Mura Masa: “I felt done with being a set of tools for an artist to use”

Mura Masa speaks to Ben Jolley about collaborating with megastars, going independent, his latest album and building an arts space in London

In the decade since Mura Masa uploaded his first production to SoundCloud, the artist born Alex Crossan has produced beats for some of the biggest names in the music world, including Ice Spice, PinkPantheress, Lil Uzi Vert and Troye Sivan. He’s also won a GRAMMY Award (for his 2017 remix of Haim's track 'Walking Away'), been nominated for several Ivor Novellos, and collaborated with Damon Albarn and Christine & The Queens. However, when it came to making his new album ‘Curve 1’, the former Mixmag cover star decided to go back to his floor-focused roots.

Soon after the release of his 2022 album ‘Demon Time’ - a guest-heavy, futuristic collection - Masa left his major label deal with Polydor and decided to launch his own imprint, Pond Recordings. Going independent not only afforded him greater creative freedom, but also enabled him to be more selective when choosing who he collaborates with.

The result is a record that, while playing like a mixtape, sees Mura Masa go back to his club and electronic beginnings, weaving between a range of sounds and styles alongside his artist friends including yeule and Cherish. “My new album is designed for nights out, afters, to be heard in clubs… to be listened to in the dark,” he says.

Also in the spirit of collaboration, he says his “eyes are going in different directions at the moment” as he’s working on other people’s albums - including Gretel and Daniela Lalita - and developing an arts space in Peckham called The Pond.

Here, he talks to Mixmag about going independent, returning to his electronic roots and building the type of community he wished he had when he started out.

You’ve recently released your new album, ‘Curve 1’. What’s the story behind it?

I got out of my deal a couple of years ago now and it just felt like the right time to return to - without wanting to be too cheesy or pastiche - just the music. What the music is, what it does, its function in people's lives. That led me, naturally, to returning to making really electronic-focused music. I hate the word functional, but it's essentially functional club music.

Where was the album made?

It started in Los Angeles. I had lined up a bunch of sessions with various singers and artists of notoriety and big pop stars. I did two or three days and then got really depressed. I wondered ‘why the hell am I so upset about this?’. It made me realise that I'm done, for now, with just being the guy with the laptop who's serving some kind of function for an artist where they’re like ‘I'm trying to do this, can you make it sound like this?’. I felt done with being a set of tools for an artist to use. I like doing that by choice, but in that context, in LA, I think it made me throw the chains off a little bit and be like ‘wait a minute, I should just be doing what I think is cool’.

How did feeling this way impact the music you went on to make?

The sentiment was very much ‘fuck it, I’m going to do whatever and I might make mistakes, but at least I'll own it’. And that’s when ‘Whenever I Want’ got made. That track was the first thing that emerged, which is why it's first on the tracklist. It became the muse for the whole record.

Having produced for so many big names - like PinkPantheress and Ice Spice - over the past few years, was it also a case of wanting to regain control?

Kind of. Just to afford myself the time to actually think about what I wanted to make, void of the context of involving anyone else or trying to match somebody else's style, which is something that I love doing. But now I produce for a very small list of artists that are just people that I love, like Shygirl, PinkPantheress, Gretel and Daniela Lalita. It tends to be people that I feel I really understand and can contribute something to, rather than being like ‘so and so heard your music and they really want to work with you’. I'm not gagging to do those things anymore – I’m happy to do my own thing.

Read this next: Feel the euphoria: Why Shygirl is reshaping classic club sounds

How does the ‘Curve’ of the album title fit into this idea?

There's obviously the idea of curves and the club and dancing and that sort of thing, but it was a word that made itself obvious to me more because of this circuitous way of looking at things. Ignoring what we don't care about, going around those and finding our own way.

How did you decide on the collaborators for ‘Curve 1’? Is there anything specific that you’re looking for when considering working with an artist?

It tends to all be mates or samples. It was cool collaborating that way, rather than being like ‘who's buzzy at the moment?’. Daniela Lalita is on two tracks. I'm working on her album at the moment, and that's nuts – it’s going to be my album of the year when it comes out. Yeule is a friend of mine, and they’re on the album too. In every case where there's a feature on the album, it was just someone who I hang out with anyway.

