Jodie Abacus is an English musician from

Lewisham Lewisham ( ) is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the Historic counties of England, historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in ...

in South East London. His musical styles include R&B, soul, electronic and funk.

Career

Jodie wrote "I’ll Be That Friend" in 2013 and uploaded it to his SoundCloud channel where it topped the

Hype Machine Hype Machine is a music blog aggregator created by Anthony Volodkin. History Hype Machine was originally a music database created in 2005 by Anthony Volodkin, then a sophomore computer science major at Hunter College.Heilemann, JohCapturing the ...

charts and amassed over 100,000 plays. It was written while Jodie was in a dark point in his life, having caught life-threatening pneumonia and broken up with his long-term girlfriend at the same time. He subsequently signed a five-single deal with Household Records /

Ministry Of Sound Ministry of Sound or Ministry of Sound Group is a multimedia entertainment business based in London with a nightclub, shared workspace and private members' club, worldwide events operation, music publisher (popular music), music publishing busin ...

in early 2015. Follow-up single "Good Feeling" was premiered by

MistaJam Peter Dalton (born 19 January 1983), known professionally as MistaJam, is a British DJ and radio presenter. He is known for presenting radio shows on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra from 2005 to 2020; since 2020 he has presented on Capital Danc ...

BBC Radio 1Xtra BBC Radio 1Xtra is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts Black music and urban music, including hip hop and R&B and is a sister station to Radio 1. Launching at 18:00 on 16 August 2002, it had been ...

on 28 July 2015 and released on the same day. It was named Best of British Record of the Week on the BBC Radio 1Xtra Breakfast Show. It also received plays from

Clara Amfo Clara Amfo is a British radio broadcaster, television presenter, podcast host and voice-over artist. She is known for presenting her shows on BBC Radio 1. Early life and education Born to Ghanaian parents. She has five siblings. Her father, w ...

and

DJ Target Darren Joseph, known professionally as DJ Target, is an English DJ and presenter. He is best known for being part of grime collective Roll Deep and presenting on BBC Radio 1Xtra. Career Joseph is a former member of Roll Deep. Joseph began hosti ...

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and Contemporary hit radio, current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including ...

Tom Ravenscroft Thomas James Dalglish Ravenscroft (born 6 February 1980) is a British radio presenter and disc jockey. He previously hosted a BBC Radio 6 Music show featuring new and unsigned music. He is the son of the late DJ John Peel. Career Working initi ...

BBC Radio 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It primarily plays a wide range of alternative music, from established and emerging artists and bands. In 2002 it was the first national music radio station t ...

, and

Trevor Nelson Trevor Ricardo Nelson, MBE (born 7 January 1964) is an English DJ and radio presenter. He is best known for presenting a range of shows across BBC Radio. Early life Born in Hackney to a family of St Lucian heritage, Nelson attended Centra ...

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the List of most-listened-to radio programs, most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 14 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the sta ...

. His debut EP, titled "For Real Life And Not Pretend", was released on 26 February 2016. The single "She’s In Love With The Weekend" was released on 11 April 2016 and made it to the A-List on BBC Radio 2 Abacus supported

Jamie Woon Jamie Woon (born 29 March 1983) is a British singer, songwriter, and record producer signed to PMR Records. He gained widespread acclaim in 2010 for his single " Night Air", which was co-produced by Burial, following his previous independent re ...

on his European tour in April 2016 and

Laura Mvula Laura Mvula ( Douglas; born 23 April 1986) is a British singer. A native of Birmingham, England, Mvula gained experience as a member or leader of a cappella, jazz/ neo-soul and gospel groups and choirs. She was classically trained. In 2012, sh ...

on three dates of her UK tour in May 2016. He followed these with a run of UK summer festivals including

Glastonbury Glastonbury ( , ) is a town and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the low-lying Somerset Levels, south of Bristol. The town had a population of 8,932 in the 2011 census. Glastonbury is less than across the River ...

, Lovebox,

Parklife ''Parklife'' is the third studio album by the English rock band Blur, released on 25 April 1994, by Food Records. After moderate sales for their previous album '' Modern Life Is Rubbish'' (1993), ''Parklife'' returned Blur to prominence in ...

, The Great Escape,

V Festival V Festival, often referred to as V Fest or simply V, was an annual music festival held in the United Kingdom during the third weekend in August. The event was held at two parks simultaneously which shared the same bill; artists performed at one ...

Secret Garden Party The Secret Garden Party, often colloquially shortened to the SGP, is an independent music festival, arts and music festival held in Abbots Ripton, England. The location is on part of the grounds of a Georgian farmhouse and has its own lakes, river ...

, and

Y Not ''Y Not'' is the sixteenth studio album by English singer-songwriter Ringo Starr, released on 12 January 2010 on the UMe and Hip-O Records labels. the album features several guest musicians, including Paul McCartney, who sang backing vocals o ...

. His performance at The Great Escape was filmed by

Vevo Vevo LLC ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized in all caps until 2013) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available ...

for their Vevo DSCVR series. He also performed at the main stage of the 9th Annual

Roots Picnic The Roots Picnic is an annual music festival created and hosted by hip hop group, The Roots. The festival is held in the Roots' hometown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Mann Center in Fairmount Park. The f ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

, opening for

The Roots The Roots are an American Hip-hop, hip hop band formed in 1987 by singer Black Thought, Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and drummer Questlove, Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Roots serve as the house band on NBC's ''T ...

, Usher, and

Anderson Paak Brandon Paak Anderson (born February 8, 1986), known professionally as Anderson .Paak ( or ), is an American R&B singer, rapper, songwriter, and record producer. He released his debut mixtape, ''O.B.E. Vol. 1'', in 2012 and went on to releas ...

. The video for "I’ll Be That Friend" was released on 6 July 2016. It was shot in Los Angeles and was inspired by the video "People React To Being Called Beautiful" by Shea Glover Films. On 4 September 2016, Jodie Abacus was the musical guest on the

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...

show

Sunday Brunch ''Sunday Brunch'' is a British television programme presented by Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer. It is broadcast live on Channel 4 on Sunday mornings and features cookery and interviews with celebrity guests. Format The programme began on 25 Ma ...

. He supported

Corinne Bailey Rae Corinne Jacqueline Bailey Rae (; née Bailey; born 26 February 1979) is a British singer and songwriter. She is best known for her 2006 single "Put Your Records On". Bailey Rae was named the number-one predicted breakthrough act of 2006 in an a ...

on her UK tour in October/November 2016. He recorded a live session for

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

Music Foundry, where he performed "Keep Your Head Down", inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis. The song was released as a single on 9 December 2016.

Discography

Albums

Extended plays

Singles

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abacus, Jodie Living people British electronic musicians 20th-century births Musicians from the London Borough of Lewisham Year of birth missing (living people)