TRANSCRIPT

Subject: Iyadede Sabrina Interviewer: Aaron Kohn Date: 2 April 2012 Location(s)/method for interview(if not in person): Restaurant in Brooklyn, New York Published on: 1 May 2012 Stable URL: http://www.africanlookbook.com/iyadede-sabrina/ African Lookbook is an experiment of discourse through oral histories and collaborations with creative individuals and collectives in Africa.

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Aaron: Cool. I'm just gonna throw this [recorder] here if that's alright. Iyadede: OK. A: I don't know. It's usually easiest if we just start off with where and when you were born and a little bit about your childhood. I: I was born in Rwanda, and I don't know if I want to tell the year because, a couple years from now, it might hurt. Isn't it once you turn a certain age you're, like, over? So I'm trying to leave myself some space! So I was born on a ne day. It was 7 o'clock in the evening I believe, and let's just say it was in the 80s. A: In Kigali? I: Mm-hmm. A: Brothers, sisters? I: One sister. A: Cool. And what were your parents doing in Kigali? I: My mother was a journalist. She was a music journalist and also a... She did a lot of things, like, she, she was multi-tasking at the radio, so she would go from doing the necrology column, like, you know, whatever message for the dead people of the day, to the news of the day, to a music segment every Saturday. So she was a radio person. A: Oh. OK. I: Yeah. And my dad was, I guess, a businessman. He started his business from his grandfather and he was doing coffee, 'cause coffee's the main business in Rwanda. He was also selling, like, they call it [gravi]. It's like, to me, whatever they needed to make concrete. A: OK. I: Yeah, so he was doing different things. Yeah. A: OK. Were they both born in Kigali, or? I: Yeah. No, my mother was born in the east. She moved to Kigali when she was 16. But my dad was born... Was he born in Belgium, or was he born in Rwanda? I'm not sure. But his father was already a businessman, so I know he went to school in

Belgium, and he was there until his father died. So he's just not very Rwandan. He had a very, like, international... something more international about him. A: What was the radio station that your mom--? I: Radio Rwanda, the national station, yeah. I'll always remember that: I think it's pretty cool today, but you know the big tapes, and she... nothing was digital, so it was about recording and cutting and pasting the little thing, like you're burning the tape. So I think she was way cool doing that. A: Do you remember listening to music with her or anything? I: Yeah, all the time. A: What sorts of music? I: Well, the main thing I remember, I think that we played a lot of music. A lot of music. A lot of kitsch stuff too, like Donna Summer, disco, Kool and the Gang, The BeeGees, stuff like that. I think she was pretty much about just whatever was popular. It wasn't super deep music, like, I don't have crazy references of super-brainy stuff. It was just whatever was fun, whatever was popular. So it went from that. We also always listened to ABBA. She played a lot of ABBA, at least in the car. And a Belgian group called Vaya Con Dios. They were also from the 80s: 80s-90s. What else? The African music, like Ccile Kayirebwa, a traditional Rwandan singer. A lot of traditional, traditional music and different Rwandan artists. A: So English, French? I: Kinyarwanda. No, it didn't matter at all. It was pretty much everything. I think she was trying to... Cause she started at the radio pretty young and she was already on the air so she was kinda bringing a new approach to music for the country. She wasn't playing traditional stuff, she was trying to be... She wasn't trying to be cool, she was cool. But at the time, you know, I think she was just reaching everywhere for music. Whatever she could nd. A: What language did you grow up speaking? I: With my dad I spoke French. With my mother I spoke Kinyarwanda. And at school I spoke French. A: Where did you go to school? I: I went to primary school, the rst few years, in Rwanda, so I was in a, I guess, in a private Belgian school. It was called The Belgian School of Kigali. It was really cool.

