Skip to main content
GRAMMYs Breaking News
Breaking News
  • MusiCares Launches Help for the Holidays Campaign Apply HERE
  • Recording Academy
  • GRAMMYs
  • Membership
  • Advocacy
  • MusiCares
  • GRAMMY Museum
  • Latin GRAMMYs
GRAMMYs
  • Advocacy
  • Membership
  • GRAMMYs
  • Governance
  • Jobs
  • Press Room
  • Events
  • Login
  • MusiCares
  • GRAMMY Museum
  • Latin GRAMMYs
  • More
    • MusiCares
    • GRAMMY Museum
    • Latin GRAMMYs

The GRAMMYs

  • Awards
  • News
  • Videos
  • Recording Academy
  • More
    • Awards
    • News
    • Videos
    • Recording Academy

Latin GRAMMYs

MusiCares

  • About
  • Get Help
  • Give
  • News
  • Videos
  • Events
  • Person of the Year
  • More
    • About
    • Get Help
    • Give
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
    • Person of the Year

Advocacy

  • About
  • News
  • Issues & Policy
  • Act
  • Recording Academy
  • More
    • About
    • News
    • Issues & Policy
    • Act
    • Recording Academy

Membership

  • Join
  • Events
  • PRODUCERS & ENGINEERS WING
  • GRAMMY U
  • GOVERNANCE
  • More
    • Join
    • Events
    • PRODUCERS & ENGINEERS WING
    • GRAMMY U
    • GOVERNANCE
Log In Join
  • SUBSCRIBE

  • Search
Modal Open
Subscribe Now

Subscribe to Newsletters

Be the first to find out about GRAMMY nominees, winners, important news, and events. Privacy Policy
GRAMMY Museum
Membership

Join us on Social

  • Recording Academy
    • The Recording Academy: Facebook
    • The Recording Academy: Twitter
    • The Recording Academy: Instagram
    • The Recording Academy: YouTube
  • GRAMMYs
    • GRAMMYs: Facebook
    • GRAMMYs: Twitter
    • GRAMMYs: Instagram
    • GRAMMYs: YouTube
  • Latin GRAMMYs
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Facebook
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Twitter
    • Latin GRAMMYs: Instagram
    • Latin GRAMMYs: YouTube
  • GRAMMY Museum
    • GRAMMY Museum: Facebook
    • GRAMMY Museum: Twitter
    • GRAMMY Museum: Instagram
    • GRAMMY Museum: YouTube
  • MusiCares
    • MusiCares: Facebook
    • MusiCares: Twitter
    • MusiCares: Instagram
  • Advocacy
    • Advocacy: Facebook
    • Advocacy: Twitter
  • Membership
    • Membership: Facebook
    • Membership: Twitter
    • Membership: Instagram
    • Membership: Youtube
GRAMMYs

Victoria Kimani

News
Victoria Kimani Is Kenya's Best Kept Secret afropop-queen-victoria-kimani-kenyas-best-kept-secret

Afropop Queen Victoria Kimani Is Kenya's Best Kept Secret

Facebook Twitter Email
The "Wash It" singer tells the Recording Academy about her multinational background, growing up in L.A., Tulsa, Nigeria and Kenya and breaking out of what can sometimes be an isolating music scene
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Aug 9, 2019 - 12:52 pm

Everyone has an origin story, and R&B/Afropop singer Victoria Kimani's is especially memorable. Born in Los Angeles to Kenyan parents, Kimani moved all over the globe—specifically to Tulsa, Okla., Nigeria and finally Kenya—during her teen years.

These days, she lives full-time in Kenya, where she is one of the nation's most recognizable performers. She makes time to return to L.A., though, where she's recording her sophomore album, which follows last year's Afropolitan EP and 2016's Safari.

For all intents and purposes, Kimani should be better known in the States. Over the course of the last decade, she's been professionally linked to everyone from DJ Whoo Kid to Jadakiss to DJ Green Lantern to Busta Rhymes to Timbaland and beyond. More recently, she joined Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie on the grooving single "Wash It," and she shows up on Afrobeat upstart Hakeem Roze's bouncing June single "Miracle." Later this year, she'll drop her long-awaited sophomore effort. 

