Ezra Collective Turn Jubilee Into a Dancefloor Language on “Jubilee Feeling”

Fresh from a South African festival appearance in Franschhoek, the London quintet fold UK jazz, funky house and Black diasporic memory into a song about release, renewal and the radical possibilities of joy.

There is a particular kind of joy that belongs to a crowded room.

Why It Matters

Ezra Collective are showing how contemporary jazz can remain historically conscious without becoming musically cautious. “Jubilee Feeling” connects church, Black diasporic movement, British club culture and improvisation without treating any of them as separate worlds.

Not the private satisfaction of hearing a good song through headphones, but the moment when rhythm seems to erase the distance between strangers — when the room moves almost as one and, briefly, whatever existed outside it becomes less important.

Do not become a monument. Keep moving.

Ezra Collective have spent much of their career chasing that feeling.

On their new single “Jubilee Feeling,” the Mercury Prize-winning, BRIT Award-winning London five-piece push it somewhere new, allowing contemporary jazz to collide with the euphoric pulse of British dance music. The result feels less like an argument about where jazz belongs in 2026 than an answer: wherever people are moving.

It arrives at an interesting point in the collective's story. Ezra Collective — drummer and bandleader Femi Koleoso, bassist TJ Koleoso, keyboardist Joe Armon-Jones, saxophonist James Mollison and trumpeter Ife Ogunjobi — became the first jazz act to win the Mercury Prize when Where I'm Meant to Be took the award in 2023. Two years later, they won Group of the Year at the 2025 BRIT Awards, another milestone for a band that has continually stretched the space afforded to contemporary British jazz.

But “Jubilee Feeling” does not sound interested in monuments.

It sounds interested in movement.

Joy with a history

At its centre is Joe Armon-Jones' piano, carrying the harmonic vocabulary of jazz into a track informed by the rush of 2010s UK funky house. Around it, Ezra Collective build something exuberant but unusually purposeful: music that can function as celebration without pretending that celebration exists outside history.

That distinction matters because the word jubilee means more to Koleoso than simply a party.

“Jubilee is a word that means a great deal to me. It's connected to the church where I grew up and the youth group I work with, but beyond that, its meaning really resonates with me — a time when debts are cleared, prisoners are released and people are given the chance to begin again.”

For Koleoso, jubilee becomes an image of equalisation — release followed by renewal. That gives the track's brightness another dimension. The joy is not empty escapism. It is what becomes possible after something has been lifted.

This relationship between pain, hope and celebration sits at the heart of Ezra Collective's forthcoming album, Here Because of Hope.

Partisan Records describes the record as a journey through three spiritual and geographical movements, tracing Black music from Africa through the Caribbean and into Britain. Its 17-track sequence includes appearances from Pa Salieu, Lila Iké, Leona Lewis and Libianca, while actor Letitia Wright reads the three pieces dividing its movements. “Jubilee Feeling” appears deep into that journey, as track 15. (Partisan Records US)

The album's central question is deceptively simple: why has so much Black music created through painful histories so often sounded joyful?

Ezra Collective's answer is hope.

And “Jubilee Feeling” may be one of the clearest expressions of that thesis yet.

From London nightlife to Franschhoek

That conversation feels particularly resonant following the group's appearance in South Africa earlier this year.

Ezra Collective performed at the inaugural Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek in March, joining a programme that brought international names including Robert Glasper and Róisín Murphy into conversation with artists from South Africa and elsewhere on the continent. The official Montreux press material subsequently cited Ezra Collective among the artists who appeared at the festival's first South African edition. (Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek)

For a collective whose music has long treated African rhythm not as an ornamental influence but as part of a living diasporic continuum, the appearance carried its own significance.

Ezra Collective's language has always been London — but London as a meeting place.

Afrobeat can live beside jazz improvisation. Reggae can converse with hip-hop. Soul, calypso and club music can occupy the same composition without being forced into neat categories. Their music reflects a Britain whose sonic identity cannot be separated from generations of African and Caribbean migration.

Here Because of Hope appears poised to make that lineage explicit.

And “Jubilee Feeling” brings the journey home to the dancefloor.

The night out becomes part of the story

Director Ebeneza Blanche extends that idea in the accompanying music video, turning towards early-2000s British nightlife for inspiration.

The visual places Ezra Collective's contemporary sound inside the aesthetics and unpredictability of a night out: friends, movement, encounters and the possibility that an ordinary evening might suddenly produce one perfect communal moment.

There is intentional friction between what the video looks like and what the song sounds like.

