Labrinth
Lets His Own
Voice Shine
16
Even amid a hectic day
of meetings, Labrinth
can’t stop making music.
As he ambles around the
courtyard of Los Angeles’ Sunset Marquis
hotel in search of a shady spot to relax,
he’s constantly humming, his Sam Cooke-
esque falsetto, working out melodies over
the acoustic guitar he’s strumming. “Oh,
sorry, sorry,” says the 30-year-old singer-
songwriter-producer, catching himself. “The
thing is, it’s like an endless song in my head
just going. When I wake up, I hear an idea, and
another idea, so I just try and get them out.”
The guitar isn’t even the London native’s
primary instrument — that would be piano — but
lately, it has become his default companion.
In the past year alone, he has gone from
producing with Sia and Diplo as one-third of the
supergroup LSD; to composing and performing
songs for HBO’s buzzy, Drake-produced drama
Euphoria, then duetting with its star, Zendaya,
on the hit “All for Us”; to writing with Beyoncé
for The Lion King: The Gift. Somehow, the
polymath also has found time to work on his
upcoming second studio album, Imagination &
the Misfit Kid. (New music will arrive by the end
of the year, and Syco Music/RCA Records will
ultimately release the album.)
“It was about me getting out of the
spider’s web of confusion, trying to live up to
expectations that I never made for myself,”
Labrinth photographed
by Djeneba Aduayom
on Aug. 12 at the Sunset
Marquis in Los Angeles.
Watch Labrinth go
Fishing for Answers at
billboard.com/videos.