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Sampha opens up: “I’ve suffered from social anxiety for a very long time.”
A regular collaborator of Kendrick Lamar, Solange, and Frank Ocean, London-based pianist Sampha released his second studio album, Lahai, in October 2023. Five years earlier, his outstanding record Process had earned him the Mercury Prize… And the artist has just been added to the lineup of the Parisian music festival We Love Green, taking place on June 8th. Throwback to our interview with the musician, whose latest projects are reminiscent of both Studio Ghibli films and quite oceans under pitch black skies.
Interview by Alexis Thibault.
Published on 3 November 2025. Updated on 4 November 2025.
Five years after the success of Process, what does Lahai have to offer?
Sampha Lahai Sisay is afraid of moths. He is addicted to sweets, to his smartphone, and to the works of composer Steve Reich, the pioneer of minimalist music, a radical, spontaneous movement in 1960s. If he could go back in time, the pianist isn’t quite sure what he would do. Perhaps he would finally follow the advice of his loved ones and let his light baritone voice shine through, which had long been masked by the overuse of reverb. A velvety voice capable of conjuring up a rousing joy followed by a devastating sorrow from one measure to the next…
In 2023, the composer stopped in Paris “for a few interviews.” At the time, he was promoting his second studio album, Lahai, named after his grandfather. This highly-anticipated 41-minute record invites listeners to look ahead to a radiant future through 14 tracks. A radical shift from the album Process (2017), which plunged us deep into an unshakable grief. For the occasion, Sampha brought on board drummer Yussef Dayes and singer Lisa-Kaindé Diaz, one half of the duo Ibeyi. The artist also shared an unreleased track, Cumulus / Memory (2025), from his luminous and finely produced album. Co-written with Romy from The xx, the song featured her voice too.
The incredible story of an artist highly-demanded by the stars
Born in London to Sierra Leonean parents, the musician does not speak of the hardships that have marked the first thirty-four years of his life. The loss of his father in 1998, who used to work for a gemstone company, the disability of one of his four brothers, and then the cancer that took his mother, the former employee at a school cafeteria, in 2015. Known as Kim Nova back in the days of Myspace, the young pianist’s career took a turn in 2009 when the British indie label Young Turks spotted him. They had found a rare gem. Two years later, the track Hold On, produced with his friend SBTRKT – pronounced “Subtract” – caught the attention of several artists across the Atlantic, including one Dev Hynes.
Sampha’s voice finally became his signature. And suddenly, everyone wanted a piece of this strong, discreet man, long immersed in the cosmic jazz of Sun Ra and in the melodies of Oumou Sangaré, Alice Coltrane, or Malian musician Salif Keita. Already appreciated by his peers, Sampha was then adored, especially when his debut album Process won the prestigious Mercury Prize in 2017, beating out Stormzy, The xx, Ed Sheeran, and Loyle Carner. A true secret weapon in the rap world, the Londoner became an artist capable of completing the works of the stars. Think Alabama by Frank Ocean (2016), Don’t Touch My Hair by Solange (2016), Father Time by Kendrick Lamar (2022), or the heartbreaking Sampha’s Plea (2022) from a not-so-resentful Stormzy. Interview.
Interview with Sampha about the release of his second album, Lahai (2023)
Numéro: Your album Process won the Mercury Prize in 2017. Since that recognition, do you consider yourself as a pop artist? Sampha: I think pop music has influenced the way I compose quite a lot. Everything has to be clear and concise, and I still struggle to break out of the three-minute format. But if by “pop” you mean “popular,” then I’m not so sure. I mean, I’m not unknown [laughs]. But, you know, music is a strange thing. Some tracks get fifty million views on YouTube and you’ve still never heard of them… Then, can we say that this artist is really popular?
