“Everyone has been talking about me?” Jacob Banks asks with a shy, yet playful smile. He knows he is good, but his confidence comes with the humility of a newbie to the music scene and the earnestness of a genuinely nice guy. Sitting down with the 21-year old Birmingham native in the aftermath of his EP launch and a successful BBC Radio 1Xtra Live Lounge performance, we find out about his first introduction to music, using cartoons as muses and the making of The Monologue EP while shining the spotlight on the emerging soul star.

On a chilly Thursday in February, Yin & Yang celebrated our (then) upcoming launch of Version 3.0 with a night at Boxpark, in Shoreditch – east London. More than just a launch party, we took the night as an opportunity for Yin & Yang to be seen, and heard, in the ‘physical world’.