A man walks in through the Birmingham Rep stage door carrying a canister of gold paint and a microphone newly sprayed and gleaming.
That golden microphone plays a vital symbolic part in the climax to The Legend Of Mike Smith, jazz musician Soweto Kinch’s latest album, which he has transformed into a performance for the theatre’s new Studio space.
Its appearance is also a crucial indicator that Soweto’s most recent artistic creation is well on its way in being transformed from purely audial form to fully-fledged, multi-media, theatrical experience.
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The story follows the travails of Mike Smith, a young artist as he struggles to navigate his way through a normal day whilst being possessed by other worldly desires and vices.
“From the outset there was always an intention to have it staged,” Soweto says of the album.
“I think this is what makes this album quite different from my previous ones. I even sat down with Jonzi D (director and choreographer) as the album was being recorded to work on it dramaturgically as a story,” he explains.
There must still have been challenges in making the transition of this modern-day take on Dante’s Inferno from double CD recording to staged version?
“The biggest transition is going from something that is perhaps florid linguistically and musically interesting to listen to, to something that is dramatically interesting where you are looking for the tensions and the relationships between characters.
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“It’s a different set of peaks and troughs, even though you have those in the music. In the staged version the dynamic undulations of the piece are punctuated by what the characters are trying to get at, what their objectives are, what their sense of focus is, their ‘arc’, as it were.
“The challenge is to allow that elasticity of process. Jonzi has a very particular way of working. I’ve done things with him where we don’t start out with a script, we end up with one. Sometimes only two or three days before opening night! That can be really scary.
“I wanted to combine what I’ve done before - a more conventional theatrical approach, having the music already worked out, having a template – with this elasticity, this organic way of working.”
That organic development is clear from the rehearsal.
Jonzi D goes through the script with Soweto and the cast, giving actors Tyrone-Isaac Stuart and Ricardo Da Silva, and musicians Shane Forbes and Nick Jurd, his notes from the morning’s run-though.
It is very much a back and forth discussion, not only between director and author/performer, but also with the other actors and musicians contributing.
I ask Soweto, whose music is filled with his own very distinctive writing and who is very much the central focus in musical performance, if it had been difficult to give up his “baby” to this more collaborative way of working?
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“I think it was important to lose control,” he explains. “When we were editing the video for Envy (a part of the piece) the producer hit me with the maxim: ‘You (should) always kill your babies.’ It sounds harsh, but I knew exactly what he meant – you need to have an open mind about losing those things you are most precious about.”
And there must have been a lot of that – there are an awful lot of fine words, of superb turns of phrase, in the original recording, and Soweto would have every right to feel protective of them.
“That is the beauty of having both things,” he says.
You are only going to get one chance to listen to this play if you are in the theatre.
“Things fly by quite quickly. We have to be emphatic about the wordplay, about the intricate lyricism... because we only get one chance with it.”
Soweto has spoken before of his frustration at the way music is categorised and marketed, so I ask him if he thought this labelling of styles of music was still a problem?
“I think on the one hand, particularly in retail, it has weakened a little. People are mixing things up. But mainstream music is still trying to ghettoize people, to put them in boxes.”
Soweto tells a story about music executives fantasising about getting “a white rapper to do exactly what these black guys are doing – the demographic will be huge!”
And he tells another about white drummers with whom he has worked, being rejected at mainstream sessions because they weren’t black.
“There are still these really old and tired preconceptions about, which seem to be more about social control than about music,” he says.
So is there less categorisation in the theatre?
“Yes, and I guess people are only concerned with what is dramatic. On the one hand I think the way people might perceive it – the cast, the music – is as an urban thing, as hip hop theatre.
"But at the end of the day the subject matter we’re dealing with should have, I believe, a universal resonance.
“It’s the story of an individual’s descent into madness – being controlled by unseen forces – and at some level in today’s culture we all can empathise with that. So, yes, there is a universality that isn’t quite as easy to express in the music industry.
“And there are quite a lot of musical references – quite diverse ones – that I’ve put in along with the strands of jazz and hip hop. There’s a lot of chorale, a lot of Bach classical references that are on the album, and which I think will translate more powerfully on the stage.
"The theatre – it’s visual, it’s a completely immersive experience. We’re taking full advantage of that.”
Finally, does Soweto have any future projects on his mind?
“This! Then I retire!” he proclaims with a laugh of mock finality, and heads back into the rehearsal space to play that saxophone, act, dance, and maybe rewrite some more of The Legend Of Mike Smith along the way.
- The Legend Of Mike Smith runs at the Birmingham Rep Studio until September 28. For more information and to book, go to .