“Today’s the day. It feels like it’s my birthday, weirdly,” says Ego Ella May enthusiastically, getting ready for a day of festivities, celebrating the release of her long-awaited sophomore album, Good Intentions. On top of meeting her fans at Rough Trade East, the album rollout began last week with a listening event in East London.
Following her debut record, Honey For Wounds, Ego Ella May has opened her process to more collaborations and encouraged live instrumentation, as she stepped outside of her comfort zone. Wearing the producer hat, May has delivered a generation-defining performance across 12 tracks of her perspective on everyday life, liberation, community, and what it means to be vulnerable. Without the snobby overlay of overcomplicated sequences, Ego Ella May finds the answer in the trust and safety of long-term collaborators and her inner circle; music is at the forefront.
Produced by herself, Alfa Mist, Beat Butcha, LVTHER, Melo Zed, TAVE, Tom Excell, and more, Ego Ella May reinstates hope in this oversaturated industry with a timeless body of work that not only breathes with stillness but also requests grounding. Her enriching blend of R&B, neo-soul, and infectiously melodious jazz demands that a listener pause, sink into the groove, and let the softness of Ego’s velvet vocals transport them to an underground speakeasy.
For Noctis, Ego Ella May debriefs on her listening party, details Good Intentions, and the books that influenced it. She also debates the tracklist and inspiration behind ‘Don’t Take My Lover Away,’ ‘We’re Not Free,’ and ‘Back To Sea.’ Ego Ella May wovens the intricate sounds of neo-soul and jazz, bound to achieve multi-generational admiration and the status of a legend.
You said it’s been a long time coming. So how long have you been sitting on the album after it was finished?
Probably like a year. We started planning for the first single in January of last year. Things just took really long to come out.
I went to your listening event last week, at the event you said that you’re shy. Now that you had time to reflect after a few days, how did it feel listening to your album in front of people and your fans?
It was really nerve-wracking because I’m just sitting at the front, watching people react to the music. So I felt like I had my head down for most of it because I was just nervous. But hearing people’s response to it afterwards was really amazing. But I felt like at the time, during the listening thing, I was probably a bit self-conscious about the fact that I was watching people listen to it.
Did you think about the version of yourself that’s on the album listening back to it?
I get transported back to the moment of making it, or how difficult or easy it was to make. And then with some of it, I was a bit more present. I haven’t listened to it in a while, so there’s other moments where I’m like, oh, this song touches me in a different way now.
Could you tell us more about how intentional you were with the sound of the album?
I guess I’ve done the whole beatsy producer thing, where it’s just me and one person, and they just send me a beat and then I sing on top of it. There’s not that much room to explore or to really test the boundaries of my voice or the instruments, because it kind of feels like it’s already done. I’m making something on top of what they’ve done. Whereas I wanted this to be a bit more collaborative, and we would just start from scratch and make the song together, whether that’s starting with a live band or starting with a producer and then bringing in a band afterwards. But just the arranging of the song, I wanted to be a lot more involved in that. That was just the challenge for this album. That’s what I set myself to do.
So you did step outside of your comfort zone and now do you feel more comfortable with producing and composing?
Definitely. Because the people I worked with, they really just gave me the space to try and explore and didn’t make me feel rubbish for being a beginner. And actually, in a way, I feel like maybe I’ve always had it in me.I have done that in the past. I’ve just maybe not felt as confident or comfortable to do it. Whereas this time around, I just really pushed myself to make an album where I was also in control of that side of things.
Would you say you created a safe space within the group of people you collaborated with for you to take this step forward?
Absolutely. I feel like the people that I created with, they’re people I’ve known for years. So we already have that vulnerability with each other. It makes it easier when I want to try putting on this producer hat for a minute and seeing how that feels. They really welcomed it. And it was a really lovely thing.
Good Intention is a very timeless album. It’s perfect for a Sunday morning. But I wonder how do you choose the track you open this with?
I messed around a lot with the order to try and figure out what the best opening song would be. But I just felt like ‘Hold On’ was absolutely the one to do it. Sometimes you just know, right? I couldn’t have had a different opener for this album. It just felt perfect.
Who do you play your music first?
I send it to my manager. I don’t send it to my husband, but I’ll play it to him for feedback. I send it to my sister and that’s kind of it. I don’t like to send it to too many people because I don’t want to be influenced maybe in a way that will change things for me too much. just feel like I don’t want too many people to listen to it, because also if I feel strongly about it, that’s enough. I don’t need to confirm that with loads of people.
There’s a line in the title rack about protecting your soul. What do you do to protect your peace and your soul?
I do a lot of yoga and I journal. I take a lot of time out for myself. I read books. I hang out with my friends on a one-to-one basis and have conversations. I say no to things I don’t feel aligned with. Go on walks, do some baking, do some sewing, lots of arts and crafts stuff I like to do to switch off. Mostly I like to get really still and remember why I’m doing the thing that I’m doing.
