Winston Surfshirt

Sydney’s Winston Surfshirt is one of Australia’s most beloved soul artists, a singer, producer and rapper who folds funk, hip-hop and vintage R&B into one warm, unhurried sound.

He began on the city’s Northern Beaches in the mid-2010s as a solo project, recording alone before drawing in the friends and local players who would grow the thing into a six-piece, a trombone sitting where most acts would reach for a synth.

Everything is built on an old, analogue feel: a rounded low end, plenty of room, and a voice that drifts between a high, easy croon and a soft half-rap. He first caught triple j’s ear in 2016 with a guest turn on Polographia’s “Sly”, and by the year after he barely needed the introduction.

His breakout single “Be About You” arrived in 2017, an electro-soul favourite that went multi-platinum and anchored his debut album Sponge Cake, named a triple j Feature Album. There have been moments that stuck, like the Like A Version that took 50 Cent’s “21 Questions” down to half speed and rebuilt it as slow, tender soul.

Since then he has shared three more records, from Apple Crumble through to the recent WINSTON, collaborating with Cosmo’s Midnight, Flight Facilities, Channel Tres, Talib Kweli and Genesis Owusu and gathering more than 200 million streams. Elton John has played his music on air, and he has taken his sets to Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival and Spilt Milk, and toured sold-out rooms across the UK and Europe and through the States.

For the first edition of Mood on the Roof Nights, Winston Surfshirt brings that whole world up to the roof, sharing a full set performed in the round with the crowd gathered on every side. It’s the first time he has played our stage for a live audience, and it unfolds as a generous 40 minutes of soul, played the way he does it best.