Jacob Collier may be a musical genius, but he's tired of working alone

Q37:11Jacob Collier is tired of making music on his own

From the time Jacob Collier was a kid, he knew he was different — or at least he knew his relationship to music was different than it was for the kids around him.

In 2021, the New York Times labelled him "a staggering musical prodigy." He started learning violin when he was two, he was using professional music software when he was in grade school and he's had a fascination with the human voice for as long as he can remember. 

"I think there were definitely a number of moments when I was growing up where I felt, 'I don't think my mind is normal,'" Collier tells Q's Tom Power in a recent conversation. "And not necessarily always in a positive sense."

While other kids his age dreamed about being famous, Collier remembers thinking fame was a strange thing to wish for. "I don't remember being massively averse to it, but it didn't turn me on," he explains. "I think certain things just didn't excite me that excited other kids, but then other things deeply excited me that I felt like other kids maybe wouldn't necessarily be so interested in."

Today, the 29-year-old English multi-instrumentalist is a six-time Grammy winner who is managed and mentored by the legendary producer Quincy Jones, and he's just wrapped up a six-year long passion project called Djesse — a series of collaborative albums with musicians from around the world.

The latest and final album in the project, Djesse Vol. 4, largely explores the power of the human voice. Its opening piece, 100,000 Voices, brings together an audience choir of 100,000 fans singing in harmony.

WATCH | Jacob Collier's interview with Tom Power:

"When I perform live, I can stand on stage and and conduct the whole venue of audience members in three or sometimes six-part harmony by giving them each a starting note, delegating zones by gestures, and then moving my fingers and hands up and down to kind of guide their direction without sort of saying a word about the process — just trusting the intuition of the room."

For Collier, the sound and sight of the audience choir completely changed the trajectory of his life and career. Whereas he once made music in isolation — he got his start as a YouTube sensation and his debut album, In My Room, was largely made alone — he's found a new way of thinking about music through collaboration.

"I did so much in such a deep solitude of finding my own voice at first," he says. "I've really found the heart of my voice in extending my limbs, extending my intentions, through the voices of others."

The full interview with Jacob Collier is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Jacob Collier produced by Vanessa Nigro.