Jalen Ngonda (Doctrine of Love Tour 2026)

Jalen Ngonda plays the Neighborhood Theatre on Wednesday, November 18, as part of his Doctrine of Love Tour 2026. He's a soul and R&B artist who works in retro-soul, and he's described himself as both an archivist and an explorer of the genre. Brooke Combe opens the bill.

Ngonda grew up in Maryland and first heard the Temptations on the radio at 11, which hooked him on music from the 1960s and earlier. He taught himself guitar, drums, and keyboards, played drums in his local church, and studied at LIPA—the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts founded by Paul McCartney—in 2014. He moved to London in 2018 and busked on the streets before signing with Daptone Records in 2022. Daptone is the New York home of Thee Sacred Souls, Lee Fields, and Charles Bradley, and the studio that birthed Amy Winehouse's Back To Black.

His 2023 debut, Come Around And Love Me, broke with the viral single "If You Don't Want My Love," and since then he's moved from 300-capacity clubs to arenas, headlining Glastonbury and We Out Here and collaborating with Gorillaz and Jordan Rakei. The tour is built around Doctrine of Love, which he says channels Marvin Gaye, Jackie Wilson, and David Ruffin for the 21st century.

Doors open at 7 PM and the show starts at 8 PM.