Kimani sat down with the Recording Academy to tell us more about her multinational background, coming of age in Kenya and Nigeria and why, as an artist, she's committed to breaking boundaries and pushing beyond Kenya's local music scene.

Can you tell me a little bit about your background? You were born in the States but you moved to Kenya as an adult. How did you get your start in music?

Well, growing up was interesting. I'm first generation Kenyan-American. We listened to a lot of gospel music growing up. I was pretty sheltered, my parents are pastors, so there wasn't too much secular music invited in the home. But we listened to a lot of African music, a lot of jazz, a lot of Miriam Makeba, Brenda Fassie, lot of the legendary African artists from my parents' generation, and then listened to a lot of gospel music at the same time.

So I think I kind of just taught myself how to sing from listening to gospel artists and trying to match their runs and match their melodies. My dad is a musician and even in the '70s he was singing Elvis Presley covers in Nairobi. Kenya in the '70s with his bell-bottoms and his Afro. He's very deep with the music. As far as good music goes, that definitely came from my dad.

But growing up here was, it was interesting, I was always moving around. Yes, I was born in California, but here we ended up moving to Oklahoma so my parents could further their Bible education in Tulsa. Then we went on our first mission trip when I was 14 and the first African country that I went to was Nigeria. Although we're not Nigerians.

We lived in Nigeria, Benin City to be exact, for two years from 1999 to 2001, and that was my where I got my real introduction to world music and how there's other rhythms and other kinds of music besides what I was familiar with in America, just being around my friends at school. I'd say I got more exposed to African music for sure when I finally went back to the continent.

After we left Nigeria we entered Kenya and my parents said, "Okay, well, we're relocating here now. No more America for you. We're going to live in Kenya." And I'm like, "What!" I think I had like two weeks to say bye to my friends. So straight from Nigeria, moved to Kenya and that's when I started recording. I was 16 when I started recording my first songs in Nairobi, Kenya.

Have you been based in Kenya ever since?

There's been times between then that I moved back to the States. So from 16 to about 18 or 19, I was still in Kenya. I came back to pursue my music and then that's when I got into songwriting where I used to write for a few different artists. But I think when I actually moved back full time, that was towards the end of 2013.

What made you eventually decide to make the move permanent?

Opportunities. Opportunities to build my fan base of people that I felt like were my people.

I felt like, although I was born here, I'm still very much Kenyan. My family, my entire family; mom, dad, brothers, cousins, everyone was still in Kenya. I was approached by a record label that was based in Nigeria, as a matter of fact. And I felt comfortable to go back to Nigeria because I had already lived there as a child. So I knew what I was getting in to. At the time Nigerian music was really starting to create some hype, some waves, globally. So when I had that opportunity I jumped at it because I always just stated myself as not just a Kenyan artists because I sing in English. I don't sing in Swahili. I wanted to be [collaborative].

For me that means someone that could be from one place, but you're [traveling] around the continent, you're working in East Africa, West Africa, you're collaborating with artists in Central Africa and South Africa as well. So I sort of treated the continent how anyone would treat America. Where you could be from Virginia and move to Los Angeles. You could be from L.A. and move to New York. That's not something that's really done a lot in the continent. Most people in Africa stay in our each individual countries and we literally don't meet. So I really treated it the same way I treated America very early on with even how you move around a lot as a child with my parents. So that was very instrumental for me and I think it definitely sets me apart as an African artist, as a Kenyan artist in the continent who has collaborated so much across the continent.

But initially when I moved back, this was just an opportunity. It was an opportunity for me to reach back to my own roots and to reconnect back into my town and to find myself as an artist. And five years later it definitely accomplished that and still accomplishing more. We're still building on it.

What is the reasoning behind people in different African nations staying more or less put? Are there economic reasons behind that? 

