With strikingly textured melodies, and an informed worldview — which has seen him return to his swahili lineage — Ady Suleiman is more than ready to resume as a musician in 2025. “It’s time,” he says eagerly. Seven years after his Memories debut album, the 33 year old singer-writer is razor-sharp on his needs, desires and what he wants to communicate to the world. “I understand myself in a way that I never did before.” 

For Ady, music served as a medium in his childhood that entertained and immersed him. “It felt as important as a football would to someone,” he says earnestly. Raised in the East Midlands Grantham, he felt the lack of cultural expansion, constantly yearning for more avenues to explore his creative craft as he reached his mid-teens. “I remember local kids who sang would move to Nottingham because there wasn’t really a scene as I came of age,” he shares. Having shows like Top of The Pop’s as a childhood reference, the singer grew to appreciate an array of genres, initially ignorant to the power of arrangement and stylistic execution.

“I wanted to play heavy metal, and challenge myself,” he shares. With the help of his first guitar — a gift from his Godfather — Ady became obsessed with the medium. But his own fathers purchase of Jimi Hendrix’s Best Of compilation would initially irritate the singer. “I was so scared to tell him I didn’t like it.” It was on a family vacation some time later that he grew to love the CD; he’d mistaken the CD for a Will Smith one, and was forced to engage with Hendrix once more — this time for two weeks. A change of heart rendered Suleiman an instant fan, understanding the chord progression, sonic choices and articulation of message, appreciative of the juggernauts prowess as a musician. “It was like a flick of a switch, day and night,” he explains. 

Ady eventually left home pastures, anchored by a supportive household, who helped to nourish his goal of studying music at the University of Liverpool. There, he grew in confidence, surrounded by ambitious music-lovers, ready to seize their respective vocations. “It really got me out of my shell, I was able to see like minded people doing their thing,” he says. “I found my confidence.” In second year, Ady came to the realisation that gigging would be the only way to tangibly discover himself as an artist, and debut material he’d kept hidden away. But it was when he combined IRL with social media, posting a performance of an original track “What’s The Score”, in Liverpool, that gave Ady his first bite of micro-virality. “The private link got 10,000 views, meaning people were sharing that link around, I couldn’t quite believe what was happening,” he says.

“Stay At Mine”, a visual recorded on the train, followed up on this success, proving that Ady wasn’t a blip, but a man with tangible potential. Quickly gaining the co-sign of the Nottingham reggae icon Liam Bailey, the singer’s self-belief was fortified in real-time. “To get that local co-sign, that real community support back home was everything to me, it meant a lot and like I had a sense of fans,” he gratefully acknowledges. Signing his first record deal just over a decade ago, Ady Sulieman released a string of EPs — including This Is My EP, and Ady Suleiman, the latter of which features Joey Bada$$. Across their collaborative effort “What’s The Score”, Ady is vehemently honest, yearning for love and being better in the face of it. “For you girl, I’ll be true,” he croons, the lucid jazz, folk and R&B infusion in perfect harmony with the singer. 

A debut album, supporting tour — inclusive of a sold out Electric Brixton performance — and mixtape later, Ady Sulieman is revitalised, eager to share once again. “I’ve grown so much,” he confesses. “There’s so many more stories to tell.” This time, on his own terms and independently, his sophomore LP Chasing, documents the hiatus between projects, bodily states caused by the pandemic, romance, and self-refuge. “It’s just my truth,” Ady summarises. “It’s the experiences that shaped this gap in releasing.” Taking moments for granted he’s at the point where he’s appreciative of each and every day and the smaller moments of life. Recorded and mastered across London and Zanzibar, Chasing features production from titan Miles Clinton James, known for seminal work across the likes of Kokoroko and NAO’s careers and a central part of Little Simz’s Lotus. “It’s great working with someone who gets the vision,” Ady says of Miles. “It’s been a good process for us to go through.”

Chasing’s self-titled opener is poignant in its infusion of reggae, hip-hop and neo-soul, steered, in part, by sobering guitar strings. “Keep on pushing to the light that casts no shadow // now I’ll love myself again,” he sings wistfully. “I wrote this on the guitar, three chords.” Ady says eagerly. “I heard the strings and knew exactly what I wanted to say.” Honest in the turbulence in maintaining a relationship amidst mental health and break ups Ady wears his heart on his sleeve here, ready for it to be inspected. 

