R&B breakout singer-songwriter Sampha visited the BBC’s Live Lounge today (Mar. 28) for an interview and performance. Live Lounge guests traditionally bring a choice of cover with them, and Sampha delivered a rendition of a song by his longtime collaborator Drake, whose More Life album Sampha essentially gets his own track on (“4422”).
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It was a Views song that Sampha opted to play, however, taking on the radio-dominating single “Controlla.” As one might expect from a Sampha performance of the hit, he stripped its dancehall-inspired beat, and built a haunting arrangement of strings and piano around the melody, giving lyrics like “I think I’d lie for you/ I think I’d die for you” a new weightiness.
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“Would you say you guys have got, like, an album’s worth of material you can dash out?” host Clara Amfo asked him of his creative partnership with Drake. “Maybe, maybe,” Sampha teased, laughing.
Listen over at the BBC’s site (h/t Fader), with Sampha’s appearance beginning around the two-hour mark, and his “Controlla” performance starting at about 2:14.
The story was originally posted to Billboard.