Few artists have explored the power of space and silence in music quite like James Blake. Since his arrival on the scene with his groundbreaking 2011 debut album, he has amassed a resume that is staggering in both its critical acclaim and its genre-defying breadth. His 2013 album Overgrown beat a shortlist that included David Bowie to win the coveted Mercury Prize, cementing his status as one of the UK’s most important artists.
But his influence extends far beyond his solo work. Blake has become a ‘musician’s musician,’ a sought-after collaborator for titans like Beyoncé (Lemonade), Frank Ocean (Blonde) and Kendrick Lamar, lending his unmistakable falsetto and production genius to some of the most defining albums of our time.
Now, with a Grammy Award for his work on Jay Rock’s ‘King’s Dead’ and a string of critically acclaimed albums under his belt, he continues to navigate the delicate line between intimate confession and electronic exploration.
Last month saw Blake bring his collaborative mindset into the fashion world with Zegna as he performed during the Italian fashion house’s historic SS26 runway show in the Dubai Opera.
Esquire Middle East caught up with him backstage, after the show…
ESQUIRE: You’re just off stage from performing at Zegna’s Summer 2026 fashion show. How would you describe Zegna in a word?
JAMES BLAKE: Obsessive… or perhaps, maybe, ‘perfectionist’ is a better way of putting it. However, whichever way you look at it, those are ultimately two sides the same coin, really. There is an obsessive attention to detail in their work, which I get. It is something that I share, so I relate to it.
ESQ: Are you obsessive when it comes to your work?
JAMES BLAKE: Kind of, yeah.
ESQ: So, for example listening to a 3-minute James Blake track, is probably listening to something that took you 30-40 hours to create?
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, that’s the thing really. It can be a large or small project, but the reality is that you still spend an incredible amount of time working on it. A lot of my process is about following an idea down a rabbit hole and seeing where that comes out. You can’t really legislate for the result.
ESQ: How do you know when a track is done?
JAMES BLAKE: Probably when everyone else in the studio is bored of listening to it – and they start asking me to move on! But, honestly, I think it is just a feeling, like you reach a natural resting state with a piece of music. There is a moment when it just feels… satisfying.
ESQ: When it feels perfect?
JAMES BLAKE: Not perfect, no, there’s no such thing as sounding perfect, but there is a version of it. I guess it is more like a perfect reflection of how I feel in the moment – and that’s about as good as I can do.
ESQ: Do you ever go into a project knowing exactly what you want to get out of it?
JAMES BLAKE: I don’t think I’ve ever done that. There are artists who go in and they have a concept or even a whole idea of what they want a song to sound like, or what the story is going to be, but I’ve never done that. When I’m working on an album, it’s mostly just a collection of songs that got put in the same corner over time. And then, eventually, it begins feeling like it’s developing into a bigger body of work, so I start finishing it.
ESQ: Turning to the performance you gave at the beginning of the Zegna show. How does playing at something like this differ to a James Blake show?
JAMES BLAKE: Well, everything in my life is the James Blake Show, really. But joking aside, there was a moment backstage where I was hit with a pang of nerves, as I haven’t done a show like this before. I’ve designed the music for a fashion show, but I have never actually performed as part of the show before. It was kind of remarkable.
ESQ: Whose idea was it?
JAMES BLAKE: It was Alessandro’s [Sartori, Artistic Director of Zegna] idea, which was a really good one as it worked to bring people into the moment. When you are out there performing live, it is the most organic thing, so you can feed off the energy and subtly tweak things. In fact, the second piece I played at the piano was my cover of Beyoncé’s Otherside, which is called When We’re Older, and then after about 20 seconds of it I just improvised and felt my way through the rest of it, humming and singing. I just went with it and tried to have some fun, really.
ESQ: You mentioned Alessandro, what has been your experience in working with him…
JAMES BLAKE: I would say that we are, to use the same phrase again, two sides of the same coin. He pays the same kind of attention to detail to his work that I pay to mine. What I’ve really enjoyed is talking to him about the overall relationship that music has with fashion, because he takes it so seriously.
He is very, very respectful of it which, is honestly quite rare in fashion. What Alessandro does, really quite effectively, is bring everyone in the room together. He’s great at fostering a creative team energy, and that integration is very much by design.
ESQ: So, you enjoyed it then…
JAMES BLAKE: Yeah, basically it’s a long-winded way of me saying that he’s ace.
ESQ: Well, you famously collaborate well with others so you speak from plenty of experience. Why is collaborating with other artists something that is important to you?
JAMES BLAKE: Do you like collaborating… it’s a pretty good question. It’s like saying, do you like meeting people? To which my answer is… Not always. In my experience, the people you strike up a bond with is often by chance. Sure, it can be by intuition – I often take on collaborations when I have the feeling that I’m going to get on well with someone – but having a good human connection with someone is so central to my creative process. I often find that the best work is directly proportional to amount of laughs I have with the other people in the process of making music. That’s my preferred unit of measurement.