“Miracle” too touches on socialising at large, social anxiety initially plaguing the singer. “I’ve been keeping my door locked // I was happy to hide,” he chants. Folk-adjacent in its composition, Ady’s transparency relates to many listeners’, the mount of personal circumstances pushing us away from those who love us. Grateful for heading outside, and for life at large, he realises the power in communication and community. “What If” builds on internal conflict, Ady’s frustrations illuminated to the world once more as it pertains to not just social scenarios, but romance amongst a smoky brand of jazz — not being enough for his partner, the fear of never being enough cast doubt on the singer throughout. “‘Miracle’ and ‘What If’ are sort of connected as they really describe my mental struggle at that time,” he shares. 

“Call From Jah”, and its ode to Ady’s Nottingham roots, through the use of rapper and poet Jah Digga, serves as an interlude across the project, a reinforcement of gratitude towards those around him. “Jah is someone I really respect,” Ady eagerly shares. “It felt right to give this interlude its own space, but it’s essentially a really long song, just broken up to respect the relatable message he’s sharing.” Across the songs one and a half minutes, Jah acts as a support system, endearing in his calls to “crack open the window” and go outside, representative of the light at the end of a depressive tunnel. Community weaves itself across Chasing, Ady Suleiman abundant in centering his own family across his sophomore LP’s closer “Family Tune”. “It’s just a sweet closer,” he laughs. Nimble and tender in its composition, the higher aspects of Ady’s voice take centre stage, the tribute sounding like a gospelly-infused prayer on a Sunday. “Gave me my life, my true defender,” he says of his mother, lately admitting he’d be lost without her. 

Accountability is commonplace to Ady Suleiman at 32; more than ready to embrace, dissect, and admit his flaws. “Ain’t Your Song” explores the pain inflicted by the act in a former relationship. “At the time when I was writing this it was all very confusing,” Ady admits. Across the first verse, he conveys arrogance atop stirring piano keys. “I’m ashamed, but at least we had some fun,” he sings. As “Ain’t Your Song” builds, Ady demonstrates more sincerity, shedding layers of his skin, cognisant of his mistakes, and apologetic. “There’s got to be a middle ground where you can be a good person that’s done a bad thing,” Ady explains of the song. Truth continues Chasing’s heartland “Trusted You”, serving as the power-ballad of the project, the track sees Ady laid bare for listeners to squarely consume. “I wish you were still mine,” he yearns, cognisant of his mistakes in real time. Sweet, supple, and blunt, its finality is felt instantly. 

Beyond the documentation of romance, Ady also addresses the sociopolitical woes across the country on “Brother”. Directly inspired by brutality behind the death of Stephen Lawrence, Ady took years to actualise and finish the song, due to its intention and politic. “I’d changed perspectives across the years of its creation, and in some ways ideas were reinforced too,” he says. Having familiarised himself with the events of the killing across the pandemic, Ady, who lived in Woolwich at the time, realised he and Lawrence shared the same bus route home. “It made the story all the more real.” “Brother” and its calls for institutions and racism to stop killing Black people. Sombre in its plea, the calls linger over a stirring, turbulent jazz-laden sonics — the foreboding, angst, and frustration reflected in the pace of the trumpets’ sobering hums. “Brother” articulates Ady’s maturation in his dissection of wider ideas that place themselves across enclaves of people, it shows not just his emotional sentiment, but moral temperament too, the manifestation of wisdom in real time. 

At large Chasing is a breath of fresh air, Ady Suleiman canvassing his self worth, accountability, resilience, community and hope in real time for listeners around the world to divulge in. In the years away from the spotlight, Ady matured in real time spending six months across Zanzibar and Kenya immersing himself in his swahili ancestry. “I had a new sense of understanding, it gave me the re-affirming in who I am and confidence to speak on issues that impact my people,” he shares. It is this growth that firmly places Ady Suleiman as one of the most exciting voices across contemporary R&B, jazz, soul and neo-soul. “I’m so ready to get back out there,” he says eagerly. “I’m ready to be out in the world again.” Having maintained more than 200,000 monthly listeners in his longer than anticipated hiatus, it feels apt to say that the world is eagerly awaiting his return too.