Meltdown 2025: Nubya Garcia

At this point, it’s fair to say the “new wave” of UK Jazz acts can be considered mainstays in the festival circuit. Artists like Yussef Dayes and Ezra Collective are regulars in lineups across the summer months, with the former even hosting his own one-day festival, Summer Dayes, last year. Among these seasoned figures stands Nubya Garcia, and after touring for over a decade performing as the headline act on Day 7 of Simz’s Meltdown Festival was something of a full-circle moment for her.

When she was 16, Nubya Garcia attended Tomorrow’s Warriors at the Southbank Centre, something she was quick to highlight on the night as an experience pivotal to her growth as an artist. It was also there she met drummer, collaborator and fellow band member Sam Jones, who excellently kept the rhythm of the night moving, matching Garcia’s tempo and energy throughout. 

Joining Nubya and Sam was the equally fantastic Daniel Casimir on double bass, and Joe Armon-Jones on the keys. Each member of the band got plenty of time to shine, with the latter shredding his piano solos, sometimes even stealing show with dazzlingly quick fingers. 

With a setlist featuring extended songs solely from 2024’s Odyssey, the mood was contemplative and forward-looking rather than indulging in retrospection. That said, you got the sense Nubya might have preferred to play these songs outdoors, under a setting sun, in front of a standing, swaying audience. “Don’t forget, this music is dance music. It started in the clubs,”  she reminded us, taking time to dance and groove between her excellent sax solos. 

Opening with Dawn and closing with the spoken-word piece Triumphance—delivered while she climbed the theatre steps, weaving through the crowd—there was a clear sense of journey and momentum to the performance. The live rearrangements gave each instrument time to breathe, which occasionally made things feel slightly overstretched, but Nubya was quick to reinvigorate the pace whenever the energy flagged. Those lulls were rare, and never fatal.

Nubya continues to show why this new age of jazz has been so successful—forward thinking music with a live show that centres the experience and emotion of the music—something that can be said about all of the acts chosen to perform at Meltdown, not least of all Little Simz herself.