There's so many different factors. I mean for one, like right now people are doing it a lot more. But in 2014, when I moved back, no one was doing that because I didn't know that they needed to. I think a lot of East African artists didn't realize that the door could be open to them in West Africa. I think a lot of people maybe can't afford it. Some people really don't have the means to be able to leave like that. Some people don't have passports, and a lot of artists are also very content in their space. They don't mind being like the local champion, which is great, you know? They're just comfortable. Maybe some people are afraid? Maybe they don't have the connections? There's so many different factors that can kick into that.

But I think for the most part it's just a comfort thing. Right now, a lot Nigerian artists, they don't need to leave Nigeria. In fact, the farthest that they probably would want to go is probably Ghana because they have so many resources locally. They're making enough money. They have this stick-together mentality. Whereas in Kenya we're very different, but at the same time we have a certain level of comfortability. There's only 50 million people in Kenya. There's 200 million people in Nigeria. So if you just think about that alone, some people have just become comfortable with their space, and others feel more pressured to go and leave and go find a greener pastures elsewhere.

Another motive for me getting to go to other places is because our industry is not fully built yet. We don't even really use the good singing platform just like other artists, they're singing globally. We're very much in our own little bubble of not understanding where to place art in general. Even fashion. Politics is very much at the forefront, even in the youth in Kenya. So music is not an industry that's developed. I don't know what I would do if I wasn't able to leave Kenya and explore the continent the way that I did.

You've experienced so much success in Kenya. As someone who goes back and forth to the States, what's your interest level in terms of gaining more attention over here? Is that a priority as you ready your next album?

Definitely. I mean, ultimately I think everyone right now... I don't know if you're too familiar with African music or Afro-beats, but the message is very much Africa to the world. It's very much about sharing our culture and music with the rest of the world. When Lupita's made it globally and in America it just sends so many positive messages back to Kenya and it was like wow, if you do have this international dream or whatever it is and in your capacity or outside of it, it's possible. So, for her success, like it just meant so much to me as well. Ultimately I would like to see my music in a space that it can grow more in especially... Even now that you could just go down into a place that has structured like we still are struggling with collecting our royalties in Kenya.

We still are fighting for our rights as composers in Kenya. We still are, a lot of our music is stolen and we're not able to do anything about it back there. So here we are in this land of global opportunities, but also you have rights, you actually have rights as a creator, you know, so ultimately it would be amazing for that crossover to happen. The producers that I'm working with now they're African producers based in the States. So they also work with some top tier American artists as well. So for me, they understand the rhythm because I do want to stay very true to like my own rhythm, but they also understand the crossover. They know what's palatable more for people in America or Europe or the rest of the world. So for me it's about collaborating and creating more fusion. And so yeah, that's definitely my goal.

Could you tell me a bit about one of your recent singles, "Wash It"? It's a collaboration with Ghanaian artist Sarkodie. How did you guys connect?

Sarkodia is definitely probably the best rapper from West Africa. His flow is just super crazy and Ghanaian people have really showed so much support for anytime we have collaborated. This is actually our third collaboration. He featured me on his last album and then I featured him on my first album and then this is our new project together. Now we've just been working on the next body of work. I think it's time for another album. And so that's literally what I'm finalizing here in Los Angeles right now.

What are you hoping to portray on this album that maybe you hadn't gotten the chance to? How would you word describe the evolution between your first and this one?

Identity. My first, I was still trying to figure out who I am and how I fit in that space. I also felt a little displaced for a while when I first moved back to Kenya because I don't speak Swahili, because I was born an American. Now I'm around people who've never, ever been anywhere but Kenya. So I had to figure out my sound and my space in that capacity. And then you can hear that when you listened to the album.

Now I know exactly who I am. I know where I come from. I know how I was brought up and I know what I like. So now that really translates in the production, in the songwriting. It's very, very much Kimani, very me now. I feel like my first body of work was me trying to find me and yeah. So I feel like I've finally cultivated my own sound.

Can I ask—to what extent do you grapple with your own multinational background as an artist? Do you grapple with it at all? I only ask because I imagine it can be an interesting experience performing for more closed-off communities when you yourself like to cross borders.

