KILIMANJARO: Building Something That Lasts

KILIMANJARO could easily let the numbers tell his story. ‘No Bad Vibes’, his global smash with Jazzy, has passed 170 million streams on Spotify, and this year brought a MOBO nomination for Best Electronic Act. Yet when DMY catches up with him, the DJ and producer isn't phased by any of it. 

What matters to him now is the climb. His new EP, 'THE ASCENSION (INKAWAMI)', which arrived today, is a collection built over several years and across studios around the world, with Aluna, Kojey Radical, Tiggs Da Author, Bloody Civilian and The Joy among its voices. It’s a more personal, reflective body of work than the club-led EPs that came before, carrying the Zambian roots and Scottish band-room beginnings that shaped him long before the DJ booth.

That lineage is steering his next chapter too. This November, KILIMANJARO brings the drumming he has loved since he was twelve into a headline live show, with dates running from Berlin to a hometown night in Glasgow and a finale at London’s Islington Assembly Hall.

We spoke to him about building something that lasts, learning to let go once the music is out in the world, and why a project intro has to set the tone.

The title itself suggests a climb - where do you feel you actually are on that ascent right now, versus where the EP finds you?

‘THE ASCENSION’ is a collection of records that I've been putting together over the last two, three years. ‘Moving On’ - [created] with my little sister - we worked on that literally two years ago. And then ‘Not Like You’, which is going to be the lead single on the EP, we finished like two, three weeks ago. I’m super blessed to be on this journey. I think an ascension can last a lifetime, but also what I'm trying to do here is really focus on the moments and the different parts of the journey that have affected the music that I've made in that time. Where I'm at in the journey, I'm not really sure. I think this record's definitely a stepping stone to the story, but I feel like the story is really all about the ascension and all about getting to that place. So maybe at the start, maybe the middle, maybe at the end. But we're still working on it.

Yes, it's not about the destination, it's about the climb, because that's what builds you as a person, right? Taking stock whilst you're on that journey and thinking, do I want to change my path? Do I want to keep going on this one?

Definitely. I think because I'm also thinking about the music that's going to come next. I feel like sonically, the last few EPs have been a bit more club-led and a bit more house music focused, whereas what I want to be making in the next two, three, four, five years is different. So ‘THE ASCENSION’ is not only an ascension through my career and through the things that I'm learning and the things I'm experiencing, but it's also an ascension through my musical journey and how I'm trying to get to what I really want to be making and want to be gifting people with. It's a double meaning.

So you're thinking quite far ahead. Have you always been this forward-thinking and forward-planning person, always thinking about the next thing?

Yeah, I think it's just from my upbringing and the things that I've gone through and experienced. You always have to have an end goal. You always have to have something that you're focusing on, something that you're wanting to strive towards, and not only inspire yourself to achieve, but also inspire other people to achieve. And I think coming from the indie bands, the grafting live music scene in Scotland, it's always been like: right, okay, we start here, where do we go next? What story do we tell next? And the things that we've experienced - how do we keep building and pushing towards those goals, but also still telling those stories at the same time?

You've been playing drums since you were twelve, and now you're building a live show around that. Why is now the moment to bring that instrument back into your performance?
When I got with my management three, four, five maybe years ago, just after the Boiler Room dropped, the thing that really connected us was they'd had a lot of experience working with artists that had gone from being DJs to doing live shows. And I'm kind of a double flip, because I'd been doing live, and then I'd flipped to being a DJ, and we'd always talked about doing live. I just felt like, with what I'd done sonically with my EPs and with what I'd released compared to the stuff that I was making in the studio - and I'd also been DJing for like ten years - it just felt like the right time. I think if you're trying to tell a story, it first starts at home. It starts pen to paper. It starts in the studio, and then it develops into demos and stuff that people can really listen to and get connected to. But throughout that whole process, we've always been thinking about going back to live - thinking about instrumentation, like choirs, string sections, me being on vocals, having guest vocals. So the last few years have always been working towards that. When you look at the storyline, it makes sense to do it now. It makes sense for the music that fits there, but then also stepping into a world where you can get to express that with the people that you've created it with, I guess.

It’s bringing a lot of the different parts of you into one show.
Yeah, 100%. I think when it comes to creating, everyone's just trying to get as close as they can to their truest self, and I'm super blessed because I got to write with my brothers and my friends when I was younger, so I got to experience that vulnerability and offering yourself up, but then also exploring what you are as a person when it comes to writing, before I'd even experienced big crowds or anything like that. So now that I've had the opportunity to have seen that and traveled, and experienced more life, I feel like it's important for me to tell those stories through the music, not just words, but also instrumentation. What kind of tips and tricks and things have I added to my repertoire that I can bring to the record as well, alongside how it feels.

Aluna, Kojey Radical, Tiggs Da Author, Bloody Civilian, The Joy… how did you determine the collaborations on the record?

I've been really blessed because there's opportunities to work with different people, and I'm always like, this person's sick, let's get in touch with the team. Or I've heard this song, I need to figure out whoever this is, that I want to work with them. But I think everything works out in its own time as well. There's music that we're sitting on that has other features, but I think the way that this record's worked out is it's a real combination of up-and-coming people and people who are already doing their thing. The main line that runs through the record is everyone understands that the songs we're putting out are something that comes from the heart, from every single person that's on the record, and that's why it should resonate, because all the features, all the producers, all the choirs, all the instrument players, that was one of the main pillars: it has to feel and resonate. That's why these features have landed here. And then maybe in six months, twelve months, eighteen months, other features will come out.

