00:00Hey, what's going on? This is Jordan Rakai with The London Standard.
00:02I'm here to show you my favourite music venues in London.
00:09We're here at my fourth favourite venue in London, Next Door Records 2.
00:13It's an incredible place actually to come, buy records, grab a cup of tea, grab a coffee, grab a pint.
00:19And amazingly, they've actually just refurbed downstairs the music venue.
00:22And the music venue is such a vibe because it's very small capacity.
00:25It's very intimate. It can get quite rowdy down there.
00:28I've been there a few times to see a few bands.
00:30You can start by record, grab a pint, head downstairs. It's a good night out.
00:34I think venues like this are pretty special, you know, for grassroots venues.
00:39Like it gives an opportunity for bands to start out in venues downstairs.
00:42But it also creates a space of like community where people can just hang out.
00:47And like, you know, there's no pressures, there's good vibes.
00:49I think a lot of the times you can go to these sorts of places like this.
00:52That are more, what I would say, cheney or, you know, on the main high street and often surfaces something.
00:57So it's so nice to have a place like this with a sense of community and hangs and, yeah, cultivate
01:02that community.
01:06Oh, shout out to my mom.
01:08This is one of my mom's favorite, favorite singers, Ella Fitzgerald.
01:12And there was so many memories of my childhood having this on in the car or something for rugby training,
01:17which is a bit of a juxtaposition.
01:21Here we are inside the venue at LA Caliaca.
01:24I was doing this backstage.
01:25But this is one of my favorite venues in London.
01:28It's got an amazing history.
01:29For me personally, I've seen some of my favorite bands here, like Fat Freddy's, Gerard, Laura Kahn, or Bonovo.
01:34I've actually played here supporting Bonovo in 2018.
01:38And I've even been in this room when I did my Jules Holland performance.
01:42Run away from the rest of the world with my secrets.
01:48So it's sort of like full circle moment.
01:50This venue is incredible because it's got like this sort of festival energy, very high energy.
01:54That's the only way I can think of it.
01:56And it's surreal because I'm playing my own show here in April next year.
02:00And, you know, my music is generally considered quite, you know, it's dynamic.
02:05There's low energy stuff.
02:06There's ballads.
02:06There's nothing of what I would put high energy nature in.
02:10I'm actually building a whole show to suit the sort of energy of this room.
02:14It's funny how a venue can, I don't know, like orchestrate the set list, orchestrate the dynamics of the show.
02:19It's going to be performing a lot of my upcoming album, which is due to come out early next year,
02:23in this venue on April the 24th next year.
02:26And, you know, my album is about being unfiltered, uninhibited, you know, embracing all sides of my personality, whether that
02:34be silly, funny, angsty, angry, you know, all the in-between.
02:39And I want to sort of have a show because my album is called A Safe Place to be Wild.
02:44I'm trying to create a new environment where I'm allowing myself every night, the spontaneity to be unfiltered.
02:50And I'm inspired by loads of, you know, actually Bowie's amazingly like leans into that unfiltered thing, like David Byrne.
02:57When I actually supported Bonobo in 2018, I didn't have much money then.
03:00And after the show, actually, at that bus stop down there, I got the bus all the way back to
03:05Bethnal Green, which is about 90 minutes.
03:07It's just good memories.
03:08It's just the grind of being an artist in this day and age in London.
03:11Lots of fans are coming out like, wait, you weren't just the guy that was on stage, were you?
03:14I was like, sorry, this is how we do it.
03:16This is how we do it.
03:19We're now at my second favourite venue in London, which is called Coco.
03:24And I've played here a few times.
03:26I've jumped up on a few of my friends' shows.
03:27And the energy in this room is crazy.
03:29I came here for the first time about 10 years ago at Charles Peterson's worldwide event where he had lots
03:34of guest DJs and live bands.
03:35And the sound was crazy.
03:37The energy of the room was crazy.
03:38And I always wanted to play my own show here.
03:40And I did about nine years ago.
03:43And something about this space feels quite opulent inside.
03:45It feels quite like classic, but it's got a bit of a club energy, which is amazing, especially from the
03:50stage side looking out.
03:52And crazy fact is, this venue is now 125 years old now.