That's an interesting question. There's two different ways that I can answer it. One of them is in the literal way where because I know that I'm 100% Kenyan tracing back to all my ancestors, but my mother told me that my tribe, which is Kĩkũyũ. My tribe allegedly migrated from Cameroon back in the day, which is West Africa. So if that's true, then you know, where are we really from?

You know, a lot of Kenyans are actually nomadic. Especially the Masai are known to go travel from different parts, but even now, they don't have a place they really settle. They take their cattle and they move. They just walk from country to country. So I don't know if I really trace all the way back, but at the same time, because my story is so different than a typical Kenyan, because I was born [in L.A.], I do feel like I can't ignore where I was brought up. I cannot ignore how my accent sounds.

Yeah, I can't really detect an accent. If anything, it's just a very soft lilt. 

I don't think I have an accident at all, but I definitely know I have one at home because Swahili's the first language, so I'm sounding like this. It's like, "Where are you from?" I had to remind people that there's something called Kenyan-American. It's like people don't realize that Kenyans left and there's a lot of Kenyans that have left the country and live in so many different parts of the world. I think a lot of Kenyans don't don't that. And so having to go back and explain this is the reason why I don't speak Swahili. This is the reason why I identify so much with West Africa because they are an English-speaking country. This is the reason why I was able to drive when I go to South Africa, when I go to these different places, because I'm literally speaking a common language. I had to explain these things.

I'm also very naturally rebellious. Nothing is really how it's supposed to be. And so I had to just stop apologizing for the fact that my parents didn't raise me speaking Swahili. I think really it's just about other people educating themselves about diversity in Africa and also with diversity of Africans. 

Burna Boy Talks 'African Giant,' Damian Marley & Angelique Kidjo Collab, Responsibility As A Global Artist

GRAMMYs

Sun Ra Arkestra

Photo by Alexis Maryon

News
Sun Ra Arkestra's Knoel Scott Talks 'Swirling' sun-ra-arkestras-knoel-scott-new-album-swirling-sun-ras-legacy-music-healing-force

Sun Ra Arkestra's Knoel Scott On New Album 'Swirling,' Sun Ra's Legacy & Music As A Healing Force

Facebook Twitter Email
The Sun Ra Arkestra saxophonist discusses the evolution and enduring sound of Sun Ra’s music, and why younger generations are more receptive to his more far-out experiments
Jeff Terich
GRAMMYs
Oct 9, 2020 - 10:32 am

Sun Ra's music transcends genre and generation, time and space. The Alabama-born jazz legend, musical chameleon and Afrofuturist icon—who would have turned 106 in May—began performing in the swing and big band era and kept up a career for five decades, traveling the spaceways through cosmic ambient jazz, intense bursts of free jazz in the ‘60s, disco in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and various genre-agnostic experiments in the spaces in between. Sun Ra’s music was as boundless as the interstellar universe he considered himself a part of, and his sonic innovations continue to echo throughout music nearly three decades after his death.

His band, the Sun Ra Arkestra, is a significant element in keeping that music alive. They’ve continued to tour as an ensemble since the ‘90s, and on Oct. 30, will release their first new album in over two decades, Swirling. It’s as much a tribute to the legacy of Sun Ra as it is a continuation of the ideas and sounds he pioneered in his lifetime, featuring modern reinterpretations of classic Sun Ra compositions such as "Rocket No. 9" and "Angels and Demons at Play," as well as lesser-known tracks, and even the first recording of "Darkness," composed by Arkestra bandleader Marshall Allen. Though the arrival of Swirling comes during a time of fear and uncertainty, with no live music on the horizon for the foreseeable future, longtime Arkestra saxophonist Knoel Scott says that it’s even more important for them to be giving joyful, celebratory music back to the world.

"Music is a healing force," he says. "Our intention was for the music to be healing. For something to give happiness. When people live for a long time, and they’re asked what’s responsible for that, they say they laughed. So mirth and enjoyment and contentment, those things come from music."

