EXCLUSIVE: With a New Jazz Project, DJ Spinall Proves That He Can Do It All

There are a few things you likely already know about DJ Spinall: he was born in Lagos, he’s one of Nigeria’s most celebrated and prolific DJs and producers, and he has played at some of the world’s biggest festivals, including Coachella, Glastonbury, and SXSW — being the first Nigerian DJ to achieve such a feat. 

He’s also been one of the most important sound pioneers from Africa, guiding the Afrobeats movement in an interesting and future-facing direction. More crucially, you might know that he has worked with everyone from Wizkid to Niniola to Burna Boy, and that, for the most part, his sound is a delectable fusion of Afropop, EDM, house, R&B, and hip-hop.

What might be less obvious to many is that Spinall, born Sodama Oluseye Desmond, is also a jazz artist. It’s a genre that’s followed him around since he was a child. When his father drove him to boarding school, a long drive that took them through scenic towns in south-west Nigeria, he would queue up John Coltrane after King Sunny Ade. As an adult, Spinall has always found a way back to it.

“I fell in love with traditional jazz just because, you know, I'm a man of the night. I DJ for a living, so I'm always out. After a big moment on the stage, and I’m headed home, you just want to tap into something therapeutic, and jazz has always been the way for me,” Spinall tells OkayAfrica. Spinall’s playlist on these late-night drives mostly includes records by Harry James and Louis Armstrong.

But jazz has been more than a therapeutic tool for Spinall; it has also been a secret element in many of his Afropop records. “Some of the old records that I've put out, if you pay attention to them, you can find elements of jazz in them,” he explains. “If you go back again to play the very first song that I released with Burna Boy (“Gba Gbe E”) and strip down the stems of this song, you will have an idea that jazz has always played a huge part in all the music that I put out.”

And so it makes sense that last month, Spinall released his first jazz project, When Lagos Sleeps. Unlike most jazz records, When Lagos Sleeps has a short run time, yet Spinall manages to deliver it masterfully. Made up of only five tracks, with titles that pay homage to streets, scenes, and moments in Lagos, When Lagos Sleeps is a brave yet brilliantly delivered project that, unlike most of Spinall's tracks, features no vocals and veers far from his typical Afropop or house records. Spinall says he began working on the project last April. At the time, it was mostly a passion project, an extension of what jazz used to mean to him when he listened to it.

“I definitely didn't want to release this,” he admits. “It's like I'm coming out as someone totally different from who everybody knows. I had a lot of hesitations, but I'm grateful for my team for always inspiring me and putting all of their efforts in making sure that they understand what I'm doing, and we just need to free the music.” In addition to his team, Spinall says he consulted the opinions of other trusted collaborators. 

“I played it for Wizkid as well, and he was like, ‘You got to release this.’ I'm grateful to all of my friends here in the US and in Nigeria who really motivated and encouraged me to put it out. It's not easy, you know.”

From Lagos, With Love

The tracks in this project are soothing; they amble along with playful and vibrant compositions. Altogether, they feel like a throwback to Lagos in the early 2010s, a time of great hope and dreaminess, where many cultural endeavors were just sprouting. It was also a period that laid the foundation for many of today’s cultural advancements. 

All of which makes sense, seeing as the project was inspired by Lagos at night. During his late-night drives, Spinall wasn’t merely listening to jazz; he was also listening to how quiet the city becomes, how the streets, usually jammed with traffic during the day, open up easily into wide lanes, and how the vast lagoon stretches out, occasionally punctured by light from high-rise buildings. When Lagos Sleeps is Spinall’s attempt to bottle this rare moment and preserve its timelessness.

“In that quiet moment, I found a few rhythms that I've been working with in the studio,” Spinall says. The first full jazz project Spinall recorded was in 2019. Since then, he has created a jazz project each year, never releasing them. The track titles are filled with lore and stories that are familiar to Lagosians. There is “Last Bus To Obalende,” which captures the delight of catching the last bus out of Obalende, a busy street in Lagos, and “Impromptu Bend,” which speaks to the many sharp turns that are typical of Lagos roads.

“I wanted to keep it as honest as possible. Not trying to do what somebody has done or tell somebody else to tell us their story.”

A DJ, a producer, a jazz album?

How does a contemporary Afropop producer go about making a jazz album? If you ask Spinall, it begins the same way as any other song he’s working on. “ I have the idea to make a sound that sounds like this, then I start to, you know, put percussion together,” he explains. 

What follows after percussion are melodies. On this project, Spinall says he played the strings and all the drums. “I played the piano on tracks one, two, three, and five. Track four, ‘Metric Rules,’ the keys were played by my good friend Kingsley. And the sax on that was played by Nick.” 

Most of the recording took place in Lagos, which is a fitting touch, given the subject matter. The bigger significance of this project is that Spinall has kept himself unbridled and can, in fact, do it all. And as if a jazz project isn’t enough proof, he also recently released a laidback, Afropop track with two new generation artists, Mavo and Deto Black “Shaba.” “Shaba is really one of the best songs I've ever made,” he says of the track. “Play this anywhere, and you will understand right away. Beautiful music. Life is good!”

So far, When Lagos Sleeps has been exceptionally received by his fans, shelving Spinall’s initial anxieties. He hopes that it continues to resonate this way. “I feel like music is a language that doesn't need much explaining. I want more people to listen. I want them to tell me how they feel about it.”