Jacob Collier

Dubbed the new Mozart, he has three million Instagram followers — oh, and Chris Martin's his mentor. Meet...

- RICHARD GODWIN

Jacob Collier is absolutely here for artificial intelligence. “I love that stuff!” says the multi-Grammy-winning musician. “I’m a fiend for i t .” The Londoner, 30, once dubbed the “Mozart of Gen Z” by The New York Times, is sitting in a central London café in a rainbow cardigan doing something he often does, which is to get a little carried away.

He’s telling me about when he first got his hands on Dall-E, the OpenAI image generator. He played with it for hours, creating tiny glass-blown universes and organ pipe trees until he fell asleep and began to dream of his creations.

He doesn’t find any of this threatening as an artist. “AI doesn’t have a point of view. People want to learn how other people view the world even more than we want to be entertained.” In fact, he’s excited because he believes this technology will allow artists, writers and musicians to move beyond mere technical limits and get to the heart of the matter.

“What happens when the spectacular becomes ordinary? When everyone can do it? When that’s boring, then we need to go deeper as artists.” He draws breath. “That’s where I want to go anyway.”

Collier is, it’s fair to say, a lot: a more-is-more maximalist. He grew up in north London, going to Mill Hill County High School and the Purcell School for Young Musicians, before studying at the Royal Academy of Music. He grew up playing the piano and singing including on stage when he was still at school. It was in 2013 that his peculiar, largely self-honed gifts announced themselves to the world in the form of a viral YouTube video recorded in the music room of his bohemian London family home.

He played every single instrument and sang six-part harmony on a reimagining of Stevie Wonder’s Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing that caught the ear of Quincy Jones and Herbie Hancock. They invited him to Los Angeles and informed him he had discovered a new key.