In advance of the upcoming 2022 Brit Awards, it was revealed Friday that Inflo has been named producer of the year, with his honors set to be given out on the red carpet preceding the live ceremony at the O2 Arena in London Feb. 8.
Besides having recently won plaudits for working with Adele on three tracks on her smash album “30” (“Woman Like Me,” “Hold On” and “Love Is a Game”), Inflo is best known for his own acclaimed R&B collective, Sault.
“As the first Black music producer to ever win a Brit for best producer, I feel honored to be a part of change,” said Inflo, aka Dean Josiah Cover, in a statement. “All the Black producers before me, I’m in awe and have studied you. I am you. Thank you for both paving the way and for your integral contribution to British music.”
Inflo’s contributions to music in 2021 were so substantial that three albums he produced in part or full made PvNew‘s year-end best list — Adele’s “30,” Little Simz‘s “Sometimes I Might Be Introvert” and Sault’s “Nine.” Wrote PvNew, “Inflo has been having a heck of a year, but he’s never better at pushing sonic pleasures than he is working with the endlessly fascinating Little Simz.” The Adele and Little Simz projects are both up for album of the year at the Brits.
Said Little Simz, “Flo is a true creative in every sense of the word. Music is in his DNA. He really loves, lives and breathes this. There is no one more deserving of this award.”
Little Simz will be among the performers on the Feb. 8 telecast on ITV, along with Doja Cat, Ed Sheeran, Dave, Holly Humberstone and Liam Gallagher.
Inflo first rose to notoriety in 2014 when he produced and co-wrote two popular British albums, the Kooks’ “Listen” and Michael Kiwanuka’s “Love and Hate,” followed by the latter artist’s “Kiwanuka” and Little Simz’s breakout “Grey Area.”
Both as a producer and even as an artist, Inflo has preferred to stay as out of sight as possible; that the Brit Awards even had a photo of Inflo to send out is nothing to take for granted, given his relative secrecy and/or humulity.
PvNew‘s Jem Aswad referred to Sault’s aura of mystery, and the collective’s penchant for free or limited-time releases, in reviewing “Nine” last summer. “Who exactly is in Sault is intentionally undefined, but a dive into the albums’ credits confirm that it’s largely masterminded by songwriter-producer Inflo (Dean Josiah Cover), who has worked with Little Simz, Michael Kiwanuka and Jungle, along with singer Cleo Sol (Cleopatra Nikolic) or Kadeem Clarke on several others. How they manage to keep such a low profile — let alone pay for five, not-cheap-to-record full-length albums in two years when they’re giving away a large percentage of their recorded music — is perhaps the biggest mystery of all. But as with all things Sault, the point isn’t who or how; it’s what and why.”