How did that differ from your previous collaborations?

It’s very different. In the past, if there was an artist I admired, I would reach out to them to try and find a way of working with them. Whereas, on this album, I'm working with all these people anyway, and there are ideas that are circulating, or that I've written and I can send to them. It feels very wholesome in that regard.

Because the album spans so many different sounds and genres, it plays somewhat like a mixtape. Was that the intention?

As much as I try to make something that's coherent, I always find myself playing with lots of different genres and sounds. But the thrust of it is that it's designed for nights out, afters, to be heard in clubs… to be listened to in the dark.

Why in the dark, specifically?

It's the same reason that the artwork is very minimal and without frills, context or explanation. I’m just trying to refocus my efforts on being anti-narrative. I feel like a lot of music, just because of the time that we're in, has become kind of narrative-focused, and it's all about what you're doing around the music — almost like a vox pop questionnaire. It feels more subversive to me, now, to just drop things void of that and go back to the Aphex Twin way of thinking – ‘just go and listen to it’.

Read this next: The best Aphex Twin DJ mixes

Was leaving the label helpful in this way?

I’m sure it freed me up, mentally, to start to think that way, and I got out of my deal just as the whole joke of ‘we need to do TikToks’ became a thing, so I narrowly avoided being stuck in that spin cycle…

Are you glad it happened at that time for that reason?

It’s not that I'm not fond of it, I think it's perfectly valid and it speaks to how artists are forced to make themselves competitive, and how the music market has changed. But, it's just not something that suits my personality, particularly; the artifice of sitting down and trying to do something extracurricular outside of just making good music and trying to speak through the work. It’s been fun being independent and being able to pick and choose which of those avenues that feel right to me, for example putting extra work into the music videos. It’s also allowed me to be able to be selective with how much I say about the music, versus how much I just let it speak for itself.

Did you want to leave the pop aspect of your artistry behind with this album? What are your thoughts on genre in general?

Pop is such a loosely defined thing. Gone are the days of, in school, being like ‘those are the goth kids’. Everyone's just mixing and matching everything, which is cool. But, with this album, what I was really focused on was dance - the idea of what makes people dance? And that has a pop sentiment in a way, but, subconsciously, being out of my label deal made me be like ‘now I don't have to think about radio singles, I don't have to think about features, particularly, if I don't want to’. The whole thing has been a big exercise in freedom.

How is this album an evolution of your artistry? What is your goal for it?

I think one of the key differences is that, in the past, I’ve been holding myself to quite a high standard. So I’ve been trying to let go of that stuff and let the music have its own life, for it to mean what it means to certain people. It's been interesting seeing the reactions to the singles, because different people have different associations with the tracks and they get what they get from each thing individually. I think that’s interesting, especially because it’s hard to form a narrative around dance music in an album context. It's not always immediately emergent why you should even release an album of dance music, when they could work as just singles. But I think it's more about collecting the influences that I've been enjoying, things I've been testing out in the club that seem to work. I’ve been DJing a lot more, too, which is the other thing that feeds into this.

Were any parties you played at especially inspiring?

I played Berghain recently, which was incredible. It really helped me to focus. The perception is that it’s quite exclusionary and exclusive but, having been there and seen it, it's not really about that. It's about protecting the people inside who are interested in this ideological hedonism and freedom to enjoy themselves in a safe space that's understanding and non-judgmental. That really became a part of what I want the music to present as well.

How was your set there?

I played from 2-4:AM and it was the best set that I’ve ever played. It’s so funny that it was because, obviously, there’s no phones in Berghain and no recording of what's happening. It felt funny to be divorced from the idea that what I'm doing was being documented in some way. That just frees you up to experiment more and go out on a limb more with what you're doing. I was mixing Orbital into Playboi Carti – really messing around for fun, messing with the audience and then telling what was working through their reactions.

Read this next: Orbital: "It's embarrassing to be called 'icons' but at least it's better than being called 'wankers'"

What are your thoughts on sampling, especially in dance music?

It is what it is. That's the post-modernist culture cycle we're in at the moment, and it only thrives as much as you give it attention I think. So if that’s something you really enjoy and don't have a problem with then that's wicked and I'm happy for you. But also, there's this curve – you don’t have to pay attention to it. You can find something else.