A: Why was it really cool? I: 'Cause it was just very mixed. It was very, very mixed. At home was very... My parents didn't have a lot of money, but they really wanted to give me a good education. So my father, because he had went to school in Belgium, he really wanted me to have a good start. So, you know, they put a lot of money into giving us a good school, even though at home was traditional Rwandan, so it was very contrasted. I liked that life. I remember going to the birthday party of the daughter of the Ambassador of Korea or something, something like that, and her house was like WOW. And then I would go back home and, you know, with my regular house. So it was just very contrasted. It was cool like that. A: What was Kigali like then, and where in Kigali did you live? I: The rst years, my mom was living in the housing offered by the radio station. It was called the [Quai dOrsay], so all the journalists working at the national station were housed there. It was really, really small. It was like 2 rooms, pretty much: a two bedroom apartment. And it's funny because the Belgian School was right across the street, so it was really funny. It was a weird situation. But yeah, we were living in those two rooms for a good while, and then my mother started building her house. [Iyadede cell phone rings, she looks at it.] A: That's OK. You can answer it. I: I dont know who it is, though! And then she started building her house, so then we were living... we moved there. I remember it wasn't nished, so for another part of our life we were living in a house that had no windows. It did have a bathtub, but there was no water running in there yet, so we had to heat water. It was all really cool. The house was actually nished-nished a few years before the genocide. Maybe a year or two. So she spent a good... I don't know how long, but she spent a long time building it. It wasn't like a year or two; it was a quite a while. A: How long were you at the Belgian School? I: I studied primary school. They had kindergarten and primary school. And I left when I was in It's usually six years, but I left when I was in half of the fourth. So when I went to Belgium I had to complete half four, ve, and six, and then high school. A: Why did you leave? I: The war. The war started.

A: Do you remember that happening? I: No, because we left literally a day before. Me and my mom only. A lot of people stayed. But what happened... its always weird... Before the war there was already a lot of stuff, so we didnt... Within a few-month period, a lot of people in my family died. Two uncles died, both my grandmothers died, my sister died. Then my mother was just going through a depression. She was working at UNICEF at the time, so they were like, You don't have to do this. You can just take a vacation, we have the money to fund you. Just go somewhere. If you want to go to Belgium, if you want to go to America, you can go. Take two weeks off or take a month off, something because youre not looking too well. So thats how we left. She just was like, Okay, Im going to just take my daughter and we're going to go for two weeks. A: Where was your dad and sister? I: Well, my sister had died a few months before. A: Because of the war? I: Yeah, we don't really know what happened, but she was, I guess, killed. She was going to boarding school at the time; she was already nishing high school. And she was just, I guess, murdered. I dont know. We dont really know what happened. Nobody really knows. But her and a few other girls from her school were killed. They came back home and they had some heart condition all of a sudden, it was just weird. And then they just died within days. A: Was your dad living in Belgium? I: No, my dad was in Rwanda. He stayed because... Nobody knew what was going to happen! It was really the day before. I remember even my mom saying, You know, we shouldnt leave now. We should wait until the summer vacation. It was going to be so much fun, because it was my rst time taking a plane and going abroad. So she was like, You probably would like it more if we could go for two whole months. But I had told everyone at my school that I was going to Belgium, so there was no way I was canceling that trip! [laughs] So I'm glad I didn't! A: Did your dad eventually leave? I: Yeah. He stayed in Cyangugu, which is near the border with the Congo. That's where his mother's land and his father... everything. That's where he grew up.

