If you were to cut Keziah Jones open, the man would probably bleed funk. Watching this sinewy 41-year-old Nigerian perform at the jam-packed Jazz Café in North London is like watching an unattended water hose baptise a patch of bone-dry grass, all powerful grooves and fluid movements is he. Keziah returns with his fifth recording, also his first UK release in over five years, ‘Nigerian Wood’. He talks music, boarding school and why he won’t be celebrating Nigeria’s independence with Afripopmag.

What musical journey have you been on between this album and your first?

Oh, wow. ‘Nigerian Wood’ is definitely more produced. I worked with an American producer by the name of Karriem Riggins (Erykah Badu, Kanye West, Diana Krall) and recorded it New York at Electric Lady (Jimi Hendrix’s old studio). The music is a bit more complex in terms of song arrangements and vocals. But its still talking about Nigeria – the lyrics are just a bit more advanced. Before I was just talking about race, nowadays my subject matter is a bit more spread out.

You are currently based in Brooklyn and you’ve lived in London and Paris, yet Nigeria still defines your music. Why is that?

That’s where I grew up so it forms the basis for all my ideas. In terms of linking what’s going on here in Europe and what’s going on back home, there is a lot of stuff that isn’t really being said. You can read certain about that relationship between the coloniser and the colonised but you don’t really get that kind of political discourse in contemporary music.

Looking at songs like ‘International Area Boy’ they explore that terrain in a humorous way. How did that song come about?

That’s just from moving around a lot and getting a lot of hassle from immigration. In Nigeria we just have these dudes that hang out looking slightly menacing and we call them ‘area boys’. So ‘International Area Boy’ looks at the experience of travelling while Nigerian – of people expecting you to be dodgy because of your passport – in a funny kind of way.

And what about ‘1973’?

1973 was the year Nigeria changed its currency from pounds to naira. Every time I went home the exchange rate got higher and higher, so I started to make the link between that and all the military coups. The coups are basically designed to get the resources out of the country cheaper, so every time there’s a coup they put their man in place and he makes sure the multinations get their stuff.

Even though it’s politically significant it sounds quite theatrical – almost like it could be part of a musical…

Hahaha! That’s funny. That could work…

Naija: The Musical…

Yeah, exactly! I have written a lot about absurd situations – whether it’s Shakespeare done in a Nigerian way or the things that could go wrong when a country like Nigeria sends an astronaut into space. But I am not sure about doing a musical…that would be funny though.

‘Lagos vs. New York’ sizes up your adopted home against your real one. In battle for the city with most swagger, who would win?

It’s gotta be Lagos. New York has the advantage of being a Western city which means everything works. Lagos has got all the attitude of New York and yet nothing works, so it requires a bit more swagger to pull it off.

And your favourite?

In Lagos you can do whatever you want. That’s what’s Fela always went on about. He said Nigeria is the most corrupt country in the world but it’s also the place where there is most freedom. Europeans might look at that freedom and say that it is based corruption, but why is it in non-Western countries people have less money and less technology, but the people are happier, more humane and more socially advanced? On that basis, it’s got to be Lagos.

You came to the UK to go to boarding school – what was that experience like and how has it impacted on your life since?

Well, I was eight years old, I didn’t speak English as such and I had never really been anywhere so it was quite a shock. But at the same time it was one of those schools where you could study loads of different things and one of the things I got given was a clarinet which spiked my interest in other instruments.

Coming from Nigeria to go to a British public school isn’t the usual rock musician trajectory – was rock ’n’ roll rebellion always on the cards for young Keziah?

Definitely, because the programme wasn’t a programme that any sane individual would adhere to. So it was kind of set from the beginning that at some point I was going to have to find a way out of it. I could have kept quiet and done what I was told, or I could save my spirit, and music allowed me to do that. But I have a lot of friends who couldn’t for whatever reason and the consequences are pretty serious.

In an alternative universe where you followed the programme, what do you think you would have become?

Well, my dad (Yoruba chief and industrialist Osodolamu Sanyaolu) had an electronics company and I was really into electronics and engineering so I was kind of being groomed for that.

So quitting school to become a busker at the age of 16 probably didn’t go down that well…

(Laughs) No.

But thirty years on, how do your family feel about your career move?

Nowadays, they’re pretty cool. I did a concert in Nigeria about two years ago in a place called the Muson and about 2,500 people showed up. All the area boys as well as the diplomats. It was the first time my family the scale of what I was doing. But they kind of skipped the period of me being homeless and penniless in Paris and London. They glossed over that bit.

When you first came out, people were discussing the likes of you and Lenny Kravitz as redefining the boundaries of black music. Was that ever true and if so is it still the case?

I don’t know about Lenny but for me, there’s nothing that’s really new. I just rearranged what already existed. I looked at African-American music as originating from African slaves and I searched for what was Nigerian or Yoruba about it. I did a lot of research, found what most moved me as a Yoruba person and I just claimed it back.

You’ve spoken about Fela and Jimi Hendrix being big influences on you, but who were your mentors?

All the people I met when I left school, came to London and started living in squats. There was one particular guy called Steve Wellington who is a guitar player and he really helped me out. And this other guy called Doctor Stewart – he was a mime artist and he came to the gig  yesterday.

Cool. So what’s next for Keziah Jones?

I’ve been touring for about a year and a half and if the album comes out in the UK, I’ll tour here. It’s coming out in the US in January so I will be touring there in March. And then, at the end of this year, I am going to go off and write another album. I also want to organise a festival in Lagos with all of these young African artists who have been influenced by Fela. People like Nneka, Asa, Ayo, Patrice. Those are my major plans.

Will you be celebrating Nigeria’s 50th Independence anniversary?

Ermmmm…

Should it even be marked?

(Laughs heartily). Nigeria was made, it was created. They drew these arbitrary boundaries at a conference 150 years ago, or whatever, and now we are in a situation where we people called Nigerians have to work it out. But Nigeria is not independent because we still rely on the West. Nigeria only has one product which is oil, so all those multinationals give us our living. That’s what ‘1973’ talks about. Independence to me would mean self-sufficiency and self-determination. It would mean us thinking ‘we want to do this’ and being able to go ahead and do it. After 50 years I can’t say we’ve moved that far ahead. To be honest, I don’t agree with the idea of a Nigerian state – we just have to live with it. But if I have to define myself, I am Yoruba. So in terms of the fifty years, the only thin we should be celebrating is the fact we’ve managed to hold it together for so long without completely falling apart.

So what’s the answer: Soviet-style disintegration or should we be looking for a pan African alternative?

The answer is so radical that when I say it, most people think I am joking. I think redrawing the boundaries of all those colonised countries is the answer. There will be no peace until you do that because we’re all just scrambling for resources. That’s why you have all this tribalism going on. If you redesign those boundaries along the proper lines where people actually live then people can be a bit more clear about what they own and what they don’t. I know it seems like some ridiculous far off idea, but I really believe that is the answer.

The digital EP Nigerian Funk is out now.