Tinie Tempah’s collaboration with artist David King Reuben, whose artwork for his forthcoming album The Night’s Not Dead will be exhibited at W1 Curates on Oxford Street this October, alongside an album-launch event.
The venue turns the three-storey façade of FLANNELS into a vast digital canvas, with bespoke LED screens taking contemporary art directly onto Oxford Street. Inside, W1 Immersive’s floor-to-ceiling digital screens surround visitors with imagery, using technology developed to reproduce artists’ colours with precision. W1 Curates has exhibited artists including Tracey Emin, Jeff Koons, and Beeple, and collaborated with Gorillaz and Beyoncé.
Released on 16 October, The Night’s Not Dead is Tinie’s first album in nine years, following Youth in 2017. It traces a night out through three EP chapters — 9PM, 12AM, and 3AM — from getting ready to the dancefloor and the search for an afterparty, with collaborators including Skepsis, Kah-Lo, and Tropkillaz.
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Tinie met Reuben at an exhibition, and the artist spent time with him over several months as the record took shape. Speaking at Culture Collective: Ibiza Art Weekend, presented by W1 Curates and The Night League, Tinie explained:
“I want people to treat it as something precious, which is why I felt it would be great to collaborate with an artist.”
He also spoke about his hiatus to focus on life and business, including music publishing, and the unexpected circumstances that rekindled his desire to record. After his long-standing South London studio was earmarked for residential redevelopment, he moved into a new creative space, painting walls and sanding floors while other musicians recorded around him.
“I was hearing amazing music coming through all the walls that made me feel alive again, made me feel excited again about music. And I knew that that was the right time to get back into it.”
That experience informed an album he describes as “a celebration of nighttime culture”, drawing on the small clubs and grassroots venues that helped establish his career.
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