The Editorial K Sport K 5 Minutes With: Femi Koleoso
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5 Minutes With: Femi Koleoso

Jun 21, 2021

We sat down with Femi Koleoso, our latest Performance Sport athlete for SS21, to learn the ins and outs of his inspiring career and how fitness fits into his life:

 A drummer for the award-winning Ezra Collective, international artist Jorja Smith and band Gorillaz, In his own words,  Femi Koleoso is our latest RUN Performance Sport ambassador, proving that you don’t have to be a professional athlete to smash and exceed your fitness goals.

In his own words, here’s how Femi balances his busy career with running to ensure he is always in the best physical and mental shape, and who/what has helped mould his ever-evolving career:

 

What inspired you to get into your field?

 

My parents started playing music to me. My earliest memory of music is a Fela Kuti record that my dad used to play in the car. At age three on Christmas Day, I got given a drum kit. That was pretty big. I never stopped. It was my favourite toy and still is.

 

Who inspires you?

 

My ultimate inspiration, it’s a bit of a deep one, but I’d go with my religion and my faith. Being a Christian, I have always connected music directly to my walk with god. I learnt to play in church. I consider it a form of worship even if I’m playing with the Ezra collective or the Gorillaz. I feel like everyone has a purpose in life and mine is to be behind a drum kit. My faith is probably the most consistent thing in my journey, I’ve always had that as part of my life.

Femi Koleoso Superdry Performance Sport

What is your best training tip?

 

 My best training tip would be to get your mind into the psychological space. It’s just a journey. If you run and after 1k you’re panting and your legs are hurting, that’s cool. Just go at it again! It’s a journey. I took December off running just because I wanted to finish some music projects and it was wet and cold and I was just tired. I started back on the 1st of January after a big New Year’s Eve, I tried to run 10k. It didn’t happen! But it’s a journey. I would always say, if you just think about not what you’ve done but what you’re doing.

What’s your typical training regime?

Femi Koleoso Superdry Performance Sport

 It depends on what I’m up to. When I was training for the marathon it was pretty stringent. I did my own ‘London Marathon’, I just left my house on August 1st, 2020 and ran 42k. I had just got back from tour (Australia, New Zealand, and Asia) that was when the lockdown started. The last flight out of New Zealand was the one I was on.

I got home and I was exhausted. That’s when everyone was like ‘the country’s locking down’. I thought ‘this is perfect!’ because all I wanted to do was play PlayStation and chill.

After two weeks of pure FIFA, I thought that it might end in tears if I don’t do something. So, I created a list of goals that I wanted to achieve. One of them, in March, was that I want to run a marathon. I’ve always wanted to run a marathon. I just picked a date, August the 1st

That was a really stringent training regime. Long run on a Saturday, short run on a Sunday, rest day on Friday. But generally speaking, when I’m not in that marathon phase I just try and clock up the miles, whether it’s 50k a week or try and get 100k a month done. 

What advice would you give to a budding you? Someone who wanted to follow your career path? 

 

I tend to say this to everyone: the biggest power and the biggest strength you have is that ‘no one can be youer than you’ – that’s a Dr Seuss quote from Cat in the Hat. The only power and strength you have really is that you’re unique and you’re your own person, I try to never copy anyone but to be inspired by them. When you have got confidence it kills insecurity.

I can hear someone way better than me at the drums and I love it and enjoy it because I know ‘well they can’t sound like me’. You might think they’re better looking than you, or faster or cooler. That’s my advice always. If you take that then if you’re practising your drums or whatever, it’s not about being the best it’s about being the best version of yourself.

Who are some of your favourite artists that you’ve worked with?

First, I’d say the Ezra Collective, they’re a collection of my best mates. That’s a real honour and pleasure to me. Because first we are good friends and then we can make music together. Jorja Smith is a massive inspiration to me, she is incredible. She has taught me so much. 

Of course, I’m in the Gorillaz, the Gorillaz are cool as hell! Damon [Albarn] has become a very special friend. He is a musical genius. Watching him in rehearsals is just scary, how much he knows, he can hear everything, and he has such cool ideas. He is always changing things up. So, it has been a real pleasure and honour to work with him. That Gorillaz music is a deep challenge to get it right but when it gets right, we sound rocking.

