\u201cI\u2019m not looking at a crowd tonight,\u201d Odeal says hours before his first ever Brixton Academy performance in late March. \u201cI\u2019m looking at my people; aunties, uncles, friends, peers and supporters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dressed in loungewear and stretched across a leather sofa backstage at the south London venue, the British-Nigerian singer seems calm, as if he\u2019s exactly where he expected to be. The 26-year-old has the type of fame particular to the British R&B scene: adoration and many millions of streams from the genre\u2019s global fanbase, to the point where he\u2019ll soon play arenas across the US in support of R&B megastar Summer Walker \u2013 though is yet to have much mainstream recognition beyond that.<\/p>\n
His music sits loosely within R&B, also drawing on Afrobeats, neo-soul and contemporary pop. Across his catalogue \u2013 culminating in his 2025 sister EPs The Summer That Saved Me and The Fall That Saved Us \u2013 love is rarely conclusive. Instead, songs live in emotional grey areas. But he encourages listeners to lean into their feelings, however conflicted they may be. \u201cIf you wanna heal, you\u2019ve got to feel quicker,\u201d he sings on one of his most popular tracks to date, Miami.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Odeal: Miami \u2013 video<\/p>\n
Born Hillary Dennis Udanoh in Germany, he was raised in Spain, south London and Nigeria as his parents moved for work. He started taking music seriously at 13, squeezing in studio time after school and selling his PlayStation to buy a laptop. Friends and relationships all came second. \u201cI\u2019ve never made a sacrifice that wasn\u2019t in favour of music,\u201d he says. Much of that discipline was inspired by his mother. \u201cShe worked three different jobs to look after me and my brothers: she\u2019d wake up before me, go to sleep after me and still cook.\u201d<\/p>\n
Performing at Brixton Academy. Photograph: @shotbynee<\/p>\n
In November 2017, he went into septic shock from malaria that had lain dormant in his body for two years. \u201cI nearly didn\u2019t make it,\u201d he says. \u201cThat experience shifted everything.\u201d He set up his club night Ovmbr, named as a nod to the month his life was saved. It also provided the title of his 2020 debut mixtape, Ovmbr: Roses, but after its release, he was dropped by his major label. \u201cI was very sure about what I wanted; a label was never the end or be all,\u201d he says, and he\u2019s since built an audience on his own terms. In December he made a deal with Sony to manage his publishing (ie songwriting), but he remains an independent recording artist. If he\u2019d been signed to a record label, he says, \u201ca lot of the songs I have out probably wouldn\u2019t have come out, or there\u2019d have been a lot of pushback. A lot of A&Rs push for hits. Do I lose myself in the process of trying to find that?\u201d<\/p>\n
The sense that he sits apart from the industry was underlined at the Brit awards, where he was conspicuously absent from the R&B category despite being arguably the genre\u2019s leading British act. When I ask him about the snub, he bats back diplomatically: \u201cIt doesn\u2019t bother me; everyone who was nominated deserved it.\u201d Brit award voters tend to pick big label acts over independent artists, and R&B is often seen as a niche interest in the UK. Does his omission reflect something deeper about how the industry operates? He pauses, flashes a knowing smile, the kind that suggests he has a longer answer he\u2019s chosen not to give. \u201cSomething like that. But I can never really take it personally. I\u2019ve got my own goals. Awards are dope, but I want people in every corner of the world to relate to my music. When people come to shows, sing the lyrics and it\u2019s sold out, that\u2019s the award.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other collaborators and admirers have included US stars such as Leon Thomas, Justin Bieber and SZA, and at the Brixton gig, a multicultural audience spans all ages. Couples dance intimately, friendship groups bellow out their favourite lines, strangers make friends and there\u2019s an Usher-esque moment during In the Chair when Odeal pulls a fan on stage, cueing up a venue full of screaming hopefuls. Ovmbr, now in its seventh year, has expanded to festivals including Portugal\u2019s Afro Nation and Paris\u2019s F\u00eate de la musique, as well as Lagos and South Africa. The photographers, creatives and marketers behind it are largely drawn from Odeal\u2019s own orbit.<\/p>\n
He sees this energy and enthusiasm spreading across the R&B genre globally, characteristic of \u201cfootball back in the day when Brazil would play \u2013 the creativity, the skills, new tactics, it\u2019s so incredible to watch\u201d. But like many artists, he doesn\u2019t want to be boxed in by a genre tag, and claims his music \u201cisn\u2019t [in] a genre \u2013 it\u2019s a feeling\u201d. That\u2019s backed up in Brixton, where the audience end up screaming the lyrics louder than Odeal. Whether the industry catches up or not, that human connection seems to be enough for now.<\/p>\n
Odeal\u2019s tour with Summer Walker begins 26 May at Scotiabank Arena, Toronto<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI\u2019m not looking at a crowd tonight,\u201d Odeal says hours before his first ever Brixton Academy performance in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-530527","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}