Samm Henshaw, courtesy.

You may know U.K. musician Samm Henshaw for his catchy 2018 song “Broke,” or his recent joyous gospel-flavored collaboration with EarthGang, “Church.” Speaking with Henshaw, you can’t help but root for the guy. Humble and engaging, the neo-soul singer is the kind of person who just seems like he deserves to succeed.

“I think for me, genuinely, it’s about growth,” Henshaw said in a recent interview.

The artist, who’s English but who’s family is from Nigeria, spoke about his supportive family, putting his music career on hold to finish college, and his love of John Mayer. His new album, Untidy Soul, comes out Jan. 28, and Henshaw said the title speaks both to his personality and his musical influences. It’s the closest he’s gotten to explaining his musical style.

“I’m a bit of a scatterbrain most of the time. Creating for me is never a clean and simple sort of process, and it was me learning to accept that and be OK with that,” he said.

RIFF: You’ve started releasing singles with videos; do you see the videos as part of your artistic endeavor?

Samm Henshaw: Yeah, definitely. A lot of what I’m doing is experimenting. I’ve always loved videos, and I wanted to try something different. … I love TV series and movies, and I wanted to make something that felt quite episodic or connected in some way.

I wasn’t looking at musicians to make the music videos; I was just watching TV shows. I’m a massive “Atlanta” fan, “Master of None,” “Insecure.” I found that when I was listening to the music I made, and watching those shows, I found this connection in the fact that these are just day-to-day stories of people’s lives. That was the connecting theme I found in all those shows, and with my songs was that I was telling stories about situations I’d been in. I found that was just the way to approach it, was, “Let’s just make some videos. Create some stories.”

You’ve said that you’re a shy person. How did you get into this business, where you’ve got to be putting yourself out there all the time?

Samm Henshaw: I really don’t know, genuinely! I got into music by accident. I’m a shy guy. I was in uni studying to do teaching or something. I knew I wanted to do something in music. I didn’t know how you got into the music industry. I never had any desire to be in the music industry because the idea of it seemed almost impossible for someone like me. I was content with getting a degree and going to teach.

I come from a Nigerian household, and having the degree gives you some kind of security, according to Nigerian parents. I met my manager whilst I was at uni. I think I posted a video on YouTube and he saw it. He was one of maybe a hundred people that saw it. He hollered at me, but I was in uni, enjoying life, so I was like, “Please stop disturbing me; I am enjoying everything else but getting into the music industry.” So he spent like a year trying to get me to pursue it. At the time, my housemates were doing the music production course. We all became close and started recording music together. I thought, “This is fun; I could do something like this.” My now-manager started hearing some of the stuff and was like, “Oh, this is sick; you can definitely do something with this!”

And this was just stuff you were recording at school?

Samm Henshaw: Yeah, it turned out to be my first EP. I recorded it for uni, so it was my dissertation, and at the same time we released it officially. A bunch of people started liking it, and by my second year of uni, I was missing classes because I was getting invited to sing at shows in London. I was studying music in Southampton. I’d been there for three years, but every so often I’d come back to London and do shows, and I started doing so many. I was missing class so much that during my summer break I had to … do a catch-up, basically. Third year is the most important year, and my parents were talking to my managers, saying, “Samm can’t do any more shows,” and they were like, “We’re not the ones booking the shows; he’s doing it by himself.”

Long story short, I was banned from doing shows my third year in uni. I had to find a smart way to do one, and fortunately for me, for my dissertation, one of my assignments was that I had to do a show. We did a show in London, and my managers invited half the industry. Everyone loved it, so much so that the labels wanted to sign me immediately after the show.

Did you have to go back to school after that?

Samm Henshaw: I definitely did. I got a degree, we found a label and said, “I’m not signing until I finish uni.” After I finished, I signed and went on tour with James Bay. It was fun, but it was a full-on accident. It wasn’t supposed to happen. It was weird as hell, but it was amazing. I’m really grateful for that time. … I was with a label from the jump, so it’s been very interesting trying to figure out how I’m going to maneuver going forward.

What does your family think about your music career, rather than one in education?

Samm Henshaw: They love it. My parents are like the coolest people ever. They’re proper supportive. My dad used to be an actor in Nollywood, in Nigeria. He was a director, writer and an actor, so he gets the creative side of everything. … I never tell this story, but when I was born, my grandma told my dad that they should give me instruments because I was going to play; I was going to be a musician. They have supported it ever since. My grandma has a good relationship with God; she’s very prophetic, and when she saw me, she said, “He’s going to play music.” She’s not been wrong so far. My family has always been very supportive of it and understanding.

You come from a gospel background, right?

Samm Henshaw: That’s right. My dad’s a pastor now. He shifted completely from being a famous actor to being the pastor of a church, which I think is cool. I grew up in church. Everything I know about music, I learned from there. My faith is a big part of what I do, and it’s very important to me, so it’s at the forefront of whatever I do.

Your music includes hints of  Kirk Franklin, Van Hunt and Anderson .Paak. Are they influences?

Samm Henshaw: Yeah, for sure definitely, I really love what Anderson .Paak is doing at the moment. He’s found this really cool lane that he sits in—a really soulful hip-hop vibe—and he could do almost anything. I’m a big Frank Ocean fan, big John Mayer fan. Love John Mayer. He really shreds. I played guitar for a really long time, and it was mainly because I’d seen John Mayer, and I was like, “He’s sick; I need to learn to do that!” I was listening to the SZA album yesterday, and that woman is something else. … I listen to quite a lot of old soul stuff. Recently, I’ve been diving into Ray Charles, he’s got these really sick jazz albums where he’s just playing piano; he doesn’t sing on them. … I started listening to a lot of Chet Baker as well. I have a lot of influences.

Do you feel like you synthesize a lot of different sounds that you’ve heard into your own sound?

Samm Henshaw: Hundred percent. I think that’s why it’s funny whenever people say I sound like, whoever. I’m like, “You really don’t know the level of stuff that I listen to.” I’m surrounded by friends that don’t just listen to the same thing all the time, so it’s funny to me when people say that. I used to get pissed about it; I used to be like “No! I’m deep, and I listen to more stuff than that!” Now I just find it funny, ‘cause I’m like, you don’t even know! My dad loves country music, so in my house, we weren’t just listening to gospel; there were lots of different sounds, so I’ve learned to appreciate things. I listen to anything; I’m pretty open.

Follow Rachel Alm at Twitter.com/thouzenfold and Instagram.com/thousandfold.