You mentioned books. I went into the bookshop Libreria after your listening vent, and saw the collection of books on display that you picked out. Are they your all time favourites or books that directly influenced the album?
Kind of both. I feel like because they’re my favourite books, they then kind of influence some of the subject matters on the album and my ways of writing, if that makes sense. Especially with Patti Smith’s Just Kids, I was influenced by the sense of community, when she was growing up and being an artist in New York in the 70s and 80s. It was before people were on their phones all the time, they were all just hanging out and making art together. There’s a lot of name dropping, but ultimately they were just her friends, like she’s talking about hanging out with Basquiat. It’s so cool that they had that sense of community. And I guess I took that into the album process in the sense that I wanted it to be more collaborative with my musician friends or my producer friends. I wanted us to all get together and have a jam and see what happens and not for it to feel as isolated as it was maybe with my last album.
Were there any other sentiments that you took from the books and put it into the album?
I don’t know if it was on display, but there is a Fela Kuti book called This Bitch of a Life. I love that book because he was very serious about music and it was such a spiritual thing to him. So I took that on board to not mess around with my art, to recognise that it is such a gift and it’s such a healing thing and it matters to people.
There was also a copy of Letters to Vera by Vladimir Nabokov. That book is like the most romantic book I’ve ever read in my life. It’s about the writer writing letters to his wife while he’s away spanned over 50 years. They’re so poetic and beautiful. So some of the love songs on this album have been inspired by that book because it’s just so sweet.
The standout ballad, ‘Don’t Take My Lover Away,’ is that your response to love feeling like it’s too good to be true?
Exactly that! It’s so scary to release a song like that. It is such a vulnerable song, but ultimately that is just what I was feeling at the time. I’ve tried to work on that because it’s not actually very healthy, but I was like, oh, it’s just too good. And I’m sure that people have also probably been in situations like that too.
I would also like to talk about ‘We’re Not Free’. There is a line I had to write down, “is it too much to ask to lead with your heart?”. When you sing that song, who are you singing it to?
It was general, but I was also speaking about the UK government, I was speaking about the Labour government and just asking, why is it so hard to actually have a leader who leads with their heart? Why is this so hard? Then it was more of a general thing. It made me sad to think about that and it became the lyric, because it was a genuine question.
The final track on Good Intentions is the tranquil ‘Back To Sea.’ Where did you record the crashing waves that made it to the song?
I think I was like near Whitstable. I’ve always had such a soft spot for the sea. It does something to me. If I’m really overwhelmed, I will feel like I need to take a day trip or I need to go on an overnight stay and I need to go and stay by the sea because it calms me down instantly. I’m always wanting to go to Margate or St. Leonard’s or Hastings or Brighton, anywhere where I can be with a body of water. So I felt like it was only right to have a sort of ode to the sea song as the last song.
We have to talk about the album cover art. Where is the stunning dress from?
Honestly, I don’t know who I was before my stylist Alison, but she’s my everything. She makes me look amazing all the time. The dress is from a brand called Millia London. And the colours, I mean, that’s just down to Jelani, he does all my photography and videography and I’ve actually known him since I was 16 and he’s literally the best photographer ever. He’s the only one I trust. So with Alison and Jelani combined, they’re an absolute dream team. I literally just had to sit there and they made it work.
It sounds like you have a core team around you that’s been with you since day one. Speaking of day one, you released your debut EP in 2013 on SoundCloud, where we all used to find the undiscovered artists. It makes me wonder, what do you think of the state of the music industry today?
Well, personally I don’t love it, but I’ve just tried to focus on the fact that we are all musicians and we should focus on music. So since the start of this year, I’ve just vowed to myself that I’m not going to get caught up in trying to be viral, trying to be do the TikTok, social media thing. That may be detrimental for the music, but I am just trusting that it won’t be and that the music will always just be the priority. So that’s where I’m at.
Your music will stay relevant forever, because if I had to describe Good Intentionswith one word, it would have to be timeless. I also wanted to ask about your love for jazz and how jazz is at the root of it all for you. Can you tell us more about when you performed at the iconic London’s Ronnie Scott’s?
It was a venue that I’ve wanted to play for ages. I played it last year. It felt unreal. Because I’ve been to countless shows at Ronnie Scott’s. So to have my own show there and to sell it out also was just insane. It was the craziest thing. My point of view had never been from being on stage, so even that was weird, seeing people facing me, whereas every other time I’ve gone, I’ve obviously never been facing the crowd because I’ve never been on that stage. But even that perspective was so trippy. It was incredible. I wanted to take my shoes off to feel like I was even more connected to all the people that have played there before. I’m even thinking of like Nina Simone. That blows my mind that I’ve played on the same stage as Nina Simone.
As an independent artist, what would be your next goal?
I definitely want to sit with this album for a while, because it has taken so long for it to be released. I also want to experiment more with other styles in music too.
A dream collaborator?
Solange. That’s my one.
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Words: Karolina Kramplova
Photographer: Jelani Pomell