Wesley Joseph on industry hype, his Walsall roots, and working with Jorja Smith for debut album 'Forever Ends Someday' • Interview • DIY Magazine

“I’ve only ever known a life of doing things without compromise,” offers Wesley Joseph, just moments into our call. The Walsall-born, London-based artist is ruminating on the journey leading up to his debut album ‘Forever Ends Someday’, which lands this month. “I could have taken shortcuts and been better off, but this is my purpose in life and I refuse to be rushed.”

Over three years in the making, the creative process saw him take the decision to completely remove himself from the ever-whirring industry treadmill back in 2023. It was a move that served as living proof of his commitment to this world-building ethos.

Before he seemed to vanish, stardom was looming large for Wesley. Riding a wave of excitement following his 2021 EP ‘ULTRAMARINE’, his genre-blurring sound - melding rap, jazz and R&B - brought a string of milestone moments, including millions of streams, a sold-out show at London’s 1,500-capacity KOKO, and a coveted spot on the FIFA soundtrack.

Taking a step back might have been a somewhat surprising move for those on the outside, but he explains why it was so important to fully devote himself to writing. “I definitely could have made a different album off the back of momentum in a more reactive way, but I’ve never really released music like that, and I’ve never been motivated by numbers or data.”

Rather than seek instant gratification, it was as much about taking the time to both connect with the purest version of himself, and push beyond his comfort zone. “I think I got to a place where I felt quite comfortable making the pockets of music I was making. This album was the product of me pushing myself and growing,” he says. “I’ll never release a record that sounds like the last one, or one that sounds like I’m not expanding or exploring.”

However, it wasn’t necessarily the intention that ‘Forever Ends Someday’ would take over three years to complete. “This time out, I was learning how to craft a full-length project and that took a while,” Wesley explains. “The album will exist forever and I see myself doing this for the rest of my life, so another six months to perfect something took priority over everything else.” Needless to say, he’s thriving being back in the game. “I’m in the eye of the storm and I’m so in it,” he enthuses. “Every day is full and my mind is racing thinking about what’s next. I’m building the live show, working out videos, creative direction, curation, and listening experiences. Every single part of this commands attention for it to feel right.”

“This is my purpose in life and I refuse to be rushed.”

As its title suggests, that passage of time also bled into the album thematically. “It wouldn’t have been the same if I just made it in a year,” he suggests. “I wouldn’t have had the perspective that the time gave because life was actually happening and I was growing up while making the album, probably more so than I ever have done in my life.

“There wasn’t this parallel cushioned reality where I was out there doing shows and things like that,” he continues. “I was just being myself without the demands that come with touring or releasing. There wasn’t this outside idea of embarking on the dream. Every day I would wake up and go to the studio, write and go out for walks. I would deal with personal stuff like relationships, loss, or things that would just be going on in my life just as a human.”

As well as that late-twenties metamorphosis, throughout the LP Wesley also reflects on his formative years in the West Midlands. “I know when I’m channelling my younger self, or a more troubled part of life, or a happy wide-eyed part of my life; I know when I’m leaning into certain parts,” he says. “Essentially, I just caught all of these key moments in a bottle.” He cites the choppy and soulful ‘White Tee’ as an example of distilling the past, as he raps: “Grown man pressures but I’m still feeling young inside / You’re chasing thrills with no alibi / Before the violence would just end the night”.

“That song’s from the perspective of me when I was 18, and it feels like that,” he muses. “Instrumentally there’s all this aggression and teenage angst-type confusion, but then there’s also these sweet chords, which is like what the summertime felt like to me growing up. It’s those two contrasting feelings that cut through in the song.”

“The worst thing in the world is being boxed in and made to feel like you’re not allowed to do something. I think everyone should feel liberated enough to just try new things.”

