Jamie xx: south London's hottest export on politics, fame and finally growing up

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Jamie xx: south London's hottest export on politics, fame and finally growing up
Author: Craig McLean
Published: Jan, 16 2025 11:59

Sunday evening in Hong Kong and, from his suite on an elevated floor of the Mandarin Oriental, Jamie xx can see — just — tonight’s gig. Squatting down there by Central Harbourfront, flanked by a glittering big wheel and the even-more-glittering skyscrapers of the city’s financial district, are the multiple stages of Clockenflap.

 [H&M&LONDON]
Image Credit: The Standard [H&M&LONDON]

It’s the final night of the three-day music festival. The south London-raised DJ, producer and sometime member of The xx is one of the closing acts, performing alongside fellow bill-topper Jack White and succeeding the previous days’ headliners Central Cee, Suede, Air and excellently-named Japanese hip-hop duo Creepy Nuts.

 [Jamie XX is releasing his second solo album 'In Waves']
Image Credit: The Standard [Jamie XX is releasing his second solo album 'In Waves']

This is the festival-bossing level at which the in-demand musician finds himself. He’s released two acclaimed, dancefloor-igniting solo albums; remixed/produced big hitters including Florence + the Machine, Radiohead, Adele, Drake and Alicia Keys; scored Wayne McGregor’s ballet Tree of Codes; and composed the music for Romain Gavras’s film The World is Yours.

 [2022 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival - Weekend 2 - Day 3]
Image Credit: The Standard [2022 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival - Weekend 2 - Day 3]

With The xx on hiatus since 2017’s third album I See You, Jamie xx is arguably currently bigger than the band with which, as a shy teenager, he enjoyed success straight out of the gate, their self-titled 2009 debut winning the Mercury Prize and becoming a global phenomenon. Certainly his solo career has outpaced the individual records released by his more forward-facing bandmates, co-vocalists Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft.

Clockenflap is quite the line-up, then, in quite the location. But no matter the prestige, or indeed the pressure, of entertaining a festival audience with a slimmed-down DJ set — pared back from the dancers-in-the-crowd and xx-bandmates-on-stage spectacular that packed out Alexandra Palace over two September nights — it’s just another gig for Jamie xx. When you’ve a touring itinerary that, over the past couple of weeks, has had you pinging between Tokyo, Taipei, Shanghai, Seoul, Singapore and Manila (“and Palm Springs”), you have to maintain a cool mindset. That way good mental health lies.

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