No. 5 Collaborations Project is an extended play by British singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. The track was the fifth out of five EP's recorded in a hope to get him signed by a record label. Sheeran wanted each song to act as a musical and tried to avoid lyricism surrounding women. Musically the album combined sensitive production, with serious subject matters and "haunting" themes. The EP features a collection of grime artists such as; Devlin, Wiley, P Money, Ghetts and JME. Henry Yanney of Soul Culture gave the album a positive review and the album peaked at number 46 on the UK Albums Chart.
Development[]
The No.5 Collaborations Project was conceived to be a record with every song acting as a musical without "songs about girls". One track speaks of being in a car crash a track he wanted to be "a spiritual thing about being taken home" and another track lyrically tells the story of saying goodbye to someone. When he collaborated with artist Ghetts he wanted to bring-out "the old Ghetts" with a "grimy-beat" and with rapper JME he wanted to bring "humor to the project". The title derived from a time when there was no "hype" surrounding Sheeran and he decided to create a buzz by producing five EP's, an indie-style EP, a singer-songwriter EP, a folk-style EP, a live EP and a collaborations EP which was the fifth leading to the title No.5 Collaborations Project.