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Idris Elba releasing Mandela-inspired LP feat James Blake and Mumford

By | Published on Thursday 25 September 2014

Idris Elba

Actor, singer, rapper and DJ Idris Elba has enticed the likes of James Blake, Mr Hudson and Mumford & Sons Ltd to feature on a new Nelson Mandela-inspired LP he’s made.

Elba felt driven to write ‘Mi Mandela’ whilst researching the late South African premier in order to play him in not-all-that-good-but-still-admirable 2013 film ‘Long Walk To Freedom’.

Enlightening fans a bit in a trailer clip for the LP, he says: “I wanted to understand what music Mandela liked, and so in that journey I discovered the roots of South African music. At the time I had a studio in the apartment I was staying in; a little keyboard, a laptop, and as an experiment to myself I vowed to keep making music”.

Vow intact, the eleven-track ‘Mi Mandela’ will be released on 24 Nov. Cody ChesnuTT, George The Poet, Nothembi Mkhwebane and South African vocal band Mahotella Queens are also on it, as is Maverick Sabre, who is all over its forthcoming first single, ‘You Give Me Love’.

In additional news, Elba has co-created a very special Christmas single with Noel Fielding and Kasabian’s Serge Pizzorno, aka ‘the lads’. And apparently it’s a hit!

Explaining what the hell they were thinking via NME earlier this week, he said: “I get this call from the lads and they’re like, ‘Oi, do you want to rap on a Christmas song? I went to this studio down in Notting Hill somewhere and they played it to me. I’m telling you now, it’s a hit. Serge did this sort of funky, 70s, slow disco groove and Noel this singing-rap thing”.

Terrific. And then?

Well, then Elba “rolled in there without a rap prepared, so I write a quick Christmas rap. I went to see Kasabian at the iTunes Festival last week and Serge said it would come out this Christmas. It’s a big tune”.

Well, let’s just wait and see about that, shall we? While you put up the tinsel, here’s Elba’s 2011 solo classic, ‘Private Garden’, to set the festive mood:



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