Jacob Collier says he has “creative infinity syndrome”

Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jacob Collier has described himself as having “creative infinity syndrome”, and spoke of his desire to continue learning.

The 28-year-old shot to fame as a teenager with his virtuosic split-screen vocal re-harmonisation videos. He’s won five Grammy Awards since then and collaborated with iconic artists such as Stormzy and SZA.

In a new interview with The Guardian, Jacob discussed the work on his upcoming album, Djesse Vol.4, admitting that by the end of the volume, he thought he would be ready to properly settle into his artistic career having learnt enough. Instead, he’s found that hasn’t been the case as he adds the finishing touches to the record.

“The truth is that you can never know enough because you have to just go. You have to throw paint to see what sticks and that’s why I’m still learning,” he said.

“This whole process has plunged me into the deepest waters of creativity and taught me how to draw things out of my collaborators that they didn’t even know they had in them,” he went on to add. “People like Oumou Sangaré and the Moroccan musician Hamid El Kasri don’t speak much English, for instance, so I had to get to them without words and through the language of the music that would make them smile instead.”

Through the past five years of creating Djesse, Collier has learnt to adapt to each artist’s needs on collaborations, a significant principle in why the musical polymath wants to continue being open when it comes to learning. “When I worked with the Metropole Orkest, I had to write every part for 60 musicians out on paper,” he said. “It was painstaking. And then you have someone like T-Pain, who just wants to party, and that is just as valid for the creative process. Ultimately, it’s all about being taken by surprise and being enlivened by the potential for things to change.”

Back in July, Collier spoke to us at MusicTech for the My Forever Studio podcast. Listen to the episode here.