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Jacob Collier: ‘weirdo’ Brit to battle for Grammy album of the year | Grammys

Read more at www.theguardian.com

He has been compared to Mozart by Chris Martin and likened to Bernstein by BBC Proms director David Pickard. Until this week, however, Jacob Collier was not a household name, at least not in his native UK. That changed on Tuesday when the 26-year-old was unexpectedly nominated for the Grammy award for album of the year – one of pop’s most prestigious prizes – alongside Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, and Coldplay (whose album Everyday Life he also contributed to).

Two days later, Collier is still reeling. “I think I’ve about 28% absorbed the news at this point,” he says over Zoom from his family home in north London, where he recorded the album in question – Djesse Vol 3 – during the first months of the pandemic. Even given the ongoing second lockdown, Collier’s celebrations were on the modest side. “I had a nice tall glass of water,” he says. “It’s such a 2020 project so I guess it merits a 2020-style introverted celebration.”

While “ridiculously honoured” by the nomination, Collier is keenly aware of how the publicity will change his career, expanding the listenership of his densely layered, technically complex, jazz-informed pop beyond passionate online fans. “There’s a bit of grieving,” he says. “Thinking this is no longer a thing that is mine, it belongs to more people. Now it seems to represent something.”

Like many twentysomething stars, from fellow Grammy nominees Justin Bieber to Chloe x Halle, Collier began his careerby covering well-known songs on YouTube. His idiosyncratic re-workings of tracks such as Stevie Wonder’s Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing immediately attracted admirers – most notably Quincy Jones, who signed Collier to his management company when he was 18. “The only moment that was more surreal than two days ago was when I got that email from Quincy,” says Collier, who recalls Jones bringing Herbie Hancock along to the recording sessions for his debut album In My Room.

Jacob Collier: Sleeping on My Dreams – video

Despite his relative obscurity, a win for Collier in January would in fact be his fifth Grammy: he has won best arrangement four times, for his covers of Moon River, Lionel Richie’s All Night Long, Stevie Wonder’s You and I and the Flintstones theme tune. This is the first year he has been nominated for his own original compositions: he calls it validation for “not just my skills but my statements”.

The US has embraced Collier’s talents noticeably more than his homeland. He believes “something clicked” when he began touring there. “I think the US is probably less conservative and more open to people who are doing things that are crazy and weird. I did this one-man show surrounded by musical instruments, running between them all, and I think something about me having made my own universe and sharing it with people hit a nerve, whereas in Europe people have a lot of cultural baggage and expectations.”

Collier grew up surrounded by music: his mother is a violinist and teacher; her parents were also professional violinists. He says he wasn’t schooled in the classical tradition – listening to classical music was simply part of everyday life. “In the same breath we’d talk about Bach or Mozart and Beck or Björk, so I didn’t have any particular reverence for classical music.” As a result, his music envelops many genres – jazz, folk, R&B, pop and orchestral, the product of Collier’s family encouraging him to be himself: “To be the most Jacob imaginable.”

Collier says the pandemic hasn’t had much impact on the way he works. “I felt strangely prepared for lockdown,” he says, gesturing to the instruments and equipment behind him. Remote collaboration with artists such as American singer Kiana Ledé has proved surprisingly easy. “Even two, three years ago that wouldn’t have been possible, so I’m quite lucky for quarantine to have coincided with the exact moment of technological development that we find ourselves in.”

Making music has been his way of mitigating his outsider status – and his Grammy nomination leaves him feeling it was time well spent. “I went through school never fitting into any category. I never felt like I had a place that the world had made ready for me, so I had to make my own space and just believe in it,” he says. “And it’s a crazy thing, but a nomination for album of the year makes it feels like it was all worthwhile.”

Some critics questioned his nomination given snubs for assumed contenders Fiona Apple and the Weeknd, while others were explicitly disparaging. Collier welcomes the divisive response. “I’m a bit of a weirdo so because I’m a weirdo it’s going to be pretty weird,” he says of his work. “God forbid I made music everyone thought was OK.”

Read more at www.theguardian.com

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