Songbook

'We know where we came from. We came on boats, onplanes, with passports and on the back of trucks. Weworked three jobs and sent the money back home. Webrought our motherland to life in our kitchens, ourbedrooms, our churches, our songs, our dance, our sex,our pidgin, our patois...' Joshua Idehen's collected works has been a long time coming. Songbook comprises verses from Mercury-nominated and MOBO-winning albums by Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming, alongside watershed poems of spoken word legend, newly captured in book form. From Poejazzi and Benin City to a string of supreme collaborations, Idehen's impact resonates far and wide across the landscapes of poetry and jazz/electronica. Cross-examining colonialism, masculinity, mental health and ways of healing, his writing is an essential provocation, a diasporic dance, a comedy roast, an intervention, a cannonball from which no one is safe, least of all himself. 'The poet laureate of UK jazz' Kate Hutchinson, The Guardian 'Idehen's words are always worth leaning in for.' Q Magazine

Joshua Idehen is a British-born Nigerian based in Sweden. A spoken word artist, musician and facilitator, he has contributed poems to Mercury-nominated albums Channel The Spirits by The Comet Is Coming, Your Queen Is A Reptile and the Mobo-winning Black To The Future, both by Sons of Kemet. More recently, he worked with LA electronic maestro Daedelus on the critically acclaimed mini LP, Holy Water Over Sons. In 2023, he continued his journey as a solo musical artist, collaborating with producer Ludvig Parment (Saturday, Monday) on his mixtape Learn To Swim, released to critical acclaim and support, leading to a performance in front of the King of Sweden and (more importantly) Angelique Kidjo at the 2023 Polar Prize Award show (TV4). This is his first book.