ABOUT
A Community Interest Company
Extra Soul Perception is an artist-first social enterprise that connects, empowers and supports musical creativity around the world.
As a registered Community Interest Company (CIC), ESP. exists to benefit the community, reinvesting 65% of profits to address our key social purpose: to holistically support artists to help them develop more secure futures, and to address the structural inequalities in the music industry that harm their development and opportunities.
We achieve this through:
- Writing Camps
- Tours
- Label
- Publishing
- Music Supervision & Licensing
Inspired by the fusion experiments of Monk Higgins’ 1968 album Extra Soul Perception, we are led by an open-minded approach of harmonising different sounds, techniques and traditions, always putting creativity first.
Established by seed-funding from British Council, Arts Council England and Analogue Foundation, we facilitate a fair model for artists of different cultures and nationalities to create, share, learn and develop.
Our inaugural project - titled New Tangents in Kampala, London & Nairobi - centred on a week-long writing camp in Nairobi with eight artists from Kenya, Uganda and the UK, where they made a collaborative album together. This was followed by a three-date UK tour, which included a sold out debut at The Jazz Cafe, a panel talk, production workshop and documentary.
Future projects will expand this proven concept for cultural exchanges to new scenes, online spaces and services to further artist development all over the world.