Andrew Veeder on April 12th, 2017

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Near the end of his set on Tuesday night, and sans his backing band, Sampha stood solo before his keyboard at the El Rey Theatre and began playing “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano” as the crowd squealed in delight.

“No one knows me like the piano in my mother’s home,” he began, belting the lyrics he wrote after moving back into his childhood home in south London to care for her after a cancer diagnosis. “You would show me I had something, some people call a soul,” he continued, seeking solace in the same instrument that his father purchased when Sampha was just 3 years old, and silencing the crowd by way of sheer captivation. The “soul” he refers to is on full display in his singing voice, a voice he discovered before the same piano growing up. It’s a voice with nuance and range that has kept him in demand since he emerged nearly a decade ago from everyone from Drake and Kanye West to Frank Ocean, SBTRKT, Solange, and Jessie Ware. It’s a voice like beautiful silk that has seen some wear, and a voice that exudes emotion and history far more than a man of 28 years.

Over the course of an hour, Sampha (née Sampha Sisay) played a dozen songs flanked by two multi-instrumentalists and a drummer with sampling pad, including all but one track from his debut full-length “Process” that came out in February, easily one of the year’s best thus far. He began with album opener “Plastic 100°C,” silhouetted against the haze of blue lights before breaking into a huge smile at the packed house’s uproar. “Timmy’s Prayer” was next as he stood planted behind his keyboard brimming with so much energy while he played and sang that he was bouncing up and down.

“Happens,” a B-side from 2013, stood out with his soaring vocals, stripped-down percussion and dual-keyboard ending, before its A-side “Too Much” drew one of the biggest responses of the night. Next up was “Take Me Inside,” which built up as Sampha tickled those synth ivories with a stank face of emotion, and led right into album standout “Reverse Faults.” As the beat broke and he sang, “Took the break pads out the car,” anyone who’s anyone who wanted to ruin someone’s view took out their smart phone and filmed a shaky 15-20 second video that they’ll never watch again. “Under” gave everyone a free lesson in how to be moody with overhead strobe effects, and was followed by the 1-2 punch of “Kora Sings” and “Blood On Me.”

The band returned to the stage for a one-song encore of “Without,” from his 2013 EP “Dual,” beginning with all four of the members drumming up a percussion onslaught in tight quarters at the corner of stage right before manning their posts and bringing it all to a close. He clasped his hands and took in the audience as the lights came up, an audience squealing in delight yet again.

Fellow Londoner Pauli opened the show with a 20-minute set that felt all too brief. Armed with only an Ableton controller, a keyboard and a great voice, he played tracks off of his new EP “The Idea of Tomorrow,” including “I Don’t Care,” but left the stage just as he grabbed your attention.

||| Live: Sampha plays the Mohave Tent at 4:20 p.m. this Fri 4/14 at Coachella.