“The most important thing is realness,” says south London singer-songwriter Kojo Degraft-Johnson, one half of MRCY. The dynamic duo – Degraft-Johnson and Huddersfield-born producer-instrumentalist Barney Lister – are cultivating an ambitious, emotionally charged brand of UK soul. It’s designed to explode out of the speakers, but they’re determined not to let this big, vibrant sound drown out their lyrical content. “The words have to sound like something I might say in conversation,” Degraft-Johnson adds. “It’s got to be honest.”
We meet the pair in a cosy studio inside a converted dairy in Brixton. They only come here a few days a month, but the atmosphere is homely; an acoustic drum kit stands in one corner and paintings adorn each wall. A candle burns softly on top of a wide desk, its aromas overpowered by the smell of cinnamon from the flavoured toothpicks Lister chews as an anti-smoking measure.
After linking up towards the end of lockdown, Lister and Degraft-Johnson quickly developed a tight creative bond. Connected by a shared love of Northern Soul and Motown, as well as contemporary soul and funk artists like Khruangbin and SAULT, they’re honing a sound designed to bring together “English culture as a whole” – from north to south and everything in between.
Inspired by a mythological tale of seductive sirens, their subtly psychedelic debut single ‘Lorelei’, which dropped in February, underlined MRCY’s depth of storytelling. They followed it with the evocative, Afrobeats-flecked ‘Flowers In Mourning’ and now majestic new single ‘R.L.M.’, which Degraft-Johnson describes as a “dream-like love song” about “someone I was seeing who I used to ride around with in London”. All three tracks will appear on the duo’s hotly anticipated debut project ,’Volume 1′, which is due on May 10.
Here, they discuss their musical connection, their support slot on March’s Black Pumas tour, and the power of using art to discuss politics and social issues in 2024.
Why did you choose to introduce the world to MRCY with ‘Lorelei’?
Barney Lister: “‘Lorelei’ has sat as a prominent tune ever since we wrote it. It’s emotional, it’s got this slight psychedelia; it’s old-sounding but it’s new-sounding. It says a lot about who we are and what we’re trying to do musically. And it’s just a beautiful word as well! For me, picking the words for how they sound has never been the most important thing, but for Kojo it’s big, and that was really interesting and inspiring – we have a different way of looking at things, and that’s a nice place to be creatively.”
Kojo Degraft-Johnson: “Our dynamic when we write is interesting, because Barney hears my voice in a different way. When we’re throwing out different melody ideas, I’m very trusting of what Barney suggests because I feel like he can hear in his head how it would sound coming out of my mouth, if we nail it.”
Why did your creative partnership need its own identity as the band MRCY?
BL: “I make a lot of music that sits in the same world as this, and it’s nice to have the freedom to express things in the way I personally want to. As a producer, you’re often trying to help someone else find their vision and support their artistic decisions, whereas I wanted to do this with my own vision. When I met Kojo, I was like, ‘I haven’t heard a voice like this that hasn’t already been tapped into.’ It was such a brilliant sound, and I knew if we got on, we could find something magical.”
As we sit here today, in February, you’re about to head out on tour with Black Pumas. How are you feeling about playing your first live shows as MRCY?
BL: “We’re buzzing! When we started playing in rehearsals, it was like ‘Oh, this is good!’ – I thought it was gonna be a nightmare! I thought it was gonna be hard to get the feeling right, or the players weren’t gonna manage the parts… but everyone’s doing it beautifully, and it feels really natural. Everyone’s been plucked from different bits of the music world, and that’s what we’re about.”
‘Flowers In Mourning’ explores the strange mix of joy and sadness that accompanies loss. What’s the story behind the track?
KDJ: “The initial nucleus of ‘Flowers’ is loss, but it’s not just a personal loss of people or relationships… there’s something that everyone has in their mind that keeps them centred and at peace, and it can be the chaos of your everyday or the mellowness of your everyday, but when there’s an imbalance that you feel, that’s something we all have to navigate from time to time.”
BL: “The feeling of grief and despair without anyone dying is quite a deep one, and I think everyone’s feeling it at the minute. We’re not talking directly about what’s going on in the world, but we’re living it and everyone’s living it and it feels silly to not talk about it. ‘Flowers In Mourning’ is about the loss of something small that can make a massive difference to the rest of your existence. And it’s fucking flamboyant as fuck and loud and brash, and I think that represents the feeling of how that can be, because it can be completely bewildering when something small changes and everything goes to shit!”
KDJ: “That juxtaposition that you get in music when the music doesn’t necessarily represent the emotion inside – you could be talking about something really sad or morbid but the music is very joyous and flamboyant – I think that’s always a cool form of art, and I think ‘Flowers’ has that vibe.”
Are you interested in exploring social and political ideas in a more overt way?
BL: “I would like to be saying things a bit more front and centre. I would like to be talking about this shit as much as possible, because I think everybody’s confused and everybody’s trying to fathom it out and the only way to do that is through art and communication. There’s a fine balance to how we do that, and that’s why I like what we’ve done so far; there’s a subtlety to it.”
There’s a succinct quality to it, as well. How do you achieve that?
KDJ: “On an artistic side, the thing I find most importance is the realness. It has to feel real… I’m imagining everyone in a circle, and at some point you’re gonna have the floor and you’re gonna talk about what you’ve seen that day. And if you’re putting it out [there], it’s gotta be real and it’s gotta be honest.”
BL: “It’s about talking about the reality of our lives without trying to make it too grand. It should be as unpretentious as possible. Because you wanna say something that matters but it can’t be from a grandiose place – you’ve gotta be a normal human being and talk about who you are!”
KDJ: “As a singer, I knew that I wanted to be part of an original project that felt otherworldly and big and authentic and different, but I didn’t know how I was gonna go about that. I didn’t really expect to be talking loads about my walk of life or other people’s walks of life, but now it just feels right. It feels honest and it feels unapologetic without it being super-clunky or hard on the ears. It can resonate with people.”
It sounds like you’ve both been able to unlock something in each other.
BL: “Only a few humans can do what Kojo can do. I love the fact that I can have a thought and an idea of something to say, and when I tell Kojo, he’ll see it too. Relationship’s a big word, but it’s a beautiful relationship!”
KDJ: “I was lucky to meet Barney!”
MRCY’s new ‘R.L.M.’ is out now. ‘Volume 1’ follows on May 10.