Lola Young Brings James Blake Collab to the Stage for the First Time at Radio 1’s Big Weekend

Lola Young’s new single got its first live airing on Saturday at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Herrington Country Park. “From Down Here” arrived online a day earlier, her first material since the album I’m Only F**king Myself. The song is a direct link to James Blake’s current chapter: Young wrote it with Blake, Jameela Jamil, and Dominic Maker of Mount Kimbie, the same trio that co-produced Blake’s recent album Trying Times.

Blake’s own set followed Young’s on the same stage, and she returned to join him for “Make Something Up,” one of the sharper corners from that record. The pairing wasn’t stage-managed nostalgia or a hollow guest spot. It was two artists whose recent records share DNA, now sharing a bill in a way that made that connection legible in real time.

Blake also played his cover of the Verve’s “The Drugs Don’t Work,” a song he first performed for Live Lounge earlier this month. The choice, like much of his set, leaned into the quieter weight of Trying Times. But the afternoon’s real point of interest was the bridge between Young’s set and his. A new song, written and produced with his closest circle, immediately pulled into a live context before it even had time to gather dust. Clips of both performances have surfaced online, but the footage only tells half the story. The rest is in the timing, and the way these two sets spoke to each other across a single festival afternoon.