The Rivers Of Babylondon

Ex-1200 Techniques frontman N'fa Jones returns to Australia after a two-year overseas journey with an accomplished EP up his sleeve that proves he hasn't just spent all his time chilling out in Switzerland. He talks to Chris Yates about returning to his town of birth to record his EP.

As much as N'fa Jones modestly downplays his EP, Babylondon, and his intentions behind it, it points to a level of accomplishment and sophistication that really raises his lyrical style and performance to a whole new stratosphere. The lyrics are clever and subtle, his delivery is as smooth as usual and he has such an amazing array of producers and guests onboard (we're talking M-Phazes, Bass Kleph and even a guest rap from Roots Manuva) that this is truly an international release in every sense. But it almost didn't happen.

“I almost wanted it to be an album because I had so many songs, but I decided to just do the EP because I'm working on an album project for later in the year,” he admits. “I've got so many songs man, I was actually just gonna put 'em all up for free on the site and give them away but David [Vodicka from Rubber Records] heard that I was gonna do that and he was like, 'Nup man! Let me put it out.' I gave him a selection of some of the stuff I did in London and I didn't expect him to pick Deeper Love.” This is the deep soul-based number produced by Jimmy Napes. “I didn't write that song to be a song for radio or anything like that. It's about my lady and my baby so... I didn't want to get too deep or anything on it, I just wrote how I felt.”

Alongside Deeper Love sits March On, a track that comes across as a call to arms for people to keep fighting the good fight, whatever that may be. Jones uses his own experiences with being told how he should sound by A&R people as a metaphor for anyone who needs to stay true to what they want to do.

“There was a point with 1200 Techniques,” he begins a little cautiously. “Well, we had it to such a point where we just wanted to stop. We had A&R people from Sony who were doing the distribution that were just trying to push us in this direction for our third album and we just decided we weren't going to do a third album then; we were just gonna take a break because we wanted to chill. It ended up being a really long break.”

He says these experiences weren't just limited to Australia - even when writing and working in London he had similar struggles. “We had this awesome band going in London. It was called No Fixed Abode and was myself, a guy called Son Of Kick running the sound who is a really dope producer in his own right, a drummer called PSM who drums for the Gorillaz Sound System and Gibbs King who was Roots Manuva's keyboardist. It was a mad band, mad shows, mad everything and the whole time in London everyone was just like, 'Mmm, you need to have a hit. It needs to be more pop, it needs to be this, it needs to be that.' I was like, man, this is what we do. But you know, the song is really not so much about me, it's for all my friends in the industry who haven't had any love, who are constantly trying to get their first foot in. I mean, shit, I got to eat at the table for a bit at least.”

One can't help but think that, on the strength of Babylondon, there'll be a lot more dinner invitations to come.