Stunning piano-work, evocative vocals, and on-point production are the reasons we love Sampha, and now we get to luxuriate in a full album’s worth of Sampha-ness. The East Londoner – whose responsible for the hooks of some of your favourite soulful R & B tracks (i.e. Solange – Don’t Touch My Hair, and Drake – Too Much) and who most of us were introduced to through his vocal work with SBTRKT, has just released his first debut album – Process – on Young Turks. Stream it below – it’s the ultimate antidote to the Monday back-to-work grind.

In a recent interview with The New York Times (read it, its great), Sampha actually says him singing was a fluke: “When I started, I was just making lots of beats, and I wasn’t even intending to sing over them. I didn’t even have a microphone at home — I would have to go to someone else’s house to record.” Suffice to say the world really owes it to the dude who lent Sampha that microphone!

Stream Process below, and watch the moving video for his track No One Knows Me (Like The Piano), a tribute to Sampha’s late mother, wherein he uses his mother’s old piano as a vessel to relay his grief. Sampha performed an intimate set on Boiler Room London over the weekend, too – watch it here.

Stay tuned – apparently there’s a short film coming in March as a complement piece to the album. Hopefully you were one of the lucky ones that scored tickets to the Londoner’s approaching Australian shows.

Words: Dani Marsland