confidence. You may not realise your dreams, but everybody's got their own story to tell. Everyone's got their own dreams and ambitions. So Tell Them I'm Here is almost a motto for life. It's more about not living, not spending your life living someone else's story, telling someone else's story, or listening to what people should tell you to do. You have to live your life the way you want to, how you see it, pursuing your own dreams and ambitions. Because everybody's story is different and unique, and that's the most important thing. So that's the dual meaning of Tell them I'm Here. It's an introduction of what I'm about, but it's also a message for people to be their unapologetic selves truly.
Where did you record the project?
It was made and recorded in London, but a lot of the writing process was done everywhere whilst I was on tour. There are many times when London is the base. But in terms of when I'm writing the songs or writing melodies, I'm always travelling, and I get inspiration at really, really weird and sometimes random times. So, for example, I'll be on a plane and for some reason the melody will hit me then. So then I have to record it on my phone so I don't forget it. Or I'll be in a hotel in a different country, and then I'll have inspiration. Often at night, right before I'm about to go to bed, when you're switching off and your mind is quiet, I get inspiration at that time as well. So inspiration comes at different times, and when I get it, I record it properly in London. But the actual creative part of it is always in different places.
As someone who expresses yourself through instruments, how have you been able to tap into that emotional side of yourself and then put it into your music? Is it an easy process for you because you've been doing it for such a long time? Or does it come as you get older, naturally expressing your thoughts, feelings, and emotions?
It's something that came a bit later because, as someone who makes instrumental music, it's very easy for me to make a song, and it doesn't mean anything. It's very easy to do that, because I don't have to put words to it. However, instrumental music, because there are no words or lyrics, forces you to think as a listener. If they are lyrics and words, they've told you already what to think, so you can relate to the feelings and emotions that are being expressed or spoken about because you know what they are. With instrumental music, if you really listen to it properly, you have to search for the feelings and emotions in there and as a listener, you're forced to say let me make my own story based on what this has given me, and it can almost take you to a different, deeper space in the song. Sometimes, if you can't communicate it with words, use music, art, or visuals; it's like a different way of describing something. And for me
With this EP and the process of how you made it, you’ve spoken about “East Street Market” and “Zimbabwe”, but in terms of the other songs on the project, can you talk us through the other tracks, in terms of how you made those ?
For “Cali”, the song I did with Samm Henshaw, I actually made a beat before the session. I was listening to some random Anderson .Paak song and trying to capture that LA West Coast hip hop energy in my music. So I was making a couple of beats and brought them to the session as a demo. And then from there, we came up with another idea, which ended up being "Cali". I remember when I first heard "Don't Leave," I kind of brushed it aside and thought, I'll look at this later. I'll focus on something else, but then later on, I came back to it, and I was like, this is a really special song, and we should make something out of this. I remember that session; we were trying to make something else, but ended up making "Don't Leave" instead. And then “Real one”, I was into a lot more azz and a lot more R&B. I know I definitely started with the baseline on that one, and trying to get in like a, almost like a jazz R&B kind of energy. So that one kind of started like that, and then as it started taking shape. It kind of found its own awareness identity. But it started with that bass line and getting on, like an R&B kind of energy as well.
With you being in this moment, and with the EP coming up. How does this moment feel for you right now in your journey? How does he feel this represents where you are and where you are in your story?
It feels very assured. Like, I really do know myself. I know the kind of identity I have, and I know the kind of person I am. It's almost like the building blocks of what's to come. Even in 4, 5, 6, or 7 years, no matter what projects and stuff I put out, this project will still hold weight. The message will still be relevant: be yourself, don't try to be anybody else, and don't care what people say about you —focus only on what you're trying to do. And I feel like even in 10 years, that's still going to be relevant. So it feels like this project is the building blocks for me to move forward and create more, and it's still relevant today. It's the start of, yeah, kind of a new journey, basically. So that's kind of how it feels for me right now.
Tell Them I’m Here is out on November 14th.
