Meltdown festival with Jessie Ware, Meshell Ndegeocello, Dave Okumu and Eska

Jessie Ware, Meshell Ndegeocello, Dave Okumu and Eska discuss why you shouldn’t appease anybody with your music, loving the souls of your audience, keeping in your mistakes, why music is an essential part of existence, being a jack of all trades, and why finishing a song isn’t necessarily a process of letting go.

The legendary Grace Jones curates this year’s Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre, London, so Music Life is bringing together a selection of artists playing, and some of their musical friends.

Jessie Ware has sold millions of records all over the world. After receiving a Mercury Prize nomination in 2012 for her debut album Devotion, she has become one of the biggest names in pop over the last decade.

German-born, US-raised bassist, singer, songwriter, rapper and composer Meshell Ndegeocello's prolific musical output mixes jazz, R&B, hip-hop, funk and rock, and she’s been nominated for 11 Grammy awards over the course of her career.

Producer, guitarist, and The Invisible front man Dave Okumu has worked with the likes of Adele, Amy Winehouse, and Grace Jones, and is an institution in the British music scene.

Vocalist, composer and producer Eska grew up in London with Zimbabwean heritage, and makes genre-hopping soul music with folk, jazz, reggae and classical influences.