Washington, DC / Liverpool, England · soul · R&B

Jalen Ngonda

1 upcoming festival

Sixties soul sung straight, with no wink — a falsetto so period-correct that the Daptone-school arrangements almost feel like the modern part.

Jalen Ngonda grew up in the Washington, DC area and moved to Liverpool to study music, where he began performing and recording. He signed to Daptone Records, the Brooklyn label known for analogue-recorded soul and funk, and released the album Come Around and Love Me.

His songs draw on 1960s and early-70s soul, particularly the Motown and Philadelphia traditions, and are built around a high, clear tenor that moves easily into falsetto. The arrangements favour live rhythm section, warm horns and unhurried tempos, and the writing sticks to the compact verse-chorus structures of the era rather than treating them as pastiche.

soulR&B