ON THE RISE
French musician Jimmy Whoo has blended genres and ethnicities, while also using one of the rarest synthesizers in the world, on his most recent track “6 De La Manana.”
This is a hypnotic electronic track with a catchy, steady beat featuring Peruvian-American singer/songwriter/producer A.CHAL on vocals singing both English and Spanish. It is just the first part of an ongoing project called World News that will be released in segments from now until July.
“I like to connect people,” said Jimmy Whoo. “That’s what I like about electronic- it can connect a lot of people together from different parts of the world. That’s why it is called World News because it is something very global. I think that’s the purpose of music.”
The story behind “6 De La Manana” starts with Jimmy Whoo going to Los Angeles two years ago and visiting the Vintage Synth Museum, where the Gleeson Crystal Synthesizer was available. There are only 10 in the world, and Jimmy Whoo was able to rent it for an hour and came up with the chords for “6 De La Manana.”
Jimmy Whoo currently owns a studio in Paris called Ciel Rouge that attracts major acts, which is where he was introduced to A.CHAL.
“This is a place where artistic people meet,” Jimmy said. “It’s the purpose of the place- to make collaborations. It’s like a crossover of genres in Paris. People meet, they do music and they don’t care about what genres they come from. They just share their experiences.”
A.CHAL is mostly in the hip-hop and R&B world, while Jimmy delves in electronic and disco. This track has a little of both going on.
“We are different but we like the same thing at the end, so we just mixed our genres,” said Jimmy Whoo. “I’m French, born and raised in Paris. So we tried to put a little bit of all our influences into the music.”
Jimmy Whoo produced the track at his studio and A.CHAL gave it a listen. He knew right away that he loved it and wanted to be a part of it. They recorded the whole night, and the song was finished in a week. A.CHAL stuck around and recorded several songs before heading back to the United States.
“I didn’t know if it would be a proper track,” Jimmy Whoo said. “It was kind of a surprise. At first the song was in English. With my friend, the engineer at the studio, we told him he should do it in Spanish, too. In the end it’s in English, Spanish and it’s a French produced track, so it’s interesting.”
Jimmy Whoo started DJing in 2011, and then began creating beats for rap music. After attending beat parties that attracted high profile rappers like Mos Def, he and his friends created their own collective called Grande Ville that included a studio he managed. This studio attracted the likes of big name artists like Drake. At the time he was still making music on the side, and in 2014 he went to America where he traveled from New York to Los Angeles. This is when Jimmy Whoo created “Motel Music,” which he says is a genre in himself. It was named because he was living out of motels throughout his journey, and represents the relationship he has with America.
“6 De La Manana” is part of three EP/mixtapes that include a total of 24 tracks, with the next release coming in February.
Check out Jimmy Whoo’s music on all platforms.
ON THE RISE
Blossoms caught up with NME to discuss competing with The Beatles and Johnny Marr for this week’s Number One album. With ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ in the running, the band also explained why making things themselves remains such an important part of their work as AI becomes more common.
The Stockport group put out their sixth album last Friday, October 2. By the midweek update, it was sitting at Number Two, between The Beatles’ expanded edition of ‘Rubber Soul’ and Johnny Marr’s latest solo album, ‘The Age Of Everything’.
“It’s mad, to be honest,” singer Tom Ogden said to NME about the chart race. “Liverpool on one side, Manchester on the other and Stockport in the middle. If you’d told us this 10 years ago, when we were releasing our debut, I wouldn’t have believed you. But I mean, we’re in good company aren’t we?”
Discussing the stories behind the album, Ogden described ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ as “about being married and all the everyday stuff that comes with it”. He married Katie Donovan, the sister of Blossoms drummer Joe, in 2021. Married life has since given him a new appreciation for what he describes as “the extraordinary ordinary”.
“Saying the wrong thing in an argument, losing your wife’s no claims bonus, crying at the Kardashians, it’s all in there,” he explained. “The album is named after Stockport Town Hall, which everyone round where we live calls the Wedding Cake, and it’s where I got married, so it couldn’t be much closer to home.
“The last album [‘Gary’, 2024] had a song about a stolen fibreglass gorilla, which everyone loved, and that gave us the confidence to bring the same playfulness to this one, just with more personal subject matter this time.”
Alongside tracks that came out of writing sessions with Declan McKenna in a hot tub, the album reflects the band’s desire to stay involved in every part of the creative process.
“It started with the recording,” Ogden explained. “We made the album with Shawn Lee, playing live straight to tape, and once you’ve done it that way you can’t really go and fake everything else. We sat down as a band and picked the colour palette, and everything visual followed from that. We had body scans taken of ourselves and cake toppers of the five of us 3D printed, put them on a real cake and photographed it. I’ve directed and edited the videos, and the sets are all built by hand, no green screen. For the pop-up shop on launch weekend, a local artist hand-painted the album cover for the sign outside.
“It’s more work, but you end up with a world that’s yours, and I think people can tell when a band’s had its hands on everything.”
With AI tools and digital effects becoming increasingly widespread, that approach feels particularly relevant. For Blossoms, though, the motivation is simple: “the fun is in the making”.
“Tape doesn’t let you cheat and neither does a real cake,” Ogden said. “If a set’s a bit wonky, it’s because one of us or our mates built it. I think the more stuff gets generated, the more people want to know a human being actually did it. We’ve been in this band together for over 10 years, five lads from Stockport, and that isn’t something you can ‘prompt’.”
Maya Jama also appeared in the video for the album’s first single, ‘Meet Me In Love’. Her appearance came shortly before the UK launch of Celebrity Traitors, where she took on the role of a traitor alongside a cast that included Richard E Grant and James Acaster.
“She was brilliant,” Ogden recalled of working with Jama. “We’d met her at the MTV EMAs in Manchester a couple of years ago, so we took a chance and sent her a DM …and she said yes. Next thing she’s in a theatre in Cheadle miming my vocals while a load of people dressed as me serenade her. She got the idea straight away and was a proper laugh about it.”
The conversation then turned to whether he thought Jama could take home the win on Celebrity Traitors.
Ogden joked: “As for Traitors, she spent a whole day pretending to sing my song and I almost believed her, so I’d say she’s got every chance.”
Fans can listen to ‘Songs From The Wedding Cake’ now. In November, Blossoms head out on a UK arena tour with The Royston Club. Tickets and further details are available here.
Before the tour begins, the group is also scheduled to appear on SNL UK on Saturday, October 24.