You made the EP over a long period of time, across studios and sessions around the world. When you've been around different rooms, different cities, did you find that pulled different emotions out of you? Or were you carrying a certain feeling no matter where you went, that the new experiences were feeding into?

Yeah, massively. When you do this job, it offers so many positives and pluses and new experiences that you can relish, but it also offers up a lot of experiences that are very new and make you feel very vulnerable. But what is also great about what I do and what I get to do is I can take those energies into rooms where we're making music. This song with Aluna is probably one of the biggest representations of that - ‘Back Home’ - because if you listen to the lyrics, we've all been there. It's a boy-meets-girl, person-meets-person situation. What I loved about that was there were four people in the room who all experienced the exact same thing, but we voiced it in four different ways that then came together to make this unique record that hopefully speaks to a lot of different people. And I really felt that across the whole EP, I just had a lot of opportunities to work with people that felt very similar things to me, but we were also able to see it in so many different ways.

The feeling that comes out - both from when you're talking now about the record and the process of making the record, but also the way it sounds - is that authenticity. It's the stories, the connections, the passion that's been put in - it does feel authentic, and that's why it will resonate with people so much, and that's why I can feel how much it resonates with you.

I'm glad that's coming across. I think with a record like this, it's not going to leap off the shelf, but I'd love to think that in ten years' time, there's someone who's eighteen, someone who's twenty-five, someone who's fifty-five, that listens to the record, and there's still notes in there that they can cling to, that make sense to them. That's the whole point of the record. It's a record written by me, from my perspective, but it's a record that's also for everyone, and I just want everyone to connect with that. It's not meant to be specific to a time, it's meant to be specific to a feeling.

So it's about longevity, rather than trying to create something that hits here and now; this is a record that you want to be an expression of you, but something that's also really going to last and resonate with people as the years go by, as it evolves with people, as they either discover it or grow with it themselves.

Yeah, definitely. I think that's one of the underlying notes of what I'm trying to do. I think we're super blessed to have things that we experience as a flash in the pan, because those things are all obviously very important in creating culture. But for me, leaning into trends and what's popular has never really been what I've done. It's more important for me to create and build something that lasts. That’s a very vague phrase when you say it out loud, but it's more of a day-to-day mantra. When you're looking at tours and scheduling, or studio sessions, and who you're working with, or even with the live show - what sort of instrumentation we're trying to bring and what songs we're trying to play - building something that lasts is a day-to-day mantra, as opposed to something you just take into the studio, or into the meeting room, or into the meetings with record labels or whatever. It has to be spread across everything that you're doing, and it has to be something you commit to over time, because if it works, then you can be in a place where you look back and think, you know what, I could have followed this trend, but I've created art here. I've created something that someone who has never heard of me, never seen me, never even heard of my type of music, can watch and appreciate as art, as opposed to, we did this dance and we posted the song to this dance. That doesn't resonate with me at all. I'm trying to make something that people will be able to connect with five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty years down the line.

That really comes across. And perhaps that is what the journey is all about: building something that does last a long time; leaving your mark.

Yeah, I think so. And also, at the same time, it's also not that deep… A lot of pressure gets put on releases and looking at streaming numbers, and how it's getting radio play or being supported, and a lot of that stuff is out of everyone's control. I think we need to not put that pressure on the outcome. You put pressure into what you're making, and strive to deliver the best possible thing you can deliver, but then after that, you need to just be able to let it go… You're not in charge of whether someone really loves your song or not. But the people that you trust, the people that you've worked on it with, and your family, the people around you, you have to be able to lean on that, and then after it goes out into the ether, just let it go.

There's a lot of strength in that, being able to let go. That's ultimately what we should all be driving for, really, creating art for art's sake rather than art for some kind of gain, right?

Yeah, 100%. And I've been super blessed - I have so many amazing friends in the industry and the scene that are doing the same thing that I'm doing, and I'm so much better at giving advice to other people when it comes to that stuff. And then you take a step back, and the advice that you're giving to other people, or even just the notes that you're giving to other people, you start to give to yourself, and you're like, you know what, it's actually not that deep, really and truly.

Those are wise words. Is that the biggest piece of advice that you tend to give people, then, that at the end of the day, it's actually not that deep?

Yeah, I think you have to try and draw into deep water as a creative, but the results can't affect how you feel in your life. The numbers can't affect how you feel. That’s why I've made this record in the studio, and straight away, a month later, getting to tour it alongside other music that I've been making, because that, for me, is the payout. I've made music that is going to bang in a big room with a band, and people in the choir, and someone on the drums, and someone playing keys, and I've got six shows to perform that to people. I love DJing, obviously, but the live element, getting to bring out different features like that, all of that is way more important to me than anything else, any of the numbers. I actually couldn't care less about any of the other stuff, to be honest. It's like I'm getting to play my music live to people who want to come and hear my music. That's the be-all and end-all.

Lastly, if someone only listens to one track off ‘THE ASCENSION’, which one do you want them to sit with, and why?
I love all of them equally. I think the intro. It sets the tone. People haven't really heard me sing like that properly on a record. My little sister, who's on another track on the record, and my big brother, are also on it [the intro]. I've grown up with albums that have had intros and outros and hidden tracks, so I had to do an intro. If the intro doesn't set the tone, then why is it even on there?

'THE ASCENSION (INKAWAMI)' is out now.

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