So he survived. He stayed for about two months in the platform between the roof and the attic. He stayed for two months in there. I don't know how he survived. He always had food around and stuff so I guess he was good. And he was really a good person so I have no doubt that no one was actively looking for him to kill him. Not that everyone who was killed wasn't good, but... It's just luck: who knows, you know? A: Were your parents Tutsi or Hutu? I: They were Tutsis. It doesn't really matter today, but since Im post-genocide, yeah, that's pretty much why everything happened. So yeah, they were Tutsi. A: So you were living in Brussels? I: Mm-hmm. A: What was that like? I: It's nice. I like Belgium, but... A: I was just there visiting Baloji. I: Oh, I knew him, I knew him. Way before he started. He used to be in another band, like a French rap group called Staram. I: Yeah. A: Yeah. I knew also another member of that band. Brussels is a small community. It's really small. I: So, what was it like when you... do you remember what you were thinking when you rst got there? A: It was really cold and grey, that was my rst impression. I think Belgium is one of those countries that you can't really see its beauty by just going through it or being there for a few days. It's a beautiful country and it's also a nice culture, the food is great, the lifestyle is good, it's decent. But it's true that it can seem really, really harsh at rst. It's very grey. There's not a lot of... people aren't as lively, maybe because of the weather, I don't know. [laughter] But I consider myself part Belgian because we lived there so it's part of me. I: What part of Brussels did you move to? A: It's called Auderghem. It was a nice neighborhood. It wasn't a bad neighborhood. Again, my mother was really concerned with sheltering me, I think. She has always been really concerned with that so she really did good. We moved to a small three-story

apartment building. We were living on the second oor. She still lives there, because she never moved! [laughs] A: What did she end up doing? Did she continue with radio? I: She tried to go back to Rwanda and work at UNICEF, but it was really difcult for her because it was such a change. Everything had She just had no more friends, and she kind of came back and just took care of me, pretty much. Thats what she did. A: Did you ever go back there? I: Yeah, I went back a couple of times for summer vacation. It was fun, but it was just a big change. Everything had Not so much in the look, but more in the people. I had no more Everything was different: new people, new everything. So I kind of felt like a stranger. A: So where did you continue with school? I: In a new school a couple of blocks from my house. My mother always kept everything very village kind of feel. I used to walk to school, it was a couple of blocks away. And it was a tiny school, we were really always like 14 kids in a class. It was very small. A: Do you remember a typical day of school? I: Yeah. Wake up early, and then take a shower, package my lunch or whatever, and then walk down to school. I had to cross one big street to go to the other side. And then there was a gas station right there, and we used to go there to buy snacks and stuff like that. And then just standing in line. A: Stand for what? I: We all had to stand, like, the class: if you were 4B 4A, 4B, 4C, 5A, 5B, 5C. You just had to be in line, and the Principal would come and give the go ahead to each, starting by He would choose random, if people were shouting too much and not being behaved, youd get to get in last. He would just look and whoever was quiet got to go ahead. And then, we were always just in one class and then successive teachers would come in, math, whatever, whatever. A: Did you like it? I: Yeah. But I think I sort of breezed through that whole period without really It was such a change with everything. I was just taking everything in. So I dont think I was loving it. I dont remember being like, Oh my god, I really want to go back to Rwanda, or I really dont want to be here. I dont remember feeling like that. I just remember just accepting where I was in this point.

A: Did you have any interest in sports? I: I was good in sports at school. But my best friend Cynthia always beat me. But it was me and her. Like, you know, when it was time to pick one person, we were always the rst one picked, or among the rst ones, or the ones picking, making the team. But I was never as good as her. She always hit harder, ran a little faster and jumped higher, than me. But I wasnt bad! [laughs] A: What sports? I: We played all sorts of It was pretty diverse. We used to go to the swimming pool. We used to play The only thing we didnt really play was maybe basketball, but we played volleyball, soccer, we played a form of baseball, but with a tennis racket, iceskating, climbing. The teacher was pretty creative. Or dodge ball, stuff like that. A: Did you have other interests or hobbies when growing up? I: For the rst part of I used to read a lot. I just read, read, read. I used to read all the time. I kind of stopped now--I dont know why--but I remember being a reader. My mother always told me, You used to read so much! I was so proud of you! [laughs] A: Are you close to her? I: Yeah, pretty much. Were really close. Always the little mother-daughter issue that can occur, but shes everything. Shes my whole family. A: Any sort of books you like to read a lot? I: Back then, everything. Not so much ction, but I kind of enjoyed real testimony kind of thing, like biographies. Maybe a bit of philosophy, maybe a little bit. And also of course, the books we were asked to read from school, the whole French literature, Orwell, stuff like that. A: So then what? I: Then what? What happened after High School? First I tried to go to college for business Not business engineering. Business, just business, Im not sure how to say it in English. But I think I lasted two months in there. I was like, Nope, I cant do this. A: Where? I: It was at ULB, Universit libre de Bruxelles. I dont remember that faculty--its going to come back. But it was the hardest thing you could pick--in the country! [laughs] And I was just trying to convince myself that I was going to do that. I dont know why I tried, because I always hated math anyway. [laughs]