As Koleoso explains:

“We wanted the video to capture that tension — the look and atmosphere feel rooted in the early 2000s, while the music is completely fresh.”

That tension is important.

Ezra Collective are not attempting to reproduce another period. Nor does “Jubilee Feeling” treat British club culture as a costume. Instead, different generations of Black British expression begin speaking to one another: jazz instrumentation, diasporic rhythm, church-rooted ideas of jubilee and the collective release of the rave.

The past becomes material for something that still feels alive.

Jazz was never standing still

It would be easy to describe Ezra Collective as musicians who are “modernising” jazz, but even that framing feels too restrictive.

Their work repeatedly suggests that jazz did not need rescuing from the past in the first place.

It needed room.

Room to encounter Afrobeat. Room to enter a nightclub. Room to exist alongside hip-hop and house without having its seriousness questioned. Room for virtuosity and accessibility to exist in the same song.

“Jubilee Feeling” thrives in that room.

After the milestones of a Mercury Prize and a BRIT Award, Ezra Collective could have approached their next chapter by becoming more polished, more guarded or more conscious of their status.

Instead, they have returned to something elemental: rhythm, community and the strange alchemy that happens when enough people find the same pulse.

That may ultimately be what makes the idea of jubilee so fitting.

A clearing of the old accounts.

A chance to begin again.

And, somewhere in London — or Franschhoek, Lagos, Kingston or any of the places whose musical histories have travelled into the band's vocabulary — a room full of people discovering that hope can have a rhythm.

Here Because of Hope is set for release via Partisan Records on 11 September 2026. “Jubilee Feeling” and its Ebeneza Blanche-directed music video are out now. (partisanrecords.com)

Watch and listen

Reporting basis: Based on Ezra Collective’s official Here Because of Hope album materials, public release statements from Femi Koleoso accompanying “Jubilee Feeling”, official Mercury Prize and BRIT Awards records, and official Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek programme information. The article also uses Viranova editorial analysis of the track’s relationship with UK jazz, Black British dance music and diasporic musical movement. Ezra Collective’s official site confirms the album’s 17-track structure and 11 September release, while recent release coverage confirms “Jubilee Feeling” as its third preview and first instrumental single.

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Reporting & Standards

Human-written · Editor-reviewed · Corrections open

Written by Viranova Music Desk · Jazz, Black Music & Global Music Culture · More from Viranova Music Desk

Filed by Viranova Music Desk for the Music desk · London, United Kingdom / Franschhoek, South Africa. Published 01 Sept 2026.

Sources

Secondary material

Reported first by another publication or organisation, and credited here.

1. Here Because of Hope is scheduled for release on 11 September 2026 and contains 17 tracks Ezra Collective Official Site accessed 1 September 2026
2. Here Because of Hope is structured across three spiritual and geographical movements following Black music from Africa through the Caribbean and into London Ezra Collective Official Site accessed 1 September 2026
3. Letitia Wright reads the three transitional pieces on Here Because of Hope, while Pa Salieu, Lila Iké, Leona Lewis and Libianca appear as collaborators Ezra Collective Official Site accessed 1 September 2026
4. Jubilee Feeling appears as track 15 on Here Because of Hope and runs for approximately 4 minutes and 15 seconds Ezra Collective / Bandcamp accessed 1 September 2026
5. Jubilee Feeling was released on 25 August 2026 as the third preview from Here Because of Hope and the first instrumental unveiled from the album The Line of Best Fit accessed 1 September 2026
6. Femi Koleoso connects the idea of Jubilee to his childhood church, the youth group he works with and the idea of debts being settled and prisoners being released The Line of Best Fit accessed 1 September 2026
7. Jubilee Feeling combines UK jazz and 2010s funky house and is driven prominently by Joe Armon-Jones’ piano The Line of Best Fit accessed 1 September 2026
8. The Jubilee Feeling music video was directed by Ebeneza Blanche and draws on British nightlife imagery SMUGGLER / Jubilee Feeling video credits accessed 1 September 2026
9. Ezra Collective performed at the inaugural Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek in March 2026 Montreux Jazz Festival Franschhoek accessed 1 September 2026
10. Ezra Collective won the 2023 Mercury Prize for Where I’m Meant to Be Mercury Prize accessed 1 September 2026
11. Ezra Collective won Group of the Year at the 2025 BRIT Awards BRIT Awards accessed 1 September 2026

Further reading and references

• Ezra Collective — Here Because of Hope Official Album Page

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