Tell us about some new artists that you’re rating at the moment?

There are so many interesting people making things that feel fresh and new, like Oli XL, Loukeman and Mietze Conte, so I'd rather champion something like that. If anything, I feel bad for people, because it's like they're trying to find… the ’90s and early noughties was the last time in culture where we really had a lot of freedom to think about the future as being exciting, rather than apocalyptic. I think that people, without knowing it, are really just reaching for that. It’s like ‘how do we find a happy attitude again?’ It’s the same in film and television; there’s a lot of ’80s and ’90s pastiche happening. I think people are just reaching for something that makes them feel good, which is fine.

Why did you want to start your own label, The Pond?

Community. I’ve been refocusing my efforts on building connections that are closer to me and have more meaning than fandom. The main thing with The Pond is using it as a conversation starter, for younger or less experienced artists. It’s interesting to have a platform and some kind of power and be able to exploit it for good.

I’m an outsider, even to the London scene. I never felt like ‘I went to school with a bunch of these people or my dad knows so and so’. A lot of what you get in London is ‘well, you grew up here, you're part of a scene, obviously, there’s cliques. It's nice, as an outsider, to be able to provide a door or a window.’

The Pond is also a Discord community - tell us about that side of things.

It has slowly, quietly been building, by invitation only. It’s been really fascinating to rub shoulders with people in a really close way that isn't just about engagement – it’s actual conversation. We did our first real life meet up a couple of weeks ago. It was really nice meeting all these young people who had just moved to London; so many producers and DJs, artists and photographers who are all vying for connection. If this just serves that function, then mission accomplished, in my view.

Was creating your own label and arts space something that you always envisioned?

It is nice to do something that isn’t about your own shit. The idea of The Pond as a Discord community, or as a studio, or a label, is that eventually I'll be able to exit it and democratise it in some way where it's not just a vanity project so that all the roads don't just lead back to me. That's really exciting. I think that's where I'm at with my career, as well, as a producer and as an artist. I'm nearly 30, I’m ready to put other people on.

With this being your first independently-released album, how was the creative process behind ‘Curve 1’ different?

We've had so much creative freedom because it's just me; when we shot the music video for ‘FLY’, I kept looking around for someone responsible. But, on a real level, it's my money, it's my input, my creative direction. There's a lot more ownership and it feels very holistic. I'm so lucky to be in a position, a decade into my career, where I have the system in place to be able to do that for myself.

What are your future plans for The Pond?

We're building a studio complex at the moment, which is very exciting. It's going to host lots of my friends, a lot of artists. It'll be an opportunity to meet a lot of people. I like the idea of creating a space where people can cross paths in a hallway and meet that way. There's a big emphasis on social space within the building. It's not all just dingy rooms with music equipment in them. There’s an area for people to hang out, there's a roof garden and lots of non-productive space which I think is really important.

Are you going to be touring the new album?

Yeah, we're doing ‘Curve club’ nights around Europe. Again, that’s been a sort of extension of this attitude – we’re booking local supports, and we're doing research into who's doing shit in those cities that aligns with our night. We're looking at local artists to do the flyers. I want to try to generate some kind of cultural campfire for people to gather around, which is really fun.

The title ‘Curve 1’ suggests that there may be more ‘Curve’ releases on the way.

It’s called ‘Curve 1’, so there will be other ‘Curves’. There's lots of stuff that didn't make it onto ‘Curve 1’ that could get finished. The music serves as a conversation starter and touchpoint that informs the rest of it. That’s super exciting to me at the moment.

Are you still open to big-name production collaborations?

I don't know. I guess it's the same attitude that it's always been, which is if I really like something I’ll work on it. I’ve developed a reputation in the production world as being like ‘he doesn't work with anyone’. Someone like PinkPantheress is a huge artist but, at the end of the day, we met years ago. It's more about having an authentic relationship with who I’m working with and taking an interest in whatever they're doing. If Rihanna wants me to come and do the single… but that's not entirely where my head is at.

'Curve 1' is out now, check it here

Ben Jolley is a freelance journalist, follow him on Twitter