Six pm on a Friday and the sky has already turned black. Pissed off pedestrians are being pelted with diagonal rain, but inside a toasty east London studio, CKTRL is bringing calm to the chaos. Sitting on the floor, bathed in a soft red glow, there is something soothing about Bradley Miller’s presence. He seems older and a lot wiser than his 29 years. In one look, the light ricochets off an embellished diamanté vest as he grins a contagious smile. Miller is warm and softly spoken, even in his most impassioned moments. Which makes sense — several times in the conversation he reiterates that people should recognise his actions over his words.
While many artists seek to subvert genre, Miller is actively reinventing it. A classically trained musician who started out making club records, he is democratising classical music, making it feel culturally relevant in a way that has never been done before. Here is an artist who can take baroque-inspired jazz and make it palatable to a generation who grew up on grime.
