Premiere: South London Jazz Polymath Oscar Jerome Unveils Understated “Lizard Street”

A central figure in the London jazz scene and member of Afrobeats collective Kokoroko, multi-instrumentalist and singer Oscar Jerome has just kicked off a massive European tour that will finish with his biggest headliner to date at London’s Heaven on November 19. In support of that, he’s now releasing his new single “Lizard Street” (out now), his first since this summer’s “Gravitate”. The new song also comes with a video directed by Denisha Anderson (who also provided the single artwork) in which we see Oscar and a live band perform the laid-back, jazzy bubbler in stark black-and-white, stylishly decked out in clothes from Stella McCartney — with intermittent shots of a lizard thrown in for good measure, of course.

Speaking with Complex via email, Oscar told us: “‘Lizard Street’ puts me in a mood from a while back. Sometimes you get so caught in comparing yourself to others in the framework of a capitalist game that you forget who you really are. I thought I was turning into a lizard… but I’m alright now.”