SOUL WHEELS UP FOR JALEN NGONDA, ADDING JOY WITHOUT A LICENCE
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- 6 min read
CAUGHT AT THE BEGINNING of his second visit to Australia – maybe you saw one of his irresistible groove shows in January 2025 – just as he is announcing a second album due out mid-year, Jalen Ngonda is busy.
Busy reviving the golden age of soul – from the dawn of Sam Cooke via tight suits in Detroit to tight harmonies in Philadelphia a decade later, like he didn’t just hear this stuff but might have actually lived it – though really he reckons everything “from Simon and Garfunkel down to Ike and Tina Turner” is in play.
Busy living a three-timezone life: born and raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, on the edge of Washington DC, he completed his education and music life experience in Liverpool and now is London-based, and as we speak he’s digging into a Sydney autumn with shows ahead.
Busy on stage as his three-piece shows last year proved that you can get a big soul show without the backing vocalist, without the brass section, without the expansive band if you have to. Without the frou-frou.
“It’s the songs that matter the most,” he insists today. “All the brass and the BVs, you can have 15 people on stage, but you can interpret a song so many ways. If I did all the shows just on my own, then okay, people might say ‘we thought we’d hear some drums at least’ but the bass, guitar and drums are the rhythm section and that’s the backbone of all the tracks that were on the first album, and this [new] album. If you have that then people are still going to feel the way they felt when they heard the album.”
He will concede the lineup does reflect the company he’s in, specifically the retro-soul specialist label, Daptone, who have given us Sharon Jones &The Dap Kings, Charles Bradley, The Budos Band and Thee Sacred Souls, to name but a few.
“Because it’s Daptone and they don’t make any music that sounds past 1972 I kinda had no choice but to record it like that,” Ngonda chuckles. “But if I were to record the same songs in a different place they probably would have had some synths, and in an ideal world I would have the backing vocals and the keyboardist and the percussionist, but the songs would have been just as loved.”
And of course he is busy as he realises it’s Reverse Kondo time. Time to clutter, not de-clutter; to add, not remove; to think of things that will bring more joy, not shed what once did. Not that he is in need exactly.
“Right now I really can’t ask for much more. If I wanted anything physical, in terms of clothes or records and stuff like that, I can get,” says Ngonda. “Right now what I have in my life, personally, I’m pretty happy in that sense.”
Let’s see what else might make him happy if he were to add …
A PLACE
I’m happy in London. I don’t see myself leaving London. But outside of that, probably Hong Kong because I spent, collectively, five months there doing a residency before my first album came out. I’ve got a whole group of friends over there and if I were to live an alternate life it would probably be in Hong Kong. It’s a bit warmer over there. It’s not really that it’s got something I don’t get anywhere else, the world has been globalised: you’ve got McDonald’s on every corner. It’s the friends, the friends that I made over there.
As a man who has relocated himself a number of times, does he find making friends easy?
Yeah. It depends on the person you’re faced with, if they are open themselves. Especially in music, I get teamed up with a band or whatever, there are people working at the venue you are playing, and is easy to make friends. But it depends on your mood and what’s going on in your mind. If you are going through tough times it’s not going to be easy making a friend, but I think if you take care of yourself and you’re confident and cool with who you are, you are going to find someone who is like-minded. It’s just as easy as finding a pair of shoes that you like.
A PERSON
Everyone who is in my life is who I want in my life, but I guess physically, my mother. But not just her, it could be my father and my brothers who live back in Maryland. I’ve been away from home for over 10 years and in an ideal world we would all live in the same place so I could see them. To be honest, I only miss my family, I don’t miss anything else over there and don’t think about it from day to day. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I enjoyed growing up; I just grew up.
Maryland, DC, is the only world I knew and I made the most of it through my music and my family and friends. But as soon as I left I felt like I gained a new life when I moved over to the UK, so I can’t say I miss Maryland at all really, apart from my family. I have a cousin who is into music too. My mother and his father are first cousins and he is a rapper, multi-instrumentalist, by the time we were both in high school I’d go to his house in north-east DC, which is not far from Silver Spring, after-school and would make beats and stuff. But in my immediate family, I’m the only one who does music.
A SONG
With the amazing invention of Spotify and YouTube music I feel like I could access a lot of songs that I want to hear. Before that, when I was a kid, there were so many songs I couldn’t hear, I could only imagine it. But with the music I make, there is no limitations. If I go in to the studio and am inspired by a certain sound, I’ll just do it. Now, as a matter of it being released, and if it’s going to be chart-able or played on the radio, that is a whole other thing.
If anything, musically, I wish I had a certain skill set of a classically trained pianist so I could perform songs better when I demo them, or be a better drummer so I don’t have to do a thousand takes to get the right beat. Creatively I don’t feel like I can’t reach something.
A PIECE OF OTHER ART
I don’t really do much art in other forms. I wish I did but I can’t draw, I’m not good at conceptualising visual arts. I’m really only in tune with music. But I would like to have the ability to have the mind of David Lynch if I were to do a music video or if I were to think about an album cover, and I could do with another Quentin Tarantino film, I love his work.
I’m not really good with names to paintings. I go through museums but I don’t really look at the credits! But would like to see more of arts, visual arts, within everyday life. When you go down the street, rather than just corporate buildings and corporate names.
SOMETHING OF HIS CHOOSING TO ADD
I would like a car. And maybe own a house, and not flatshare. Those are simple things that most people want.
As an itinerant musician, would he have much use for a car?
Yeah. I would drive everywhere. I would drive out to the countryside, I would go into continental Europe, pick my friends up if they were stranded at a bus stop … I just love to drive, have my CDs and, you know, blast tunes.
So he can drive at least.
No, I can’t. [he laughs]. Not yet. But that’s when the lessons come in.
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SEE MORE
Jalen Ngonda plays
Astor Theatre, Perth, March 4
The Forum, Melbourne, March 6
Womadelaide, March 7
Golden Plains Festival, Meredith, March 8
Enmore Theatre, Sydney, March 10
HEAR MORE
Jalen Ngonda’s album, Doctrine Of Love, is out in June.