Gaika has emerged as a unique voice in the UK’s music scene with a sound that defies categorisation. Drawing inspiration from his Jamaican and Grenadian heritage, as well as his experiences growing up among London’s club culture, the artist’s multi-dimensional output is a powerful reflection of the complexities of identity and serves as a platform for marginalised voices facing social injustices. Starting out in the rap crew Murkage, he’s gone on to collaborate with the likes of Mike Skinner, 3D, Mykki Blanco and Kelela and exhibit art installations at both the ICA and Somerset House.

With each project, Gaika’s ideas become more expansive and yet more grounded, as is the case with his new album ‘Drift’. A deep dive into his place in the world as well as a psychedelic look back at his childhood, he’s worked with Kidä (Yves Tumor), Azekel, Charlie Stacey, Brbko and The Narrator to build a typically experimental body of work. Influenced heavily by the meditative process of dreaming, ‘Drift’ strengthens the sacred bonds he has with his creative community and rebuffs the industry’s ideas of the road to success. From the woozy ‘Sublime’ to the hard-nosed ‘Lady’, it’s a record that will captivate and surprise. Here we speak to Gaika about all things ‘Drift’.

How did you land on the title ‘Drift’?

It started off as a working title because I had spent a lot of time travelling since the last record, physically and through disciplines, kind of finding my space. And then I decided to make a record just to do it and that became an exploration of the purpose of music, an exploration of why I make music and generally looking inside myself. It took me back to leaving the UK for the first time and travelling around the world, identifying what I’m about and what I want to do. The album becomes a search for understanding purpose.

On a fundamental level, it’s a record that doesn’t stay in one place, its all me but genre or feeling wise it moves. I wanted to make something that you could put on as a complete listen. Back when we used to make tapes, you would choose to listen to something based on where you’re going or what you need to do, how you were anticipating the emotional ride you wanted. So this record is designed to be put it on and you don’t touch it till it’s finished.

You’ve used dreaming as a creative tool. Tell us more.

Dreaming is a meditative process, something we all do without thinking about it. You try to remember your dreams and to recreate them or take influence from them in how you behave in your waking hours. For me, it's a method of self-referencing and exploring my own psyche instead of copying what other people have done, what’s on trend, or what's expedient. You look inside yourself and how you really think by trying to remember your dreams. In order to make art or do something that enhances the rest of your life, it's a key process… For this album, it’s digging into younger days or potential future lives or past lives. Past experiences in the world that come to me at night.

What do your collaborators bring to this album?

A lot of people come and use my studio, so I’ve just tried to make a community of artists. On this record, they’re all long-time collaborators. Real relationships developed over real time; no egos, no one famous. People driven by a similar principle, which is that I want to make long-form, interesting music that has nothing to do with going viral or Tik Tok or any of that stuff. The thing that everyone said about the process of making this album was, ‘I can come and just be me’. A lot of these people are trained musicians but are struggling to contend with being told that they have to participate in something that has nothing to do with music.

You often recorded late into the night - what were those sessions like?

Delirious. When I started working on it, I would be coming in late as I would have let others use the studio before me. By the time I settled and started, I was moving into the small hours, then into the next day. There was one time I was in there for 35 hours, maybe two or three hours sleeping on the couch, and there were no windows, so it became trippy. I think that the record becomes trippy. Those sessions were dictated by the mechanics of being a working artist in the community. I didn’t want it to be mundane; I wanted it to be beyond what’s normal. And part of that was sometimes not knowing what day it was.

What’s one track on the album that took you by surprise?

The instrumental track ‘Here Comes the Challenger’. I played it to Kidä and she was like, what’s this weird funk record you’re playing? Afterwards I chopped it up, it was like clay and I built something out of it. It had a vocal but I didn’t like it. I went back and forth and in the end I thought, let me just take it off and strip it down. The title comes from a line in the 1970s car movie ‘Vanishing Point’ when this woman character is challenging this anti-establishment figure and talking about the police who are chasing them. When I was a little kid, I remember staying up late to watch it on BBC2 and just being like, this is amazing. I fell in love with cars and that 70s thing.

What song are you most excited to play live?

I’m really proud of ‘Guns’. I think it's the most timeless and truest song that I’ve made. It's a pure personal expression; every part of it is made by me. I had this real heavy moment of self-doubt, and I had to take steps to repair some relationships. That meant I had to put my ego to one side and it made me really think about how men walk around like we’re ready for war all the time, which is completely futile. That’s what that song is about – the masculine urge to be tough or to be ready for combat.

What can listeners expect from this album?

They can expect a journey. They can expect to hear music that is made for music's sake. They can expect a particular artistic take. In some ways, it's really nostalgic; in some ways, it's really futuristic; it's just who we are. It lives outside of a place and time, so you can expect timelessness. I think it's my best record, and I’m really proud of it.

At this point in your journey, what does being an artist mean to you?

Are we here to make art? Does it consider the world and communicate something outside of ourselves? Are we going to examine it, or is art super mundane? Is it just another form of work? We’ve started to think of creativity as a product or as a job, but it's not. It doesn’t fit the same function in society. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t make a living from it, but it's more about how we consider it. Are you looking inside yourself? Are you dreaming? Are you imagining? Are you experimenting? Or are you just trying to make money? To answer the question, I think art is communication of thoughts and ideas in order to enhance reality.