A: So you gave up on that. I: Yeah, and then, for the rest of the year, I tried law; I transferred to law. I had no idea what I wanted to do. Thats the honest truth. I had no idea. But, all along I had started making music. So, I think I started... In high school I was good, but I think once I left high school I was like, Oh, ok, I guess Im free now. I nally found my way going to communication. Ive been in communication for three years at EX, which is another school--not the ULB--its another school in Bruxelle. I actually sat longer in classes then, but before that, I was just really bored. A: What do you mean you were good in high school? I: I was a good student. And then, all of a sudden, I wasnt able to sit still. I dont know why. A: What music were you making then? I: Regular R&B stuff. I was singing a lot of hooks for hip hop bands and stuff like that. Just average stuff. Whatever I was listening to at the time. I was into to hip hop and R&B in high school, so I wanted to be Aliyah. You know. A: So music from Belgium and Paris? I: Yeah, I was singing in French. It was a lot of hardcore hip hop. You, know they always have the girls singing the chorus. Well, that was me. A: How did that happen? I: Like, [singing] Yeah, what he says. [laughs] Something like that. A: How did you end up doing that? I: Well, I was doing music all along. I think I started... While I was going to high school, I was reading and I was also doing music. It was always accompanying me everywhere. I think I just started hanging out with, naturally, the people I sort of gravitated around, like my friends, were also into music. They knew a studio here and there, and they were writing verses. And I was singing at school or something, and they were like, You have such a good voice girl! You sound like Ashanti! You need to record something, some, like, rap song! And thats how it started. A: Did you ever think thats what you were gonna do? I: Yeah. Ive been writing music in my school books for ages, since before that. I wasnt empowered enough then to be like, Im going to actively take steps to do something. You know, I was young and insecure. I was just writing alone. I wasnt actively doing
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anything, but I was always singing. And people were always telling me that I should sing and danana. It wasnt a business to me though; it was just something that I would do all the time. It wasnt an actual business plan. A: So, you went to communications school? I: Yeah. A: And how long was that? I: Three years. A: Did you live at home? I: Yeah, I was living with my Mom still. A: And then what? I: And then after school? A: Yeah. I: Damn, you want me to tell you everything! Its long! So, I went to communications school, and then I left. And then I guess I started doing music full-time. I started working on an actual record. Cause Id perfected my song writing a little more by then. I was more condent in writing full songs and not just hooks, and so I started writing full records. And I was also writing songs for other people. You know, I started doing that a lot. I would get hired to sing in studios, arranging background vocals for people. Writing extra hooks. You know, core writing, I did that a lot. Also, being a background vocalist live for different groups. Nothing major, but I did French hip hop, really hardcore. I used to hang out with this guy, Sly.D. He was really hardcore hip hop kind of thing, and I would always sing all of his hooks--when he did Sly.D. A: S L Y? I: S L Y D. Real hip hop heads in Brussels will know him. A: Just S L Y D? I: S L Y dot D. He was a really cool guy. He never really got exposed, but hes always been like a real poet. He was really that good. Real French hip hop: the words are really
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important. And I also liked how he was talking about his own life, not pretending to be a gangster and stuff like that. So, we got along and I did some stuff for him. I did stuff for Arno [Hintjens], whos, like, a Belgian rockstar. And hes also mad cool. I did stuff with Zap Mama, I did background vocals for her. So, it wasnt a lot of people, but I was doing that all the time--while working. A: Did you nish at communications school? I: No. A: No? I: I dropped out. [laughs] A: Why? I: Why? I dont know. I think at that point I was really, really getting... I was feeling like my life was just passing me by. I was just sitting there, going through the motions. I dont think I really asked myself the question of, who am I? before I actually started it, you know? I was just trying to be Especially as an African girl, you're supposed to know, and pick a career, and make sure you're going to make money because they're always someone telling you it's going to be harder for you than for everyone else. So you just go through the whole thing without really being able to experiment and ask "Who am I? What do I love to do? What do I want to do? What makes me happy?" Communication was a good thing because I love to communicate! So