In an annex at the louche Pikes hotel in Ibiza, Idris Elba is stretched across a sofa, sipping a stiff drink. It’s the middle of the afternoon but a little dark inside; even so, his 6ft 3in presence is heavily felt. When I tell him I like his album, the eyes narrow and he asks: “Are you genuinely saying that?”
Such suspicion is understandable. Elba completists might point to previous records that the actor has released: the mellow hip-hop EP High Class Problems, issued under the moniker Driis in 2010. But for those who have seen him playing Nelson Mandela on film or drug kingpin Stringer Bell in The Wire, the idea that the 42-year-old star can have a parallel career as a recording artist might feel a little off – never mind that this debut album is called mi Mandela, which might strike a note of opportunism.
Elba started listening to South African music while researching his lead role in 2013’s Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom. In the apartment he rented for the shoot, he had a small keyboard and his laptop, and began sketching out ideas. Then, after the film wrapped, he flew back to Johannesburg with musicians including Mr Hudson and Maverick Sabre to flesh out a record, hooking up with local artists such as Nothembi Mkhwebane and veteran vocal harmony group the Mahotella Queens.
The result could easily be mistaken for an act of hubris, as Elba knows. “There’s a huge stigma attached to actors or musicians crossing over from one side to the other. No one likes to see it. ‘Stay where you are!’
“I did worry that it might water down how people see what I do as an actor,” he continues, but now issues of credibility don’t bother him so much. “Because my music is so much more truthful about my art – me – than my acting is. Music comes from my soul. I can connect with you more through my music.”
That might make it sound as if Elba is unduly prone to navel-gazing, and as he smokes another in a series of rollups, he tends to let thoughts drift. But it would be wrong to characterise his passion as anything other than authentic – we’re in Ibiza because he’s foolishly agreed to a weekly summer DJ residency at Pikes, which has played havoc with filming commitments (“in hindsight one might have considered things differently”); besides which, his knowledge of African music runs deep.
Born in east London, Elba had a Sierra Leonean father who worked at a Ford factory, while his mother came from Ghana. “My cousin, who grew up with us, was round at my house the other day,” he says, “and he started playing all these records from our childhood: Franco, [Tabu Ley] Rochereau, Miriam Makeba, King Sunny Ade … I could remember every word and melody, even though they’re sung in languages I don’t have a clue of and I don’t play a lick. It just shows it’s in my system.”
It was, he adds, “an absolutely pan-African household, although my dad adopted a pseudo cockney accent and my mum quite a posh one, eventually”.
“Growing up in the 80s, being African when 80% of the black kids at school were West Indian – cooler, ruder, ballsier – and even Nigerians in them times were on the square side … everyone wanted to be Jamaican.”
Does he think grime music and artists such as Dizzee Rascal or Afrikan Boy have helped kids of African descent to feel more confident in asserting their identity?
“My name was Idrissa. I was not getting away with that. There was a kid who used to laugh every time my name was called out at registration. That’s why I changed it.
“But then,” he adds, “when jungle and grime came along, kids jumped on it. And what is African culture? Fufu and rice? Nah! There’s a UK African culture now.”
Elba first tried acting at school, then began helping his uncle with a wedding DJ business. These twin interests were to run in parallel, with training at the National Youth Music Theatre to follow, then a string of minor roles on British TV plus a spot of deejaying on the side on pirate radio stations such as Climax FM, spinning garage and house.
By the turn of the millennium, he had relocated to New York, hustling for jobs, “and I had a studio in my little apartment where I’d make beats or mixtapes, and the BBC used to send me cheques. Dangerfield repeats: wicked! That would be £40 or £60 …” But then came his break on The Wire, the HBO drama, as the brains behind the Barksdale organisation, after which roles in films flowed: American Gangster, Thor, Prometheus and then the Mandela movie.
Justin Chadwick, the director of Long Walk to Freedom, recalls the depths to which Elba immersed himself in the project. “He wanted to know everything about Mandela’s musical background, the tribal music, the protest tradition,” he says. “Then he’d DJ at parties with the crew, which helped bring everyone together. He’s a really warm, inclusive person.”
Elba talks about the weight of taking on the role of Mandela and then how the death of his father shortly after filming finished affected him. “My only reference for playing Mandela had been my own old man: two old men, with the same smile, the same charisma, really. My dad was a shop steward, too, so that idea of fighting for people’s rights came to me from that. I was bitter when he died, distraught … But it turned into the words and songs of this album.”
The recording of mi Mandela became an act of catharsis. “There was just a bunch of concepts in my head: about who I felt Mandela was, about who I was when I was playing him. I’d realise: ‘There’s a feeling that I have attached to these thoughts …’ the sessions became therapy for me.”
Cody ChestnuTT, George the Poet and James Blake got involved with the recording and while Elba confesses he’s not much of a musician himself, “what does come naturally to me is melody”.
“We’d have these big deep conversations,” he continues, “and then I’d say, try playing this … and that would become the seed of a jam and then the others would start riffing.”
Producer Spoek Mathambo helped A&R the project. “It was a bit of a hothouse,” he recalls. “We had people working on different songs in different rooms in the studio, and Idris would be coming up with themes and making beats and feeding back on the band we’d put together.
“I think he managed to represent what’s happening in South Africa beats-wise now – which the film didn’t do – and meld that with all the contributions from the foreign artists,” he continues.
George the Poet, the spoken word artist, became involved after Elba contacted him in London. “I used to watch The Wire, but I knew he’d done music stuff too,” he says. “I went round his house and we talked and played records – and straight away we got on. He’s got that London sense of humour – and if anything, I’d say he’s more a music head than a film one.” The surprise isn’t just that the album coheres or is so enjoyable, but that it shows a different side to the actor at his most earnest. Alongside numbers such as Home (written by Mumford & Sons), there’s also the title track, a half-sung account of Elba sending a video message to the real Mandela – the punchline of which involves Mandela failing to recognise his screen portrayal.
Nor is this Elba’s swansong. Now he is planning a hip-hop album based on ideas that he has taken from the filming in Ghana of Beast of No Nation, a child soldier drama based on the novel by Uzodinma Iweala. I pull up a track that I love on Soundcloud by Esther Baby, a precociously young rapper from Gabon, and he asks his assistant to sign her up to this new project.
“Every film I do now,” he says, “I think about the perspective I can bring to it musically.”
The setup at Pikes – the spot where Wham! filmed their video for Club Tropicana – is extremely chilled by day, but in the evening 1,000-plus partygoers descend on it for some club action, including a 2am set by Elba. Each Saturday throughout the season, he’s flown in for the night, before heading straight back to his movie work: promotional duties for the recent No Good Deed and prepping for a lead role in the Paris-set thriller Bastille Day, plus parts in Avengers: Age of Ultron and a forthcoming Disney remake of The Jungle Book, in which he voices Shere Khan.
The deejaying provides a release, even if a handful of smitten punters in the packed back room at Pikes try and get close to the booth just to snap a picture of the superstar DJ. “Nah, babe! I’m spinning!” he’ll shout, before leading them into some of the dark house of which he’s fondest. Watching him squeezed behind the decks, brow furrowed in concentration, he looks relaxed in this role too.
mi Mandela is released on 7wallace on 24 November. Caspar Llewellyn Smith’s travel was paid for by Warner Bros records.
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