The rain tumbles down incessantly on a windy Wednesday evening in late March, but the line outside north London venue KOKO grows and grows. Snaking itself around the famed building, people are huddled together, patiently waiting for their entry into the dry warmth of the venue, but there’s a palpable buzz in the air: Californian artist Channel Tres is due to perform his final UK show on a massive European tour which has taken him across nine countries in the space of a month.
“You can have a hit song, but that don’t mean you made it,” he tells NME backstage, splayed out on a couch, resting before performing at yet another sold-out show. “You have to go right back to the studio and make another.” Soft-spoken and modest, the 31-year-old exudes tranquillity. It belies his focused obsessiveness, evidenced by the number of hits he has created and the crowds that will withstand rain or shine to come hear them.
His breakout single ‘Controller’, released in 2018, signified the rise of a new star. Since then he has released a slew of EPs, alongside working with JPEGMAFIA, Disclosure, Tyler, the Creator and Robyn, while appearing alongside SG Lewis, Jungle and more on their songs.
Channel Tres – born Sheldon Young – has deftly made a genre unto himself. Coined ‘Compton House’, it blends funk, gospel, hip-hop, classic soul and electronic music – the thread is an infectious toe-tapping pace underpinned by melodic hooks. “When I decided I wanted to do music, that was it,” Young says. “I didn’t do nothing else. I’m obsessive and whatever I put my mind to, I do and do well.”
This determination also allowed Young to tackle a tough personal spell and emerge out the other side clean and sober. “I was a depressed kid,” he says. “I used to wear that as a badge, thinking it was a rite of passage. I was into Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Kid Cudi, Mac Miller. I thought that was the way. Fortunately, I got exposed to other people.”
He worked on Miller’s final album ‘Swimming’, though their song didn’t make the final cut; Miller died a month after in September 2018 following an accidental drug overdose. Musicians like LA jazz-funk hero Thundercat helped Young see through the pain: “Dealing with that shit, it’s not a game,” he says. “When an artist dies, we may romanticise it, but when you’re in someone’s life, and you start becoming friends, and they pass away, that’s not to be played with.”
In 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Young reassessed himself. He wasn’t the person he wanted to be and when the lockdown was lifted he continued with old habits. “It just wasn’t working,” he says. “I was able to see my vices right in front of me. I turned 30 and I was not feeling the best and I didn’t really like the person I was looking at in the morning. I went to therapy and figured out that there’s some things I have to give up to achieve what I want to achieve. Then, I started making those changes”
One of those changes – aside from being clean, not drinking, and going to the gym every day – is how he approached his live shows. Before he played Coachella in 2022, Young “dove into Prince and Bobby Brown really heavily.” He would sit and watch hours of footage of them performing “on the big screen at my house. Just shows on loop.” He would be learning the dance moves and understanding how these larger-than-life personalities created “mystical characters” on stage. There was a fearlessness he found within these performances which he wished to replicate.
At KOKO, he struts on stage in a diamond-encrusted shirt and leather trousers, effortlessly gliding through a performance that the crowd respond to with enthusiasm. He’s a conductor leading a raucous audience through a party, his performance a stark reminder as to his natural charisma and talents.
Young grew up in Southern LA between Compton and Lynwood. Raised by his great-grandparents, he was part of a large household with various family members dropping by. He spent most days at church, playing the drums with his choir and absorbing gospel music. His great-grandfather introduced him to jazz; his cousins played Parliament and Prince along with West Coast rap. He grew up with a smorgasbord of influences, including Pharrell and Lupe Fiasco before studying music theory and broadening his horizons. By the time he released his debut project in 2018 under the Channel Tres moniker, it felt long overdue for an artist who has talent running through his blood.
“The more I work on music, the less pretentious I am,” he quips. “No, honestly. Because I’m around really great musicians from Thundercat to James Blake to Robert Glasper to Ty Dolla Sign, they don’t take this shit that seriously. Thundercat is probably the person who had the biggest influence on me: he’s one of the best bass players in the world and doesn’t take himself too seriously. Like, I had to ask myself why am I so pretentious? I let that go. I was just kind of like, “OK, I’m gonna just be me” and it comes across in the songwriting.”
On his latest EP, ‘Real Cultural Shit’, there’s a certain freeness which underpins the collection, a looser sound that suggests Channel hasn’t constrained himself to imagined limits. “I thought, ‘this is obviously not shaping up to be my first album’ like I wanted it to be,” he says, “so, I just let it go knowing that it wasn’t my only shot.”
Stand-out track ‘6am’ boasts a bassline that bounces with drunken bravado while a playful funky synth and bass complement each other superbly. ‘All My Friends’ – which shares titular and thematic similarities to LCD Soundsystem’s classic – sees Channel rap over an infectious beat made for summer park parties; ‘Big Time’ has shuffling drums and playfulness flowing out like ribbons of smoke. These are some of his most astute, complete compositions yet.
“I’m writing stuff on my phone a lot,” he says of his songwriting process. “I journal on this tour before I go to bed. Sometimes, I get on the mic and just freestyle and start to figure out what I want to say. I also try not to be too hard on myself because if I didn’t achieve what I wanted to in that one song, I would just write another one.”
He won’t be drawn on the status of any upcoming projects, he just wants to get himself mentally and physically ready for another magnetic performance. He’s more concerned about a pre-show dinner and appreciating and recognising that he’s just grateful to be here, right now, at this moment.
“I’ve been fortunate to be exposed to the seriousness of mental health,” he says. “Yes, I have a story. I’m from Compton. I have trauma, but let me show you that you can break past that in a more positive way. You don’t have to be a victim of where you come from. You can actually make it past the idea of ‘I shouldn’t have a good life’. So, let me be that example. You don’t need negativity to push you to where you want to go. And if you pretend to be somebody else to get to where you’re going, eventually you’re gonna feel empty because you’re not fully yourself. You know what I’m saying?”
Channel Tres’ ‘Real Cultural Shit’ is out now