03:55And it's not only someone like me that loves this venue.
03:57You've got Dua Lipa, Prince, Madonna.
04:00They're all big fans of this place.
04:01And I think if you ever come here, you'll see why.
04:03It just has an energy.
04:05So I highly advise anyone to come check it out if you want to see live music.
04:07Life is a fire.
04:08I think a crime in a London state of mind.
04:13I performed here in April 2017.
04:17And the last venue I performed before that was actually down the road at the Jazz Cafe, which is pretty
04:21surreal.
04:22And, yeah, it was like trying to curate a show that was matching the energy of the room, matching the
04:28size of the room, going from that small jazz club energy to more what I would say my first ever
04:32stage production.
04:34So it's the first time I ever brought lighting guys in, first time I ever brought backing vocalists into my
04:37live show.
04:38And, yeah, it was quite a big jump for me.
04:40And I have just fond memories of playing here, sort of looking out, you know, singing to this massive room
04:45of people, singing back my own lyrics to me.
04:47And, yeah, it was just sort of a surreal realization that I had made it as an artist.
04:53And I always have fond memories of this venue.
05:00Here we are at my favorite venue in London, the Jazz Cafe.
05:03It's got a special place in my heart.
05:05I played my first ever headline show, my debut record in here in November 2016.
05:11So it's amazing being back in here.
05:13But the funny thing is I actually come in here all the time as a fan of lots of other
05:16bands.
05:16I love this venue because it's so intimate.
05:19It's actually like it's like mid-sized cap for artists of this size, like 400 to 500.
05:24But it's close and wide.
05:26So in a way, when I was on stage here, you sort of are swallowed up by everyone and people
05:31obviously above you as well.
05:32So the sound here is amazing.
05:34The vibe usage from the audience is amazing.
05:36And the history as well.
05:38You know, like D'Angelo played here many years ago.
05:40There's a famous, I mean, everyone's played here, honestly.
05:43It's got the strongest legacy, I think, in London as a venue that sort of champions music of the genre
05:48that I'm into, like jazz, pop soul.
05:50Camden has a strong sort of identity in the music scene, like dating back all the way to the 80s
05:55with like the rock movement and like the heaviness and the punk movement and stuff.
05:59Leading into when Amy Winehouse obviously exploded.
06:02She's from Camden and she's played dotted venues around here.
06:05I actually have a memory of doing soundcheck and then running to the market, grabbing a falafel and coming back.
06:14So right now we're at the new Blue Note in London and this is the bonus sort of venue because
06:19I'm very, very excited for the opening of this venue because when they announced the first drop of artists to
06:24play here, it's basically all my favorite artists from all around the world.
06:27From Robert Glasper to Yusuf Days, Erika Bardu, even local talent like Nubai Garcia, who I've collaborated with.
06:34And fun fact is I got to perform at the Blue Note venue in Tokyo a few times.
06:39And one of my favorite things about it is you get to play two sets in a night.
06:42So you sort of play one set, get the vibe of the room and then have some dinner and then
06:46settle down and then have a very more like explorative second set.
06:50So it's a very fun place to play.
06:51And it's a dream of mine to play in each one of them all around the world.
06:55Like there's two in Japan, there's a few in America.
06:59And yeah, it's an amazing place, so much legacy and there's a global family of venues and it's exciting.
07:04It's, you know, it makes live music in London really exciting at the moment to have a venue like this.
07:09When Blue Note announced its opening a few months ago now, there was already so much excitement in the London
07:14music scene.
07:15And it became this place of where everyone's just keen to have a gig.
07:19Like I want to have a gig here, if they all have me.
07:22Blue Note bookies, come on, hit me up.
07:24But it's funny, this is sort of my roots.
07:25I grew up making sort of jazz, group-based funk, soul music.
07:28So it's nice to come back to venues like this with such legacy and in an exciting time of live
07:34music in the UK.
07:35And the crazy thing right now is actually we're in the center of London in Covent Garden and Leicester Square
07:41basically.
07:41And lots of these amazing venues in London, as you've seen in this video, are dotted all around London and
07:46sort of different corners.
07:47But this is right in the middle, so it's really accessible for anyone from tourists to locals.
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