it was a good pick, but it was just the sitting in a classroom and listening to people telling you what life is, versus going out there and just living it that was hard for me. A: What did you do? You said you were singing but you were also working? I: Yeah. A: Doing what? I: Oh, I was sort of like a community organizer, kinda. We can say that, because I was working with underprivileged kids in this government-funded How do you say that? In this government-funded program that would give different kids from immigrant backgrounds the ability to do art. So I used to teach, to give vocal lessons. It was really nice. The Belgian government really gave good funds, and we had a little recording studio. We had different festivals that we organized like graff, hip-hop. So we had kids from the neighborhood, and we would just try to focus our energy toward writing hip-hop or dancing, or singing--stuff like that. So I was the music teacher. I wasn't teaching an instrument, I was teaching like vocal techniques and different things,
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and I had my little group of girls that I was teaching like every Saturday. And we would do projects like, we did a musical one time that was really cool. And then at the end of such and such semester we would have a play for all the parents, all stuff like that. It was pretty fun. A: How did you learn to do all this musical stuff? I: Like what? Like writing? A: People were hiring you to do backups or hiring you to teach kids to sing. Where did you learn to do all that? I: I think it's just natural. I don't think it's something that you learn. First of all, I think everyone can sing at some point, but we kind of just... some people just give up. At a certain age, some people just go toward other things because that's just what they're called to do. But when it comes to me, I just kept on. From listening to music with my mom as a kid, I used to already detect what a harmony was, what a chorus was, what a hook was. And I guess I just never forgot; I just kept building on that. A: But to teach vocal technique to kids? I: I was just teaching them what I know. I wasn't trying to make it... I was just trying to teach them what I know, and what it is to express yourself. I took very little singing lessons, because when I tried to take singing lessons, the rst person said, "Oh, you are all wrong. That's now how you're supposed to sing." And I was like, "What do you mean that's not how I'm supposed to sing? That's how I've been singing forever!" So I just kind of felt like that kind of approach was not right. It doesn't matter how you sound, it's just about where it's coming from, and you have to just gure out where it comes from. I was just trying to teach them as I was teaching myself, too. I was discovering as I go and sharing with them what I know. And they weren't that much younger than me. It was funny: they were between 14 and 16 and I was 19. So they were right there. I did that for a while. And then I started recording new music--a lot of new music, in French. The only thing I wasn't doing a lot was live. I was more of a studio person, recording, recording, recording. And I wasn't actively living the, you know, road, except for other people, being the background vocalist. And then I started catching the attention of different small or bigger record labels over in France, and we were in a talk to do a full project. It was a French project where I talked a lot about my life in Rwanda, and how I felt about everything. But unfortunately it never really came out because the... something happened with, you know, within the organization where I was working, that we kind of just... I'm being real honest, we just didn't get along anymore and no one wanted to work on it. And I had signed contracts and I didn't have my tracks. It was just complicated. And at the time we were in talks with a big record label over in France that was like, "Just nish the record. You know, we
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like it, just keep developing what you're doing and we'll see." And then I kind of just gave everything up and I came over here. [laughs] A: Why? I: Because it was becoming a struggle. I feel like music is... it's experience. I'm not going to sit there and be like, "Oh, these songs have to come out" and waste my time ghting for them. I'll make other songs. I'll write other songs. I just came here. I want to feel like I'm experiencing stuff. I don't want things to a bad experience, especially music. A: Why come here? I: I just wanted to pick like the most extreme environment, compared to where I was. And I was super sheltered in Belgium. I just wanted to see the big city! [laughs] A: Is it easy to get here? I: Yeah. A: Are you on a Rwandan passport? I: Belgian. I should be having my American passport now really soon. A: Ooh! I: Im going to be American, Belgian, and Rwandan - What!? Three passports! Thats a good thing! A: What have you been doing since youve been here? I: Ive been working a lot of shitty jobs--while making music. And thats it! [laughs] A: Like what? I: What kind of jobs have I been working? A: Yeah. I: I worked at the 2nd Avenue Deli for a while, as a hostess. Shout out to Jeremy, my ex! I really liked it. They became kinda like a family to me, but it was overwhelming. I was just there all of the time. Have you ever been to the 2nd Avenue Deli? People are aggressive for their sandwich! And I was the hostess, so I had to sit people. There were long lines of people waiting. So that was a cultural shock. That was real New York-New York working at the 2nd Avenue Deli, with all these old waitresses who came across as super mean!

