From SA to the world: Jeremy Loops is flying the flag

It’s not every day a South African face flashes across a billboard in New York City’s Times Square, but the release of Jeremy Loops’ third album last month called for precisely such an occasion. “Jeremy Loops. The new album Heard You Got Love” read the giant Spotify ad.

Looking at the 38-year-old Capetonian’s face along the bottom of the billboard, I hear Frank Sinatra’s soulful vocals in the recesses of my mind: “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” If anything, it’s validation that our very own Jeremy Loops has “made it”.

Since his first album in 2014 Loops (real name Jeremy Hewitt) took off, launching into a life of worldwide tours.  

“The goal has always been to get that South African music out there and it hasn’t been easy,” Loops tells me on a Zoom call.

Emerald-green tiles along his kitchen wall and monstera leaves floating into and out of the frame provide the perfect backdrop one sunny winter afternoon in his Kommetjie home ahead of his July 8 album launch.

“We can’t compete against those big countries that have massive music scenes and huge festivals. We have had to claw our way into that whole world, which doesn’t even recognise SA as a legitimate music destination of any sort.

“Something that I’ve always taken really seriously [is] knowing that if I can help put South African music on the map, it’s going to make the path a little bit easier for everyone who comes after me.”

'ED KNOWS JEREMY'

“The music is rippling out there into the world,” Loops says when I ask him about his collaboration with Ed Sheeran on his single Better Together.

The two met in 2019 at a talk Sheeran did in Cape Town ahead of his stadium show on his SA tour. During a Q&A session at the end of the talk, Jeremy raised his hand to ask a question, but Sheeran interrupted him. “He stopped me and said: ‘I know who you are, you’re Jeremy Loops, right?’

“He said: ‘Yeah, I know your music. I’ve been following you. You are a better loop artist than I am.’ There were a lot of South African musicians there at that talk and everyone was just like, ‘Oh shit, Ed knows Jeremy. That’s crazy.’”

The two connected at Sheeran’s after-party later that night and the Brit suggested they work together. Six months later Loops received an invitation from Sheeran to travel to the UK, where they worked at his home studio in the English countryside.

“We did two or three songs and Better Together is the one we focused on. The rest is history. It’s been a beautiful process, getting that song ready.”

LEGACY STUFF

Loops says one of his most memorable experiences from the album was working with Ladysmith Black Mambazo on This Town.

“Working with Ed was fun, but working with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, that was serious, that was legacy stuff.

“They’ve meant a lot to my musical journey and I’ve been listening to their records for a long time. I grew up with a lot of it playing in my house and I remember going to go watch them during the South African World Cup, having a full-on cry in the crowd because it was so meaningful for me to be able to watch them live. They contributed so much over the years to the South African music landscape.”

This Town is a song Loops wrote years ago about hope in what feels like a hopeless situation, but he could never figure out how to finish it — until the idea struck to ask Ladysmith Black Mambazo if they would collaborate on it with him.

They wrote their own parts, helped Loops figure out how to bring it all together and he joined all nine band members in the studio to record the final version. “It was just magic. The whole thing was a dream come true for me to work with a team that really managed to stay doing what they love all these years.”

FINDING BALANCE

My call with Loops came ahead of a month of touring Europe after the album launch and playing at summer music festivals.

But what does he do when he’s not on tour?

“One of the things I really missed out on in the last six years as my career took off and we started pushing really hard internationally was my time in the ocean.

“The last two years have actually been an absolute blessing for me. I bought myself a little boat and I basically went surfing and fishing, and spent endless days out at sea. I would even do my Zoom meetings with the record label while on the little boat. It was a great place to finish writing the album from.”

I can picture it in my mind’s eye: Loops anchoring in a little cove off Cape Point where he could find a bubble of signal to talk to the bigwigs.

After a short break from their recent tour, he and the team will be heading out for the first part of their Heard You Got Love world tour which will run from August 26 to October 3. The plan is to head back to SA to play a series of shows locally from October to December, before resuming their world tour in parts of Australia, New Zealand and the US.

When Loops next makes an appearance on a stage near you, pull through.

My love affair with his music has been on a slow simmer since I watched him perform at Park Acoustics after he released Trading Change in 2014. It was a show with the prevailing memory of an afternoon spent dancing to those first songs — like Down South and Power — that put him on the map in the hot Pretoria sun in a euphoric, beer-induced haze and nearly failing my final midyear exam the next day.

I recently saw him perform at the Benoni Beer and Gin festival — a good eight years later. Thankfully there was no exam-induced panic this time, but I can confidently say Loops still has the ability to tap into the happiest mood of a crowd singing along to their favourite anthems.

Watching the ripples coming from his music for the past eight years has been a joy. I can’t wait to see the waves he’ll make in years to come.

• Loops is yet to announce his upcoming local tour dates. Keep an eye on jeremyloops.com for updates.