"That was a real 
you made it moment"

Femi Koleoso Superdry Performance Sport

What was the breakout moment in your career? 

 

I think a really deep, breakout moment in my career would probably be when I was about 18 years old. I was playing the ‘Jam Session’ in Ronnie Scott’s in Soho, and a rapper from the US, Pharoahe Monch, saw me playing and then basically hollered at me and said, ‘do you want to come on tour around Europe?’ – that was my first European tour.

 I was playing drums with him for like three years. I was still at university, I was still a kid, I had never been abroad or anything. That was a special breakout moment because it was the first moment that I had my first love – which was jazz music – but the first moment that someone actually saw something else in me. I did a mad hip-hop tour with him. It was a ‘you made it’ moment. Going from playing tiny jazz clubs to hip hop festivals.

What are some of your top career highlights?

 Ezra Collective taking on the West Holt Stage at Glastonbury was pretty special. We had worked towards that. The first time I played Clint Eastwood was pretty special, just because I grew up loving that song. Jorja [Smith] taking on Coachella was special because she is a best friend of mine.  I would have been so happy watching her do that and seeing her achieve that but to be on the drums while she did it was definitely a career highlight for me. That’s going to be with us forever.

What do you love most about drumming?

Femi Koleoso Superdry Performance Sport

The thing I love most about drumming is that I’ve met so many people just because I can play the drums. I have travelled the entire world and I meet people everywhere I go. The kind of personality I have means I tend to get on with people, I’m not really that controversial.

I’ve just made so many amazing friends, had so many amazing conversations and seen life and the world because of music. 

 When you feel like you’re doing what you’re meant to be doing, it’s a special feeling. It’s probably a similar feeling to when you take your little girl to her first football match or whatever and she plays, you get that ‘good dad’ feeling. Or little things like when your friend needs help moving house and you go there and help box stuff up and help them.

That feeling of ‘I’m in this world to do something good’, I get that when I play the drums.

 

 "There is no gig more important to me than the church" 

How does religion play a part in who you are? Has it influenced your career? 

 

Yes. I feel that I am called to play the drums. God is very much first in my life. I think it has influenced my career and how I go about things. I don’t think I can ever get a superstar complex because to me there is someone higher than me that is more important. There is no gig more important to me than the church. It ends up being a grounding. I take a lot of what happens in my career as a blessing. I’m in the middle of a pandemic and a recession and I get a call from Superdry to play the drums! 

 

How has coming from a Nigerian family shaped your career? 

 

Fela Kuti was the first influence on music that I had. I guess a lot of Nigerian music, if not all of it, is so drum-heavy and percussive. I have been hearing these rhythms since birth. I had the pleasure of being taught later on in life by Uncle Tony who’s Fela Kuti’s drummer. It’s part of who I am. It’s my identity.

As much as I’m a Londoner I’m from Nigeria too. It’s the two together, it’s how I sound. 

You mentioned online that you saw benefits of running physically, mentally and creatively. Could you elaborate on this? 

Physically, I lost weight.  Alongside that, I just got stronger.  I was playing harder for longer on stage. I noticed it on stage straight away. I was sleeping better. I was dealing with exhaustion better. 

Mentally, my life is consistently busy. It’s a beautiful thing. Half of the time I’m getting phone calls like ‘can you check this mix? Is this master alright? You’ve got this shoot coming up…’ and the other half I’ve got my youth group of 15-year-olds being like ‘Ayo Fems, can you pray for me? My GCSE exams coming up next week’.  

There’s so much going on all at once, apart from when I  run. You can’t really contact me. I’m just running as fast as I can through Camden. For me, that is all I need mentally to be grounded and sound.

Creatively on those runs I’m writing songs [in my head] I’m designing shows, the Glastonbury shows, we don’t use setlists in Ezra Collective. We just kind of look at everyone and think ‘I think they need to hear this song’. 

Femi Koleoso Superdry Performance Sport

On set, we recorded a drum solo performed by Femi himself, which became the soundtrack of all of our Performance Sport athlete videos for SS21.

See him in action below:

Shop Femi’s men’s Performance Sport RUN shoot looks online and in store now.