Oscar Jerome: the emerging London jazz star on greed, toxic masculinity and why we need to force an election

The guitarist and singer-songwriter is furious, but he also knows that music needs to be a balm as well as a call to arms
Oscar Jerome
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Jane Cornwell25 November 2022

Oscar Jerome gazes out along a busy canal towpath in Haggerston, east London, where joggers vie with designer pushchairs and wandering Instagrammers seek out backdrops.

Gentrification is killing London’s communities,” says the guitarist and singer-songwriter, 30, sipping his coffee. “Artists move into an area because it’s cheap and they make it cool. People who don’t care about culture move in so prices go up, locals sell to investors and artists are forced to move out.”

It’s a familiar refrain. But the real issue, he adds, since I’ve asked, isn’t who lives where. It is poverty, pure and simple. We have a cost of living crisis. The government has actually taken money out of deprived urban areas, he says. Politicians only care about one thing - themselves.

Indeed, as Jerome sings on Feed the Pigs, a drums-and-bass heavy track from his brilliant new album The Spoon, “I’m not really feeling England no more. Won’t you come round, feed the animals?”

He gives a wry smile. "That song is talking about the greed of capitalism. It’s like we’re watching a load of animals fighting over something, with no shame for the disgusting mess that they’re benefitting from. I mean, Shell has just recorded an £8 billion profit and people can’t pay their gas bills? We have another unelected prime minister? The wool is being pulled over our eyes, but most people are very apathetic right now. We need a general strike. We need to force an election.

Oscar Jerome
Ollo

"There is no easy solution," he continues, "and I’m not the best person to ask about this stuff. I’ll talk about certain things within my music that I think will have a lasting effect, but it’s important to remember that people also come to music as a way to escape all the f***ery going on in the world."

Social consciousness is nonetheless imprinted on The Spoon, the 12 original tracks of which touch on the personal and political - anxiety, depression, injustice, change - while showcasing a nu-jazz sound more soulful, more rocking and nuanced, than ever.

The title track finds Jerome musing on a distorted image viewed in a spoon ("I was thinking a lot about social media constructs and the importance of developing an authentic sense of self," he says), while the lively Channel Your Anger advises flipping our frustrations into making a difference.

Sweet Isolation, a cinematic meditation on grief, comes accompanied by a video featuring two characters in a barren landscape: Jerry, slicked back and swaggering, and the curious, lonely Ice Guycicle. Each represents a reaction to loss.

Both contrasting personas are played by Jerome, a man blessed with Harry Styles-esque good looks, leftfield fashion sense and a sensitive, likeable demeanour. He co-directed the video in Iceland with his younger brother Alfie Laurence, aka Moth, a drag artist, whose freeform creativity and penchant for transformation opened Jerome’s mind about gender roles and encouraged his countering of toxic masculinity.

"Having amazing queer people in my life has opened my mind to the fact we all have masculine and feminine energies but don’t explore them because of social norms," he says. "Jerry is a hyper-exaggerated macho guy who can’t express his emotions, which is something that is there in everyone; I haven’t always dealt with things the best myself. Guycicle is androgynous; exploring that character was quite freeing."

Jerome composed much of The Spoon holed up, mid-pandemic, in Berlin, where he’d decamped after a personal crisis triggered by what may or may not have been a relationship break up (”The last time the pillow smelled of your hair it was too much”, he sings on lead single Berlin 1; the video finds a suited Jerry sauntering about the German capital). There were also the pressures of a solo career, including having to release his long crafted 2020 solo debut Breathe Deep at a time when live music was a standstill.

"In 2019, I’d toured extensively in Australia and Europe and for the first time thought, ‘Okay, I can have a proper long-lasting career in music’," says Jerome. The GP’s son had moved from Norwich to London aged 18 to study jazz at Trinity Laban, having grown up listening to everyone from guitar god George Benson to folk singer/guitarist John Martyn and activist rockers Rage Against the Machine.

"I thought I’d hold back on releasing Breathe Deep until I could promote it by playing shows but it got to the point where I just needed to move on. It was a hard pill to swallow. I needed to escape for a bit."

Tucked up in Berlin’s hipster Kreuzberg district he did online therapy between sharpening his skills on his Gibson, reading poetry ("Keat’s natural imagery reminds me so much of Norwich") and books by black writers such as James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates. A former - and the only white - member of West Africa-inspired London collective Kokoroko (he co-composed their breakout single Abusey Junction), Jerome is also hugely influenced by musical artists of colour, and has previously reflected on cultural appropriation versus cultural appreciation in ways both considered and thoughtful.

"There’s a difference between wearing a token or borrowing a style for the sake of it and giving back by involving yourself in uplifting the cultures and communities that you love," he has said.

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These are the sort of conversations, you suspect, that Jerome has with his mates, many of whom live near him in south-east London (from where he’s cycled over on a Lime bike to meet me today) and form part of the internationally regarded community tagged as ‘the young London jazz scene’; saxophonist Nubya Garcia, vocalist Ego Ella May and keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones count among them.

"A real mixed bunch of people from different backgrounds, brought together by a love of creating art," is how Jerome describes them. "As everyone has become more successful, making albums, touring the world, negotiating crazy schedules, our meetups and jams aren’t as regular as they used to be. But where I live I bump into musicians I know all the time. We’re all still friends, all still collaborating with people."

Collaboration is crucial for Jerome, who on returning from Berlin with a clear head and a swag of tunes brought in a multi-generational crew of London musicians, many of them local - flautist Gareth Lockrane, saxophonist Kaidi Akinnibi, percussionist Crispin Robinson - to help workshop what would become The Spoon. Jerome’s four-year-old niece even gets a cameo on the gorgeous Feet Down South, her tinny phone-recorded musing contrasting with Jerome’s malleable vocals. “Am I good enough?” he sings in the pre-chorus, calling-and-responding with the doubts in his head.

"The times we are living in are really affecting young people’s mental health, especially with social media and the expectation to present a version of yourself that is not really you,” he says. “I just think it’s really important to be open about seeking help when you need it because there’s still a taboo.”

Music, he says, is his biggest outlet, with its capacity to transform and uplift. "Some of the things I talk about on this record aren’t so relevant to me personally now because I’ve worked through them," he says. "I mean, if you’re not on a journey of trying to be a better person... A smile. "Then really, what’s the point?"

Oscar Jerome plays Lafayette on Wednesday November 30; oscarjerome.com

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