Idris Elba called from an airport the other day. The actor, who turns fifty-two next month, is in the midst of shooting the second season of Apple TV+’s Hijack, but he didn’t ring us to talk about acting—or about the “next James Bond” chatter that has gotten stuck in his career like a broken record for half a decade. He wanted to chat about music and vodka, and here at Esquire we rarely say no to either.
Elba, who’s been DJing since his teen years in London and whose presence on the decks draws crowds at parties and festivals around the world, recently composed a track called “Pushing On” to dovetail with the release of Grey Goose Altius, a super-luxe vodka from the team behind Grey Goose. Advice from Elba, chilled and distilled: You’re a better parent if you’re a little selfish, and you need to send your mother-in-law a bottle of booze. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
ESQUIRE: You had the good fortune to have grown up in London during the eighties—a fertile and innovative time in dance music. How did that help form your own creative identity?
IDRIS ELBA: Wherever you’re from, whatever the influences are around that time, you just absorb that—you become a carbon copy of your environment, to some degree. The eighties were pretty much an explosion of a lot of new things. The seventies saw the end of a cycle, in terms of certain types of music, and then we saw a cycle of a new type of music—electronic music, disco, all these things. And that’s when I was born—I was born in that transition. Everything that was going on in my time period was quite experimental and new, and I guess when you’re in that environment, everything is new, so you’re excited about that. I’m an excited, explorative type of creator—you know, there’s no bad ideas. A bad idea can end up creating a good one. I’m a seventies baby, but coming into my creative space in the eighties was essentially what steered me.
It gave you a sense of possibilities?
Definitely. When you see the explosion of electronic music, you go from drums to electronic drums—you press a key and there’s all these drums. You’re like, wow. It definitely gave you that sense that you can do anything.
How old were you when you started DJing?
I was around fourteen! Really, really young, yeah. My uncle was a DJ. I’d DJ with him. It was definitely an early start for me, man. It wasn’t clubs; it was more weddings and christenings and things like that. Every now and again I’d sneak into a pub, but, you know, in England kids go to pubs.
You started with vinyl?
Yeah. I did, I did. I’ve still got a good collection of vinyl.
Do you miss having your fingertips on the vinyl?
I do, actually. There’s more tactility to it. Picking out vinyl, putting it on, flipping sides, wiping it off—the whole sort of mechanism of it I love. I still love the sound of vinyl. The sound of vinyl is beautiful. It’s that warm, analog sound.
Do you remember a breakthrough moment as a DJ when you were starting out?
When scratching and mixing blew up, that was an epiphany—taking two records that were made independently and making something new from it. That was pretty exciting. DJing—it’s magic, it’s hypnosis. It’s like one DJ, thirty-five songs, a thousand people—whoever produced one of those songs didn’t have an audience, but here I get to see the audience’s reaction to their song. It’s all connective, it’s massive, it’s magic.
Your song “Pushing On” was released in tandem with the arrival of Grey Goose Altius vodka. Vodka itself has inspired a lot of music over the years, but how do you engineer a track with a specific one in mind?
It wasn’t exactly written for it, but essentially it embodies the spirit of the campaign—what we’re saying here is that you’ve got a beautiful vodka like Grey Goose, and it keeps growing and maturing, and this is a new offering. “Keep pushing on” is leaning into that a little bit. “Pushing On” is written with a sense of continuity. Kathy Brown, who sings it, is an incredible singer and has faced a lot of adversity via health—a lot of setbacks in her career—but she pushes on. I personally try to embody the continuous momentum of pushing myself—pushing myself as an artist, as a human, always learning. My collaboration with Grey Goose Altius vodka—this song was perfect for that.
The marketing copy for Grey Goose Altius talks about French alpine spring water and filtration at subzero temperatures. Did you sense a need to create a track that was cold?
When we presented the song for the campaign, there was definitely a remixing of the song to capture some of that. It’s a very cool song. It doesn’t have too many peaks, like some tech house does. This is quite Afro-inspired. The bass is very cool and sits in a pocket. There is definitely a little reconfiguring of the song for the campaign.
Where’s your favorite place to DJ these days?
Probably a small little club in East London somewhere with about two hundred or three hundred people and a wicked sound system.
Can that still happen? Can you simply show up at a small club?
I try, every now and again, to get that happening. I love those environments. It’s just smaller, it’s less commercially driven, and you can play a more eclectic set.
You’re something of a regular in Ibiza.
I consider it a home, but I don’t have a personal home there. Over the years I’ve been there a lot. I love the environment in Ibiza. Have you ever been?
No, dude. I have four children. I don’t do fun things like that.
[Laughs.] That’s sad. You can do fun things. You’ve just got to be selfish a little bit.
Thank you, Idris, for giving me a license to be selfish.
Vie for that, man. It’s okay. I think your kids will understand as well. My son’s ten, and I feel the same. You’re a doting dad. But they will enjoy you more when you’ve had a little downtime to yourself—that’s for sure.
I’ve noticed that they have more fun when they see I’m having fun.
They do. They definitely do. And they have less fun when they see you’re stressed.
Speaking of downtime and vodka, are you a martini man?
I’ve been known to have a martini. I like it super dry.
Would it be incredibly tacky of me, Idris, to ask whether you prefer it shaken or stirred?
[Laughs.] I understand why you couldn’t resist it, but I try to stay away from that.
When you say extremely dry, do you mean zero vermouth?
Yeah. No vermouth—and just hit it with the olives.
So basically vodka and olives. Hey, that’s my mother-in-law’s martini: Keep the vodka in the freezer, pour some into a glass, and drop some olives into it.
You’ve got to get her a bottle, man.
Grey Goose Altius is now available for purchase in various high-end nightclubs.
