In a world where Black musicians are often pigeonholed, forced to maintain legibility, Kokoroko remains unpindownable, ever-changing. In the tradition of British African ensembles like Osibisa and the West African Rhythm Brothers, the London-based seven-piece are masters of African fusion, intent on bridging the divide between young people and African popular music of old.  

Their unique sonic disposition paved way for the critical success of 2018’s "Abusey Junction," a tranquil, 7-minute debut record inspired by everything from the lilt of the West African kora to the warmth of Ghanaian highlife. With a breakout track so significant, many tastemakers rushed to define the troupe’s sound, often categorizing them within the confines of dominant "Black" live music genres like jazz and Afrobeat. But much like the Black London in which they were raised — known for its ever-shifting face, for its chaotically diasporic character that makes it difficult to ascertain where one culture ends and another begins — their soundscape remains grander than life itself.  

On their 2022 debut LP Could We Be More, for example, funk and Afrobeat meet seamlessly on tracks like" War Dance" and "Something’s Going On." In their 2024 EP Get the Message, they flirt with reggae and dub on their intro "Higher," before jumping into the Highlife-soul potpourri that is "Sweeter Than." 

Their latest release, Tuff Times Never Last, is no different. The album features Kokoroko’s telltale confluence of West African and global Black sonics, but with fresh references ranging from West African disco to D’Angelo’s Voodoo. And unlike Could We Be More, which implored listeners to reflect on the turbulence of the times via striking instrumentals, Tuff Times Never Last looks to prove its title right. It is warm, uncomplicated, buoyed along by calming vocals, and emblematic of a London summer — a soothing balm in a harsh and unpredictable world.  

Following a packed summer spent touring Europe for the album, Kokoroko will kick off their U.S. tour at the end of July. Having shut down iconic venues like New York’s Baby’s All Right and Warsaw on their 2024 North American tour, they have gone even bigger this year, taking on the likes of Brooklyn Steel and the Telluride Jazz Festival. GRAMMY.com sat down with Kokoroko co-founders Sheila Maurice-Grey and Onome Edgeworth in the band’s Hackney studio, to discuss the many references behind their new album, British African identity, and the unending fount of inspiration that is Black London.

You released four tracks ahead of the album drop, including "Just Can’t Wait" and "Closer to Me." How has the reception been so far for the new work? 

Onome: It’s been super good so far. We have one song that just is always ahead of the others, with "Abusey." But these songs have started to creep up in the streams, and month by month they’re matching it. It’s a different sound for us, so you're never sure how people are gonna take it. It's been such a positive response to us doing something different. 

Sheila: One person in particular was like, "I actually really like the music you’ve been releasing recently." [Laughs.] But it’s kind of like a compliment, in a way. I feel like we’ve matured in our writing, so there’s a different type of appreciation at the moment. There are a lot more lyrics [on this album], and I think we pushed ourselves way out of our comfort zone.  

From a consumer’s perspective, Tuff Times Never Last feels deeply heartwarming and free-spirited. What was your approach — thematically and sonically — behind this new era, especially when contrasted with your more introspective debut album, Could We Be More? 

Sheila: It’s interesting that you’re saying [the last album] was more demanding and more introspective. With this one, you can hear more openness, the playfulness, the joy. I think the remit that we gave ourselves was — 

Onome: "Enjoyment." 

Sheila: Yeah. And "tough times never last." Just for it to be a light in a dark place. To bring joy to people when they’re listening to it.  

But then there's so many different references. We have Loose Ends in the UK, to Azymuth from Brazil, to, maybe, Herbie Hancock, to Ebo Taylor. I think a lot of the songs [on the album] do take on Highlife structures, so you have the horns first, and then you've got the melody — the chorus or verse. 

Onome: Also, we tour a lot, and you've got to live with songs. You've got to play it. It might be your life for the next two years or 10 years if it goes well. So we realized, how do we want our lives to look? Let's really put something into the world that feels how we want to feel. So we wrote a lot of music that we just enjoyed playing and enjoyed writing.  

Was there anything in particular that the band was responding to — either in your personal lives or on a larger scale — that made you want to create a joy-centered project? 

Onome: Prior to us writing the album, for me, there were a lot of ups and downs. Just a lot of change in my life with family, with relationships, growing into a relationship. It was a lot to process and understand. And I think you can hear it in the lyrics of a lot of the songs, they're basically about the title. I'm only realizing now, that all the lyrics are basically like,"A lot has happened, but we've landed." A lot of it is a celebration of things becoming sweet and finding sweetness. 

Sometimes you don't realise how you're feeling until you've written the songs and written the music, and you look back on it and you're like, All this music is about this, I must have been going through it. [Laughs.] 

Sheila: It was a very uncertain time in our personal lives. We also didn't have a lot of confidence writing, but we were like, "Okay, let's just do this. Let’s go for it." So I think you definitely can hear that energy. There’s a vulnerability to it, but there’s also an openness to it. \
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Onome: We were broke as well. [Everyone laughs.] Music sounds different when you’re broke. 

Notably, you have only three features on the project and they’re all British Africans. Was this intentional? 

Sheila: You’ve got LULU., you’ve got Azekel, you’ve got Demae. All Londoners, all Nigerian as well. These collaborations are really important for us, especially for this album, just having it feel like London. It really represents us, and bringing other people who come from a similar background to be part of the story is a beautiful thing for us. 

After the album drops, you all will be heading off on your second-ever U.S. tour. How was the tour the first time around, and what are your expectations now, considering that the U.S. is such a distinct market when compared with the U.K.? 

