Sam Akpro: “Each time I've created a song, there has consistently been a creative purpose driving it.”

      “I don’t believe anything is ‘not cool’,” Sam Akpro shares while considering the environment around his debut album, ‘Evenfall’. “I've come to understand that the perspective varies. What is cool in one person's world may not be in yours, and conversely, you may not seem cool in their eyes. It’s akin to that meme of Spiderman pointing at himself.” As we meet up with the Peckham native over a pint at Strongrooms in Shoreditch, Akpro offers DIY an insight into the space that nurtures his creativity, indicating that it goes beyond just sound – he’s currently in the process of creating an ‘Evenfall’ universe with a self-made scrapbook and zine, along with a prose element contributed by poet and musician James Massiah. “That stuff is cool because all my favorite artists have done it. Even if I only read it once, it’s just cool to have it,” he remarks, alluding to the charm of fanzines.

      While some artists are methodical in planning every step, Sam’s method seems more understated – almost spiritual – as if music serves as the medium through which he conveys his perceptions of the world. Attempting to define him feels nearly pointless. Everything necessary to understand is embedded in the music; it’s an emotion. A self-identified introvert (“I don’t talk much; I'm quite reserved, and that likely influences the music”), it becomes clear throughout our talk that he is simply tuned into the right wavelength.

      Interestingly, despite having a Gambian mother and an Ivorian father, the first performance to resonate with him was by Elbow at a BBC Concert Orchestra concert. “My family played Gambian music and gospel Highlife,” Akpro explains, “but when I heard Elbow, I was really intrigued. After school every day, I would go on BBC iPlayer and watch it. That was the first musical experience that made me think, ‘What the hell is this? Who are these people?’” Fast forward to 2018, while studying Biomedical Science at Kingston University, he had another musical revelation after discovering Gorillaz at the Boomtown festival. Enthralled, he left determined to acquire the equipment to create his own music. “I was good at science and enjoyed it, but I chose it mainly to please my parents,” he reflects on his decision to leave university. “It was valuable to try it and realize I didn’t want to pursue it. It was a risk to leave university for music, but I guess it’s paying off a bit,” he adds, a slow smile spreading across his face.

      Apart from his experience at Boomtown, he hadn’t experienced a music community until he began attending shows with his friend and Ammi Boyz member Marley. “The first thing I did was get a laptop. I was listening to K-Trap, hip hop, and drill, and replicating that,” he shares about his early musical endeavors. “Then I decided I wanted to play guitar after hearing Tame Impala, and later Travis Scott’s ‘ASTROWORLD’ album. That really inspired me to combine different sounds.” Just a year later, when Sam debuted with his 2019 EP, ‘Night’s Away’, the foundation of his genre-defying sound was already evident. Following that were ‘Drift’ (2021) and ‘Arrival’ (2023) – the former created in Strongrooms Studios, just a few feet away from where we are sitting now – which established him as a fully realized artist. “I haven’t created that many songs in my life, so each time I make one – whether it's intentional or not – there’s always been some creative intention behind it, without trying to sound overly elaborate,” he reflects, contemplating the boundary between experimentation and intuition. “Even though I feel like I'm still experimenting, I don't know how, but those EPs just seemed to materialize. Even some of those songs, I’m not entirely sure what they mean. It’s wild – it’s some spiritual stuff!”