Chiminyo's NRG Project is a Statement to Human-Made Art

Bann Irbash
2 hours ago
7 min read

Chiminyo, the London-based drummer, producer, and performer, does not limit his interpretation of jazz to the traditional expectations of the genre. While jazz figureheads John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, and Miles Davis, formed Chiminyo's earliest musical influences, other inspirations span from Flying Lotus to Jorge Ben Jor. Chiminyo and his collaborators’ take on jazz is subtle. Instead of centering saxophones and solos, jazz influences how they improvise and elevate one another. For Chiminyo, while post-bop is played in the jazz clubs of New York, the jazz scene in London is less conventional and is more focused on the energy that is shared between musicians.

Chiminyo's interests lie in exploring how jazz and electronic music intersect – how can technology expand what your instrument is capable of while still retaining that human feel? How can you be freed of loops, click-tracks, and backing tracks? Such musings led Chiminyo to laboriously develop a software that triggers a synth each time he hits his drum kit. Through combining percussion with electronic production to develop his inimitable sound, Chiminyo releases solo records, as well as performing in bands such as Uniri, Cykada, and Maisha.

Following the releases of his debut EP I Am Chiminyo and album I Am Panda, Clash Magazine heralded Chiminyo as a ‘real hidden force in UK jazz’. In 2020, Chiminyo was granted the Jazz FM Digital Award, recognising his innovation.

Post-pandemic, Chiminyo’s desire for connection led him to pioneer the NRG project: a series of albums produced out of strictly improvised live recordings of a rotating lineup of musicians. Since 2023, Chiminyo has released five NRG records, receiving praise from Jazzwise, The Guardian, and Sounds of the Universe, amongst others. From Ronnie Scott’s to Peckham Levels, audiences continue to show up to the NRG live shows, proving that Chiminyo’s ingenious production and energetic collaborations are not to be missed.

What inspired you to build your own software?

About ten years ago, I jammed with a guy who had a synthesiser that you could plug in a drum trigger. When you hit the drum, it triggered the note on the synthesiser. We were jamming and I was in control of how the groove was being expressed. That was exciting as a drummer – to be able to pull in different elements and increase and decrease synths and tonal elements just from the drum kit. When I discovered that, I thought there must be a way to do this by myself, so I started to experiment. At the time, there wasn’t anything available online, so the only way to fully develop it was to build it myself. Fortunately, or unfortunately at the time, I had a kidney taken out and I was out of action for three months. I used that time to build the software that I would then use to write my projects. Where did the idea to start NRG come from?

I did a couple of studio records with some different collaborators, and in the process came the idea to improvise in the studio and use those improvisations as the basis for compositions. I thought that I could do that in a gig by getting a wicked group of musicians, giving them one take to do the best that they can do, and then producing an album out of those live recordings.

Each gig has a completely different lineup of musicians, and the entire show is improvised. Every single gig, I get to put on my curation hat and explore and experiment with different members of my community, different friends, and different people that I’ve seen but not been able to collaborate with before. It’s an opportunity to bring them together and really think about how those different elements are all going to fit together in the performance. It’s also a culmination of different ideas that I have. I’ve done lots of African diasporic traditional music and learnt different percussion instruments from visiting Senegal, Brazil, and Colombia, and learning about those different genres. So, I’m also incorporating different elements from some of that as well.

Why is collaboration so important to you?

It feels like there are two different modes of working. It takes a certain type of energy to motivate yourself to put in the work and complete something by yourself. That’s a beautiful thing, but, in my experience, it requires a lot of headspace. When I have lots of different things going on, it’s hard to find the time to resonate with some sounds and reflect on my direction and narratives.

Whereas, with collaboration, you can bounce off each other. Some of the collaborations I do are studio-based, so I can book some time, and we bounce ideas, have a jam, build an energy together, and it all happens in those six hours. I struggle to set myself time to work on solo music. It requires a bit more headspace and peace to do that.

It also helps you view and understand your own ideas when you’ve been in a room with other people. If there are elements of your sound that you don’t trust but other people vibe with, you can leave those experiences feeling confident and realising that they are cool. Equally, you can learn a lot from the different angles that collaborators take.

What did you learn from the previous NRG records that impacted how you approached NRG 5?

It’s a constant learning journey, from approaches to musicians to sounds and textures. I reflect on how I was playing and think how next time I could chill a bit more or explore more textural things. I’m learning so much every single time I do them, especially in the process of producing the record, because you’re then listening intensely to recordings of yourself playing. Recording yourself playing is a very useful thing to do as a musician.

There’s no overdubs in the NRG projects. It’s all done live in the room. For example, if I drop a stick, I can’t put that stick back. It’s just in the record now. So, you learn a lot.

What unexpected challenges did you run into in the process of recording or producing NRG 5?

We had to order a bigger mixing desk to record more elements than what the venue was set up for. When we arrived, the company had sent a 16 instead of a 32-channel desk, which could not fit all the inputs. We had to start setting up whilst members of the venue were trying to find another desk. We ended up patching everything quite late. Then, the audience started coming in whilst we were still sound checking. Whilst we were playing, we had to adjust the sound levels. There’s a track called ‘Down In My Monitor’, where at the beginning of the track, I’m shouting at the sound engineer to “put it down in my monitor!” because it was loud. There’s another track, ‘Technical Difficulties’, where I start the track saying how we’re still sound checking. Rudy, the bass player, starts playing a ‘technical difficulties’ sample as a joke. Somehow, he has the sample in his sampler. We did a track out of that. I like making those things because that doesn’t happen in the studio – if it’s too loud in your ears, you’re going to finish the take and then ask them to turn it down.

I think it’s a unique and special thing, in a world where there’s so much AI music and so much is over-polished, for people to be able to hear something that is real and actually happening. I love it.

Has the rise of AI impacted how you have approached your music or your projects?

I wouldn’t say it hasn’t necessarily changed how I approach making music, but it has changed everything that surrounds it. There is a different feeling in the air which I can’t avoid, and lots of people that I’m talking to are having similar experiences. There are a lot of questions in the air, a lot of unknown and concern about where we’re heading.

NRG focuses on live musicians. Do you feel a heightened sense of responsibility to push back against AI with what you are doing with NRG?

I do feel like there is a positive element in the fact that it feels like there is more of a thirst for live music, especially improvised music. There are a few things in London that are doing very well at the moment. A lot of audiences regularly come to ‘Orii Jam’, a jazz jam on Mondays and Tuesdays. There’s ‘Steam Down’, which is a jazz improv session on Wednesdays, and ‘Spit Nights’, which is a poetry and jazz night. These are all well attended.

If you’d said to me, ten years ago, that improvised jazz jams would be popping off, I’d be shocked. There’s always been some jams popping off with musicians, but these aren’t just for musicians. There’s a lot of people who just like to see music happen in front of them. For us musicians, we take it for granted, because it’s what we do every day. Audiences like to see music being created, see the different elements join and how musicians have to interact and understand each other. That’s very positive. It’s a glimmer of hope.

What are your aspirations for NRG going forward?

Before every NRG show, the musicians and I have a workshop where we talk about our approach and jam for an hour to make sure we are on the same page. I have recordings of all of these, so I’d like to try and create a compilation which includes snippets from the tracks and from rehearsal, to give an insight into what happens behind the NRG shows.

I also want to start doing shows abroad. I want to be able to do NRG in different cities. I have friends in a few different cities around Europe, and I have a few friends in West Africa and in South America. There are a few spots where I have some community that I might be able to pull in on and see if we can make the records in those places.

Listen to Chiminyo’s new album on Spotify, SoundCloud, and Apple Music and keep up to date with him on Instagram.