Sonically, too, ‘Forever Ends Someday’ covers just as much ground. It’s clear from opener ‘Distant Man’ that, once again, Wesley is at his genre-defying best. Effortlessly marrying a myriad of musical styles, he very much sees himself as the throughline between them, undaunted by this vast palette. “For me, it was more exciting to [say] ‘now I get a chance to express this part of me’. Bringing everything together just comes so naturally because once the song is made, it’s already got enough of my DNA and heart in it that it just should all exist with everything else.”

This boundary-blurring is central to Wesley’s overarching dream. He cites the likes of Gorillaz, Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar as artists who sparked his musical exploration growing up. “My dream is to be someone that can connect things together,” he says simply. “When it’s all said and done, I’d like a kid to say ‘oh, I never liked rap, but I love that vein of it that Wesley was doing’. It’s the same for soul, electronic, dance, indie, psychedelic, whatever it is that I do. To me that connectivity is super important, because all my favourite artists open up those worlds.

“The worst thing in the world is being boxed in and made to feel like you’re not allowed to do something,” he muses. “Being Black as well, you get a lot of [people saying] ‘you’re not allowed to do this, or you are this’. I just don’t care for it at all. I think everyone should feel liberated enough to just try new things. If people can hear this record and they feel liberated, then that’s a huge win.”

“It’s sad that you somewhat feel like you have to leave to grow and develop, even though [the West Midlands] has produced so much talent. People will ask eventually: ‘what the hell is in the water there?”

As the operation scales up, Wesley has sought comfort through collaboration, and the album sees him work with giants of the game like Danny Brown (for the urgent ‘Peace Of Mind’), as well as childhood friend Jorja Smith (on the tender psych pop of ‘July’). “I’m finding joy in people coming in to help me achieve more things,” he says. “I’ve been a Danny Brown fan for as long as I can remember, so that was just such a surreal experience.”

He says it was a learning curve working with someone from outside his immediate circle, let alone one of rap’s great trailblazers. “One day, he followed me back on Twitter and I just messaged him and then we had a conversation, but he basically just said he likes my music. A little tab in my brain was kept left open and I thought, ‘if I find the right song, I’ll send it to him’. When [‘Peace Of Mind’] was made, I knew it was right, because I heard his voice already. He did the verse and it was way better than whatever was in my head.”

Having Jorja feature on the LP was a full-circle moment for very different reasons. “Jorja is this modern day icon, but then she’s also one of my oldest friends,” Wesley explains, “so it’s this beautiful kind of split screen in a way. It’s kind of surreal at times and it doesn’t make sense, but then it does because I saw every step of her journey. It’s nice to be able to have these moments of growth with that person that I started things with.”

Seeing Jorja blossom - alongside so many others from his own stomping ground - still fills Wesley with a sense of enormous pride. “I’m really proud to be from there, not just because of the on-paper ‘humble beginnings’ and all of that stuff, but just because of the actual person that it made me, and some of the core principles and values I have now.”

He continues: “It’s also sad that you somewhat feel like you have to leave to grow and develop, even though [the West Midlands] has produced so much talent. People will ask eventually: ‘what the hell is in the water there?’ So many of the most talented people I know in my life are from that place. There’s so many exciting artists there now, but even giants like Ozzy Osbourne and Goldie lived nearby.

“There’s something there and my explanation is [that], when you’re in a place of isolation, it sometimes gives you the tools to dream. I could look outside and see a million things, or I could buy headphones and feel like I could leave the planet. It was something that gave me the necessity to feel like creatively, I could escape.”

As our chat draws to a close, there’s the undeniable sense that ‘Forever Ends Someday’ is the culmination of those early dreams, and a record that continues to tear down both genre barriers and external blockades. With that story told, Wesley Joseph says that, at this point, he’s really only just getting started. “It’s like the first film in a crazy trilogy where you can see the past and understand where the character is in real time. I’m on my own journey now, and it’s all about seizing and enjoying the special moments ahead.”

‘Forever Ends Someday’ is out now via Secretly Canadian.

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