Sheila: Being in the U.S. feels like such a big thing for us. Prior to last year, we'd been trying to get to America for maybe five years.  

Onome: We'd done the whole visa application, interviews, everything. And then we got [our visas], and lockdown happened. 

Sheila: Being able to tour last year — for us we were all like, "This is probably the best tour we've ever done." For many reasons. We were in a tour bus as well. 

Onome: For the first time.  

Sheila: It's not just that, obviously. Being able to explore America and see all the different sides. Going through Canada, coming back to the East Coast, then the West Coast, was amazing.  

And with the music we’re playing, even more so now, there's a lot that you can trace back to Black American music. And in the most recent gigs that we did [in the U.S.], we had probably 50 percent Black people [in the audience], which we never experienced in Europe. Having predominantly Black people at our shows and giving us good feedback outside of London. There was one gig that we did in New York, where someone was like,"I've never seen so many Black women at your shows." 

Onome: For a non-pop gig or a non-hip-hop gig — it's major to us.  

Sheila: [Onome] always talks about the show that we did in Chicago when we played "Da Du Dah," and on the right of the stage, there were loads of aunties just dancing. It just felt really special to see people really resonating and giving us so much love. 

Onome: In San Fran there were like, four generations of Black people, a lot of people in their 80s and 90s. It’s amazing to us. There are few places where you can play that people really get music and there's a history of music. And playing across America, there's so much history in every city and they've been exposed to a lot of greatness. So it's a challenge, you can't come and just play badly. 

If you're playing for a jazz crowd, they've seen jazz. If you’re playing soul, they've seen soul music. So I think it's affirming, and it's a beautiful thing when it goes well. Knowing that we can do it now pushes us on. 

There’s been a tendency for people to pigeonhole Kokoroko as solely an Afrobeat troupe or a jazz troupe. In reality, however, it seems like you’re all of that and so much more. How do you all work to define yourselves on your own terms, in a music landscape that’s quite preoccupied with categorization? 

Sheila: If you’re being true to yourself, you're always gonna keep on moving with the times, and not necessarily with what is going on in popular culture.  

The greatest musicians that I love — like Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, even Patrice Rushen — I would say that all three of them were popular artists at some point, but they’ve all delved into so many different genres. And Miles talked about how you've got to move with the times. Keep it fresh. You can't just be stuck and say, "This is the box that we’re in, and we’re going to make this music for the rest of our lives." Which some people do, but I think it's not true to us.  

Upbringing-wise, what got me into music in this way was going to Kinetika Bloco, which is a music youth group [in London]. We were playing Dizzee Rascal, Fela Kuti, Abdullah Ibrahim, Funkadelic, music from Brazil — all sorts of music. I think all of us [in the band] have had a similar upbringing where we've listened to so much music. So it's inevitably going to translate in the music that we make somehow.  

The beauty of this moment, in terms of where African music is now, is that artists and creatives are able to access platforms that our predecessors were never able to, and simultaneously use these platforms to pay homage to our music greats. How does Kokoroko use its work to pay homage to African music’s past, while offering a voice to the next generation? 

Onome: Our live shows are a window to what we love. We always play covers, and especially with West African music, there's so much good music across the spectrum. From psychedelic music to disco to whatever. 

We try and play those songs knowing that when people come to our shows, they follow it up, and if people like it, they find similar things. We’ve seen not just with us, but with all the bands that are doing what we do — there’s definitely more and more shows in London that young people are going to, as opposed to it being a "world music" thing.  We played at Recessland [recent Black music festival in London], and seeing a young crowd…when I was younger, you couldn't get that many Black people in London in a space. You could, but the vibe was completely different. That was so positive and so beautiful that we're seeing that we have actually moved things forward. 

And as we're playing covers and whatnot, the next thing is recording them, releasing them, letting people go find the original. It benefits us because it's good music, and then you're shedding light on those artists as much as possible. We've been playing music by this woman Jean Adebambo, who is from Montserrat and Nigeria, and from London. Just beautiful, beautiful music. I think that’s maybe the first one we want to release as a cover — "Paradise." 

In this country we speak a lot about and celebrate the Windrush Generation, which is one part of the story of the Black community. My grandfather moved here in a completely different way. I think something we want to do is be a part of telling that story as well, of West Africans coming to this country, and just celebrating that generation.  

What we're doing now and what our generation is doing now is a real testament to those people who came over here and set up our community. We want to be a part of sharing that story. We are, just by living. But we can put it down on paper and in music. 

Sheila: I did some research and found that my grandfather was a sea merchant, but he actually came to the U.K. to study engineering. It seems to be a common story; there's so many Africans who have been here. There's this center in Norwood Junction called the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Center, and he was from Sierra Leone. So there is a stamp of Africans being in Europe, in London — for probably centuries now — that doesn't get spoken about.  

Onome: What's interesting is that when we were growing up, Caribbean culture was definitely dominant.   

Sheila: And everyone was from Jamaica. [Laughs.]   

Onome: But I really celebrate the influence and the impact that had on us — especially reggae music and live instrumentation. The positivity in a lot of their music was, for me, mind-blowing. Music that was telling stories — it's gorgeous, gorgeous stuff. Us being able to add to that story makes all of our communities stronger. If we all get that shine, it just enriches us as a community here. I think it's a beautiful thing.  

Sheila: Another important thing that we've been talking about is having a stamp of this time, this moment in time, as Black people in London, and just as people in London. I think being a part of that story feels important — it feels like a big responsibility to try and accurately paint where we're at.