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See, thats something that I had never experienced before, so it was really cool to nd myself working there. I was the only black girl. There were a lot of other types of people there, but I was the only black female there. Being the hostess, I was denitely very visible in the place. And it was really fun. I got to really experience real New Yorkers-real old school New Yorkers. So that was interesting. And then I worked at...what other shitty jobs have I done? A lot of them! But Im not going to talk about the others. A: You said it was fun, yeah? I: Yeah. I still talk to... A: Old school New Yorkers dont sound like fun! I: It was fun, too, because I didnt know... I had never met people like that before. So it is fun! A: Was your English this good when you rst got here? I: Yeah. It got better now, because I think in English now, too. But I think it was good already, because Id listen to English music, so I learned English that way. A: Thats how you learned English? I: Yeah, plus lessons in high school. Belgian schools are pretty good. I had 8 hours of English per week, and 8 hours of Dutch, and 8 hours of French. [orders beer] So are you really going to transcribe all of this? Is it going to be a whole document? Why do you ask so much about... why do you focus... ? A: Well, I guess theres a lot to that question. One, I got interested in oral histories as a way to share stories because I think there are a lot of artists, especially in Africa, whose stories have been totally misrepresented, like maybe their work has been called things that its not. And for a lot of artists, how are they really going to share their stories if theyre not comfortable writing it down, or if all of the information you get from them comes from newspapers and magazines, or from people who are trying to promote them or sell their work? Everythings always going to be a little slanted or purposed. So to be able to get someones story in their own words could be really useful. Like what if someones talking about African music in the diaspora. Maybe theyll see this interview and gain something from it. I: Its like a whole biography! [laughs]
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A: That raises a question for you: Ive seen online that you denitely dig stuff that is related to Africa, whether its fashion or I think I saw a video of you singing live at Alliance Francaise or the Goethe Institute... I: Maybe at the Brooklyn Museum? Or the Chopra Foundation? A: I have not idea! But do you consider yourself to be a Rwandan artist? Or is there anything about your music thats.... I: Really Rwandan? Me, I guess! Its difcult because... I think my job is to create my own African aesthetic. So, in that sense, you might not nd a lot of ties between my music and traditional Rwandan music. But that still makes it African music, because time moves. Its difcult because every time you try to classify something, it creates a prison for a form of art. If you say, Its Afropop, now everyone is like, What is Afropop? You have to dress like this, you have to make music like this, and then everyone starts reproducing that when thats really not the goal. So Im kind of careful about throwing names and genres like that. Right now, I still say I do pop music. It has whatever inuence Im bringing into it, but its really pop. I dont want to say African pop music or anything like that, because even if you look at my life, its pretty... I could decide to live as a totally Belgian girl now. Even though Im black, there would still be no difference between my actions and those of a native Belgian girl. A: Is there something different between Belgian pop and American pop? I: Theres not such a thing as Belgian pop, really. One thing about Belgium, they dont really celebrate their artists like that. Their artists can go abroad and make it, but within the country, I feel like they dont really make superstars. Everythings pretty much like Yeah, whatever. I think the Belgian culture just links itself to the country of the language you sing in. If you sing in French, youre more with the French business of music, so Paris and all those singers. If you sing in English, youre probably from the Flemish side, because the Flemish, theyre usually bilingual or trilingual. There is a difference between French variety and international pop music, yes. A: Where are things now for you? I: I think things are still brewing. I really like where Im at, because Im the kind of person whos just... I really take the approach to experiment towards my life, and I use my music to do that. I dont have an end goal that I have to reach within a year or two or its
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the end of the world. I have the feeling that people who like my music really like it. They tend to really like it, and they let me know. I like the kind of people that it is, because its usually people who also have something to teach me. Its usually very interesting people from all over. I dont know, Im really impatient. Not impatient, but excited to just see where Ill be tomorrow. A: Is your music going to be in English from now on? I: Yes and no. I still sing in English and French. It always depends on what serves the song or the melody better for me. But English is good. I feel like Ive been able to actually jump start my career more in English more successfully than I was able to in French. So I like English. A: The demo? What is it? I: It really just is what it is. Its a demo! A: But themes to it? How long have you been working on it? I: Its songs that were written over maybe a year, a year and a half span. I just selected... I have a lot of material that I just revisited and decided I wanted to release some of it, that it was the best time to. I like the blend of... it was very honest for me, and the blend of the genres was better, well done, better than I was able to before. The melodies sometimes, or the story, or the language Im singing in. I think everything was matched together in a cohesive sound for the rst time on that. Im still going to work on that and expand on that. A: Who do you work with for this stuff? I: For the demo and the record that I self-released before, it was always with the same two producers. Its one guy from New Orleans and another guy from Nigeria, but they both live in New York for many, many years. Thats pretty much how I worked. On the demo, some songs I started experimenting with producing a little bit. I dont produce like that, but I would just lay down the foundation, and I would probably have someone help me consolidate the whole thing. Thats really where Im headed. Im interested in being able to produce more than just a drum section or something in the song, instead of taking a beat and singing over it. A: Your website? I: Its a mess! A: Its cool though. How did you get interested in the fashion that youve posted about?