Critics have consistently praised your work, and the first two singles from the new album, Spirit 2.0 and Only, have been well received. Are you still anxious about releasing this new album? Sampha: You can never predict how people will react… Journalists are an integral part of the music ecosystem, and the articles written about me are part of the job, which also demands a lot of self-discipline. I rarely get upset by negative comments. Quite the opposite in fact. I tend to think: “Hmm, I see what you mean.” In the end, I try not to dwell on it too much. I distance myself from my natural tendency to be anxious…
Can you tell us more about that? That anxiety must be hard to control, especially in this industry. Sampha: Yes. It’s a form of social anxiety that I’ve dealt with for a long time. On a deeper level, I guess I was almost fighting death. For a long time, even seeing a doctor was hard for me. Probably because, after everything I’ve been through, I was always expecting the worst. I suppose it’s a fairly common existential issue. Most people probably suffer far worse side effects than I do. That’s why I’ve never felt very comfortable at fashion shows or public events. Most of the time, I try to avoid them, especially if I don’t know many people there.
Did you compose this new album in the same way you created Process back in 2017? Like with Process, I sat down at my piano… and played. Several tracks from my first album came out of more than four hours of improvisation, such as Blood on Me, Plastic 100°C, or Take Me Inside. I reworked some sections until they became songs. For Lahai, I mostly composed with synthesizers, Yamaha keyboards, and MIDI files [a musical file format used to communicate between electronic instruments, controllers, sequencers, and music software, ed.]. That setup allowed me to create wilder arpeggios while still playing live with a band. But don’t ask me too many specifics about my process, I have a terrible memory. [He laughs shyly.] You’ll end up wondering if I even wrote this album myself!
Why is that? Do you improvise and then forget what you just played? Exactly! You know, there are two kinds of people in the studio. Those who can come up with something and remember it. And people like me, who come up with melodies and then can’t remember them. I’ve often heard, “Oh! That was nice! Can you play it again?” Well, no… There’s a lot of randomness in music.
“I sometimes struggle to add lyrics to my music because what I express musically is already so full of emotion. It might be easier for me to write for someone else.” – Sampha
What images come to mind when you think of your new album? Cartoons. Something fairly mature in the style of Ghibli Studios. I picture myself looking out over the sea at night, the wind is blowing, and I feel like I’m flying. Especially on the track Spirit 2.0. I would like my songs to feel like fresh air.
Is that why you use the metaphor of the bird, a figure that occurs throughout the album? The bird represents many different things. I needed to surrender to a form of spirituality, even though I wasn’t quite sure what that word meant. Over time, the days began to blur together. I needed to take a step back, rise above it all, to get a bird’s-eye view of my life and finally make the right decisions. A kind of psychological flight that I linked to the migration of birds. I’m a second-generation immigrant. Maybe that’s why travelling fascinates me so much…
I found that most of the tracks remain quite understated, almost on the verge of austerity. The drums actually often come in after the second verse, creating a break from a more acoustic first half. Would you describe Lahai as stripped-down, even minimalist? I think so, in a way. For example, you could say that the track Spirit 2.0 is relatively minimal. To me, that’s clearly not the case. But it’s the kind of music I enjoy. At the time, I had a very specific sound in mind…
What kind of sound? Traditional West African music. A fairly complex style that layers different rhythms, yet hits you with its groove. There are only three instruments playing together – no kick drum, little or no high frequencies. I finally figured out how to make a track move with limited elements. To make something sound minimalist, you sometimes need a lot of subtle details.
As someone who has worked with Kendrick Lamar, Jessie Ware, Solange, and Frank Ocean, would you say that being a genius is needed to succeed in music? Or only being a hard worker? To take off, you need to gain momentum. Some people are lucky enough to skip that part. For me, I sometimes struggle to add lyrics to my music because what I express musically is already filled with emotion, I think. It might actually be easier for me to write for someone else. That’s probably why so many rappers favour minimalistic production. I’ve been incredibly lucky to work with artists like Frank Ocean and Kendrick Lamar, who are outstanding lyricists and work extremely hard. Kendrick Lamar has opened up a new chapter in the African-American musical experience.
Why is that? He offers a deeply grounded kind of poetry and manages to turn images into words, and vice versa. Working with them, I would just express my nature. Unlike for my personal projects, they would edit my work to extract exactly what they needed. In other words, I was responding to a brief, I was sharing raw material for them to shape. Musical experimentation isn’t just about trying things out or being content with your mistakes. It requires a lot of discipline and planning. You have to dive into the unknown until you no longer fully understand what you’re doing.
Lahai (2023) by Sampha, out now. Live show at the We Love Green festival on Sunday 8th of June 2026.