GRAMMY.com caught up with Scott to discuss the new permutations of Sun Ra’s music on Swirling, finding hope in troubled times, and traveling in your mind through music.

So, Swirling is the first new recording from the Sun Ra Arkestra in over 20 years…

The first successful attempt. We tried once or twice, but the conditions weren’t conducive.

Right. Is it a matter of logistics—having everyone be able to contribute at the same time?

Yeah, the crucial part of the band’s ritual is rehearsal. And there are some logistical difficulties. Being in New York, professional musicians, they have to work, and that work is primary, so they don’t always have time to come out. But Swirling was recorded off of a tour, so the band was pretty hot at the time. A lot of the compositions were played off of our book that we were playing off the last tour that we did. We were playing "Darkness" a lot. "Seductive Fantasy," we were playing that a lot. All the songs were part of the regular band book. That book, which Marshall arranged, I guess we were playing it for around a year. Every nine months we change it. We keep certain standards, but to keep everyone interested and keep it fresh, we bring new songs in.

Aside from most of them being part of the Arkestra's last tour, is there something that connects all of these songs?

I guess the intent. Everybody wanted to play the music well and represent Sun Ra well, and give homage to Sonny and create a product that Sonny would be proud of. So, that unified us.

Sun Ra had such a long and prolific career, and this album pulls from various moments throughout that career. Was there an effort to try to represent as broad a selection of his music as possible?

Well, his music was so varied. He played so many different styles, from R&B to so-called Afrobeat to futuristic sounds to swing to avant garde. So yes, we tried to do a variety which reflected the pantheon that Sun Ra created. So therefore, there is a lot of variety on the album. That’s how Sun Ra was, he had so much variety. We never knew what he was going to do, but all of it was within the African-American tradition.

Are the Arkestra's compositions all, in some way, living and evolving creations?

Yes. The nature of music is you never play it the same way twice. Something is always different. Something is always added. A new nuance created every time we play a composition. It gave us a chance to focus a little more, because the gigs are a show. The focus, to a degree, is on entertainment and presentation. But in the studio, the concentration is all on putting the visual into the music, while in a live show, the visual is there as an accent. But on the recording that all has to be in the music. So we’re trying to create a visual in the listener’s mind.

Likewise, are you always continuing to evolve as musicians?

We have to. Sun Ra says the world’s moving fast, you have to adjust yourself. And Marshall says, "It’s the spirit of the day." Tomorrow you feel a little bit different than you did today. Your interpretation of the music is going to be a little different. So it becomes a living entity, because we put our spirit into it, and it changes from day to day and moment to moment.

Sun Ra's music spans many decades and generations, and this too will likely introduce his and your music to a new generation. What is it that makes his music endure?

The fact that it was from the future. That’s why his sounds are more accessible to the audience's ear now. But in the ‘50s and ’60s, it was radical. They would just be like, "What is he doing?" He was always talking about the future and the new millennium. But the future is now, and so the time for the music is now. He designed it that way, so the millennial generation is able to relate to it, because he wrote the music for them. The music for tomorrow’s world. People have changed. People’s ears have developed. The computer age has come, and electronics are a standard part of their listening, and Sun Ra pioneered these things, so just in terms of what people listen to now, this music that people call new age and Afrobeat, techno, all these things are devices Sun Ra used in his music in the ’60s and ’70s. As soon as a new sound came out, Sun Ra was on top of it. So now, people are used to these things. Going back to Star Trek, you hear the sounds that Sun Ra was playing in the ‘60s. Those sounds are now part of the standard media presentation of music.

It’s funny you mention that—I was watching some early episodes of Star Trek and a lot of the music reminded me of Sun Ra.

Yeah. [Laughs.] The theme song is a variation on a standard called "Out of Nowhere." But especially from Slugs’ [Saloon in Manhattan], that was the type of place that the hip people went, and Sun Ra was an underground figure for years. But he was also in California for years, and there’s been a cross pollination of Sun Ra’s music into Hollywood and TV, et cetera.

