Journey After Pressure: Nubya Garcia Interviewed

Nubya Garcia admits she’s felt the pressure of expectation since the release of 2020 debut album ‘SOURCE’. The Mercury Prize-nominated project established the saxophonist as a leading woman in global jazz. The question would be how she’d build on a pinnacle moment that recognised her as a generational standout in UK’s jazz revival over the last decade. “I think it’s a lot of pressure, even though I didn’t recognise it at the time. I just didn’t want to flop with the second album,” Garcia affirms. “I’m a serial rusher and I just want everything to happen now, or I did when I was younger. I’m glad I waited until I didn’t have any thoughts of trying to create something for success. I want to be able to stand by this album forever and knowing how much I put into it, it feels very authentic to me now.”

In trying to beat the second album syndrome with ‘Odyssey’, Garcia levelled up by challenging herself to compose strings sections for the expansive record. “I want it to feel elevated and a step up from ‘Source’, but I’ve never orchestrated anything for strings before.” Strings have always been a feature of the Camden artist’s life. Garcia started on the violin and viola and played in the London School Symphony Orchestra; her Guyanese mother loved classical music and her sister went on to study it too. “I’m happy I returned to loving the strings,” she says. “I knew that I wanted to work with strings, and for it to feel really enmeshed together rather than have an arrangement over the top. I’m getting back to trusting my creative voice and feeling this is what I want to create.”

Trusting those instincts, Garcia paused writing on the road to avoid creative burnout and realign with her purpose as an artist. The result is a cinematic, wayfaring epic of jazz, classical, R&B and dub sounds featuring a cadre of fellow Black women musicians: Esperanza Spalding, KOKOROKO‘s Richie Seivwright and Georgia Anne Muldrow. Garcia’s power is felt on ‘Odyssey’ both in the space she offers to others in her music, and the control she has in using her instrument; be it a texture, an augmentation or an engrossing solo. 

After picking up the saxophone at age ten, Garcia has gradually built her musical language through years spent with music organisations like Camden Music Service and Tomorrow’s Warriors. Work within the genre still needs to be done, however, to ensure young people from all walks of life have grassroots access. “It’s changing ever so slowly, but I know that nothing happens overnight. There needs to be increased conversations and support surrounding the continuation of inspiring. It’s providing instruments, tuition, group education settings, introducing young people to other young people,” Garcia says.

As the preeminent UK flag-bearer for jazz, Garcia has gone on to become a go-to collaborator for the likes of Obongjayar and drummer Makaya McCraven, even releasing a live album with Khruangbin. The respect she’s earned from other artists globally still surprises her. “Jill Scott DM’ed me and said she was a fan – it was unreal! How does she even know who I am!? Obviously I did a cover of her ‘It’s Love’ tune. I’m a huge fan and I’ve just been listening to her for years, so that felt like really wild.”

But Garcia’s drive to build outwards from her art and connect with her community is something that sustains her: in tandem with her new release, she created an immersive exhibition experience in Central London. “Something I’ve been focused on with this record is collective listening, as we have a reducing amount of third spaces,” she says. “When I was younger, I used to listen to music all the time at uni and before at Tomorrow’s Warriors with people [and] just share albums. We’d go down to HMV and get all of those cheap, three pound CDs and talk about them. There’s something so beautiful about listening to music with your community, and I want to bring that back.”

“We just need to learn how to talk to each other again,” she continues, “I wanted people to walk in this exhibition and feel they’re in the world of ‘Odyssey’, whether that be through a Q+A, through food, through an incredible listening experience, through] a little documentary about how it was all made, [through] leaving a message for whoever comes the next day about how it made you feel.”

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‘Odyssey’ is out now.

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