Live at Oxford Art Factory in Sydney: Venna

He began playing piano at six and took up the alto saxophone at twelve, early enough for music to feel instinctive rather than learned. Since then, Venna’s saxophone and musical sensibility have moved through a widening circle of contemporary artists. His horn work is most clearly heard on Burna Boy’s Alarm Clock from the Grammy Award-winning Twice As Tall, while his broader creative presence has shaped projects alongside Wizkid, Knucks and longtime collaborator Yussef Dayes. Whether audible or unseen, Venna’s contribution often lives in the atmosphere of the record, shaping tone and feeling without asking to be foregrounded.

Now, with his debut album MALIK, that presence turns inward. The album moves like a conversation with that identity. Featuring Jorja Smith, Leon Thomas, Smino, MIKE, Cari, and Venna himself, MALIK dissolves the edges between player, producer, composer and voice. Built with collaborators including Rocco Palladino, Elijah Fox, AoD, J Warner, Marco Bernardis and Yussef Dayes, it holds a collective memory inside it.

Jazz is present, but it is not the boundary. Neither is R&B, soul, bossa nova or rap. Instead, MALIK feels like something being passed through Venna rather than built by him alone.

He describes himself as a vessel of music, a stream of consciousness moving through him while he creates, a life force present in the room. He speaks to a belief that something larger is at work when he makes music, allowing him to stay open to whatever emerges and to express himself without limitation.

There is a rarity in artists who work this way. A sense that what you are hearing is not constructed, but received. In that space, Venna’s music becomes less about performance and more about presence.