Jalen Ngonda on escaping the sophomore slump

“Everything I put out is for the audience, is listening pleasure,” Ngonda tells me. “I just hope they get pleasure out of it. If they don’t like it, I’ll try to make something else that they might like.”

Jalen Ngonda released his debut album Come Around and Love Me in September 2023 and a whirlwind three years followed. Having supported The Teskey Brothers last summer on their UK run of shows and now Olivia Dean on her sold-out arena tour, the attention around Ngonda and his sophomore record is perhaps higher than he could have expected, but he seems relaxed and unphased. 

“It’s rhythm and blues, soul. If you like Motown, if you like Stax Records, James Brown, this might be the album for you,” Ngonda says of his sound.

Listening to his debut, you’d be forgiven for thinking that this was some long-lost soul artist from the 60s, and while his music is certainly paying homage to some of the giants of Motown and Stax, it is earnest and distinctly his own.

One of the difficulties for any artist tied to sonics of the past is channelling your own voice within a tried and tested genre. Ngonda manages this effortlessly. Having moved to Liverpool as a student in the 2010s, he made first Merseyside then London his home, something that has seeped into his music – not just the obvious soul classics.

“I moved to Liverpool carrying some Rolling Stones and some Zombie records with me,” he says, “but I would discover more contemporary artists of the time. AM just dropped – the Arctic Monkeys album – when I moved to Liverpool, but I had never heard of them until I came to the UK. So I was exposed to that, and just local bands and UK acts that don’t get talked about where I’m from.”

He’s made the UK his home away from home, a country where he’s already had his share of success, appearing on The Graham Norton Show with the first taste of this record, “Anyone In Love”, in 2025. The track eventually charted at number 21 on the UK singles charts – an indication of the appetite for his sound over here.

One of the things that’s immediately apparent when meeting Ngonda is his drive and desire to better himself and hit new heights. “I hope to just grow more. I just hope to keep having ideas. That’s the only thing I ask for. I hope my songwriting doesn’t get diminished. I hope I don’t find myself in a year-long dry spell.” He is not taking further success for granted and is keen to enjoy the ride, however long it lasts.

On the pressures artists naturally feel about the infamous second record, Ngonda almost gives off the impression that it was a walk in the park, feeling no extra heat than he had with his acclaimed debut. “No, it wasn’t difficult. I mean, songwriting can be easy, and can be difficult, which I’ve found to be a thing in my life since I began songwriting,” he tells me. “If someone said, make another record tomorrow, it wouldn’t have been a problem, because I probably would have been like, I’ll just use some songs that I've written since releasing the first album.”

It’s apparent that Ngonda is someone who’s never comfortable standing still. “I don’t stop writing after I’ve finished with an album,” he says. “So the second record was just a matter of getting together the bits and the best songs that I wrote between the first album and the second album, and then compiling it into another album.” This doesn’t simply mean it’s a copy and paste of his debut, but the lack of pause and constant work is clear in his evolution and growth over just a short span of time.

Olivia Dean’s meteoric rise and Ngonda supporting her came up as a natural topic of conversation, our chat snuck in between shows at the O2. The scale of the shows clearly hasn’t phased him, perhaps giving him ideas for future gigs of his own.

“It’s all kind of motivating, so hopefully I’ll get to do that at some point, but we’re good with whatever happens. This could be the peak of it all, and I could go downhill from there.” It’s this frankness and humility that will surely set Ngonda up for a long and successful career, along with his desire to keep improving; he’s touched heights other artists at this stage could only aspire to, but it’s part of the journey, a stepping stone to another achievement. 

He talks of a moment before his and Dean’s careers took off, when the pair’s bands were jamming to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On in Berlin. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall in that space. It’s surely a matter of time before the next generation are jamming to Doctrine of Love and Olivia Dean in tandem.

One of the biggest challenges for Ngonda and other contemporary acts like The Lemon Twigs or Brooke Coombe, whose sound owes a huge debt to the sunshine sounds of the 60s, is how to keep it current, and not simply sound like a Sam & Dave, Sam Cooke, or Marvin Gaye knock-off.

“I try not to think about it,” Ngonda says. “I think the reason why my music sounds the way it does is because I listen to that stuff all the time, and when it comes to making a demo, I just write chords and then write a melody, then put a drum part to it and put a bass line to it, and that becomes the song. That process is just a reflection of what I listen to. I don’t go, I’m going to make a retro vibe. I just write a song, and then it just comes out that way, because I listen to that all the time, and when you listen to certain chord progressions and certain notes and certain styles, you’ll just mimic that stuff in a certain way to your own.”

Speaking of retro vibes, though: Ngonda is mostly offline. It’s refreshing to hear that he’s keen to live his life and escape some of the drawbacks that his newfound fame might bring. “I’m not trying to be in competition with anyone. I just like what I like, and I have a life that I live. Being a known singer, I think that on some level, there’s something that is expected of you. I hang out with my friends and go to the pub, and write songs and go to gigs and embrace everything that’s around me.” This oneness with the world comes across during our chat, in his relaxed, friendly demeanour.

I ask about the Northern Soul revivals and soul’s increased interest. He doesn't give a definitive answer but is pleased that there is such a boom. He is clearly not lacking in ambition but his desire to live in the moment and embrace everything happening feels like it will benefit both his songwriting and his approach to future albums. 

In the meantime, his record is set to be an instant classic, joining the esteemed heights of the Stax and Motown boom. Fans of What’s Going On or Otis Blue will have a new record to add to the collection. One thing’s for sure: Ngonda’s momentum won’t slow down in a hurry as his take on soul hits new audiences.