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I: I'm not knowledgeable with fashion at all, like, I don't know what's the new spring trend. Its still in the desire to create your own, the African aesthetic. What is the African aesthetic in 2012 and how do you translate it to other people so that they get it? So it's really just a page for research, constant research. It's a mix of images of myself as a representation of myself, and also other peoples work that I feel t in that research. I think that fashion and music go hand in hand. Visually, you have to look like music-without trying. It's not good to try hard, but you do have to look like your music. As a musician you have to, not follow the fashion, but create a fashion that represents your music, and know how to convey it to the public. A: I watched your music video last week, it's very stylistic. I: The Love Mantra? A: Yeah. I: Did you like it? A: Loved it! The story is pretty funny in the email. I: Oh, that was... [laughs] Thats what happened. We were supposed to shoot it at... we did shoot it at Coney Island, but the day was really cut short because, within an hour, the D.O.P got a piece of glass in his foot. And then, while we were at Nathans eating hot dogs, we went back and then we realized that the directors wallet was gone. And she was supposed to go to Gianna the day! So I don't know why she did it, but she had her money, her green card, everything in that little wallet. So the day became a nightmare. Because we were just like looking for it and we spent like four or ve hours under the sun looking for the wallet in Coney Island. A: Are you two friends? I: Sem? I mean, now, she's my friend, yeah, but I really met her through music. She contacted me I think from the demo as well, and she was like, "I'm the music video director and I'm also a lmmaker from Gianna, and I would really love to shoot a video for you. And if you can tell me which song you want to work on I would... And I was like, Sure! A: What has the response been like to the demo? I: Very good, right now everything is pretty much word of mouth. I don't have P.R., or even a manager, or a record label or anything, so everything is pretty much people relaying. So I'm really proud of that: to see how people nd me--still--even without trying to do really like some hardcore campaign for the demo. It's really nice. It means that it's spontaneous, and I like it that way, because it means that the people who are going to like it are not going to be forced. Its very grassroots. Eventually, I do want the
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movement to grow, of course. But it's really nice to see the response now: the spontaneous response. A: Do you perform a lot now? I: I do. My last show I think was at S.O.B's. I don't have gigs coming in the next month, because I do want to be able to focus on nishing the material that I have now. I've been promoting the demo for a year now, and I think that it's doing good, but it's probably time to push more visuals, drop more videos. I don't know, we'll see. I get a lot of e-mails every day, and I'm getting more and more. I'm kind of seeing where it's going. A: When you perform, is there a band? I: Yeah, I love a live band. I really don't like the feeling that you have when you have to sing with a pre-recorded track, or even with a set tempo. I always have a hard time doing that. My music is kind of electronic, but we don't use... live, we dont use anything pre-recorded. There's no background track that we play over. Its everything live. I really like that, because it's fun rehearsing for that, and trying to arrange things that way, and forcing your drummer to play like a machine because he has to make it sound like it's a recorded track. I think it's a good exercise. A: What else should people know about you or your music or where youre headed? I: Well, I love making music and I really want to travel the world with it. That's really what I want. Well see.

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