Ezra Collective plays jazz for people who came to dance, and it doesn’t apologize for that. That idea has now taken a London quintet to the top of the British charts.    Ezra Collective plays jazz the way a sound system plays records. Afrobeat, calypso, hip-hop and highlife all go through the same five-piece band, and the groove is never optional. The mainstream caught on only recently. Here Because of Hope, their fourth studio album, came out on 11 September 2026 on Partisan Records, and it made them the first UK jazz group to score a No. 1 album. That came on top of the Mercury Prize and BRIT Award they had already won. One track worth listening for is “Well Organised,” featuring Jamaican singer Lila Iké. It’s a reminder that this band’s jazz has always had one foot in the Caribbean.

  Manchester has long had a soul tradition that runs on rain, basslines and reggae sound systems. Children of Zeus are its best current guardians.  Tyler Daley and Konny Kon first entered the music game two decades back. Tyler worked as a songwriter, producer and vocalist, originally under the name Hoodman, while Konny was MCing, DJing and making beats for hip-hop crews. Together they found a formula they describe best themselves: “We make classic soul for Hip Hop heads”. Tyler sings warm and smooth, Konny raps flat and plain, and neither works as well alone. Their 2018 debut Travel Light became a cult record. Five years after their second album, Balance, they returned with a new 16-track album, As The World Burns…, released September 4th 2026 on First Word Records. What to listen for is the dub underneath. Reggae has always been an integral part of the CoZ sound-system ethic, so it’s no accident that lovers rock keeps slipping through the boom-bap