Danger Mouse's label signee Baba Ali collaborates with Jamie Hince on the swaggering “House”

The sauntering funk bassline on “House” sets the mood for a piece of swaggering social commentary, while the spiky lo-fi production is evidence of the influence of Jamie Hince of The Kills, who worked with Baba Ali on the track. It's a departure from Ali’s previous offerings, but retains his trademark soulful vocal sensitivity, which he uses to critique a tumultuous society.

“In the house I was living at the time, there was a TV, the news was pretty much always on,” says Baba Ali. “It was a moment when there was this sense of that things were unravelling and the facades of society and order weren’t holding up anymore.”

With a new EP titled This House due for release in February, Baba Ali is carving himself a niche that's as musically varied as it is lyrically intelligent. “I see this song as the centrepiece of the upcoming EP,” he says, “and definitive of how music has evolved in the past year. It's funky and urgent, with a hardened edge.”

Baba Ali took his EP demos to Jamie Hince in LA, and “House” was the first they worked on. “We were totally unsure how the process with him would go,” explains Ali. “We sat in a bar the night before still stunned we were on the verge of getting in the studio with him. But this track was perfect to start with to bring the walls down, so to speak. It helped that Jamie was into it and he was bursting with ideas to help improve the track. Knowing he had taken the time to really delve into our music was a real honour.”

The EP tracks ended up in the lap of Brian Burton, AKA Danger Mouse, who consequently signed Baba Ali to his label 30th Century Records. He included “House” on his recently curated all-star compilation album 30th Century Vol 2 alongside Sparklehorse, MF Doom, Warpaint's Theresa Wayman and Broken Bells, amongst other artists the label has released music by in 2019.

The accompanying video to “House” was shot in what Baba Ali describes as “a little nook in a building in Peckham where Nik [Balchin, guitarist] and I sometimes rehearse for gigs.” He explains, “the idea was to keep the visual aesthetic straightforward - austere even - to match the attitude and feel of the song, while also giving a sense of what the energy is like when the music is performed live. There’s a slight nod to the '90s hip-hop videos I grew up watching, like Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Dead Prez.”