It’s an odd time to be releasing music right now. How do you feel about putting something out right now, especially something based so heavily on the Arkestra’s live performances, without being able to be onstage to play them?

That’s very important, because people are hungry for music. They’re not able to go out, so they’re on YouTube and Spotify, they’re listening to records. We stay at home, so music is a very important thing. I think it’s really perfect for the album to come out when people are spending more time at home and are looking for some kind of sound that will inspire them or give them hope or some kind of relief from this terrible time that we’re going through, because it’s stressful for everyone. You can’t go out, but you can put on an album and travel in your mind.

Is there a message or a feeling that you would hope listeners take away from hearing Swirling?

That there’s hope. No matter how bleak or troublesome or turbulent the times are, as long as people have love in their hearts, if they want a better world, there can be a better world. And the unification of the musicians from different areas of the United states and as far as Brazil, we all have different perspectives but come together of one accord, so the Arkestra’s contribution is a testimony that we can come of one accord. We may not always agree, but we can come together for a positive outlook and a positive goal. And that comes down to intent, for people with love in their hearts and joy in their spirits and enlightenment in their minds. Our job is to heal the planet.

Diamond Platnumz Talks Growing Up In Tanzania & Breaking Into American Popular Music

Grammys Newsletter

Subscribe Now

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Be the first to find out about winners, nominees, and more from Music's Biggest Night.
GRAMMYs

Thurston Moore

Photo by Vera Marmelo

News
Thurston Moore Talks New Album 'By The Fire' thurston-moore-talks-new-album-fire-idles-greta-thunberg-reagan-era-privilege

Thurston Moore Talks New Album 'By The Fire', IDLES, Greta Thunberg & Reagan-Era Privilege

Facebook Twitter Email
The Sonic Youth founding guitarist also digs into how living abroad has affected his view of the States and how young people today—especially his own daughter—give him hope
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Sep 28, 2020 - 8:45 am

"There is a real social division, and I don't live amongst that anger so much," Thurston Moore remarks over the phone from his London home, referring to the piercing political discord that fuels the upcoming presidential election—not to mention much of 2020 itself. "I don't really believe that that is the majority of the country, let alone the world," he continues. "I think it's just the noisiest. And I say that as a noise musician."

The founding Sonic Youth guitarist, who released his seventh solo album By The Fire last week via The Daydream Library Series, is indeed not just a noise musician, but a leading pioneer of the art form, having gotten his start in the 1980s New York City no wave and experimental scenes alongside bandmates Kim Gordon, Steve Shelley and Lee Ranaldo. At that time, Moore remembers, artists had what he refers to as the "privilege" of "just making fun of and ignoring [politics]," and "protesting to some degree through hardcore bands and stuff." Today, nearly 40 years later, such immunity to current events hardly exists anymore; socioeconomic, political and racial tensions touch every facet of daily life—and it's all taking place in the backdrop of a global pandemic.

In response, Moore has unleashed By The Fire, a nine-track project that, as he puts it, "alludes to a lot of the heat that we see in the streets... But it's also essentially about the idea of communication. I wanted it to be about focusing on sitting around a fire and exchanging ideas and dialogue."

Musically, By The Fire, which features Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine) and Sonic Youth's Shelley, reflects Moore's penchant for both pop-minded, college-rock cuts (opener "Hashish" and its follow-up "Cantaloupe") and lengthier instrumental musings ("Locomotives" and chaotic album closer "Venus").  

Below, Moore dives deeper into the duel meaning of By The Fire (which he and the rest of the band recorded immediately prior to quarantine), how living abroad has affected his view of the States and how young people today—including his own daughter—give him hope for the future.

You’ve been living in London for almost a decade now. How has living abroad changed or affected your perspective of the U.S. in the last eight years?

I relocated here at a time when I thought the U.S.A. was in a place of having a bit of dignity as representation, let's put it that way, with the Obama Administration, the Obama-Biden Administration. And so, I don't think anybody at all foresaw the turn of events that happened in 2016, and it was a surprise to just everyone, especially here, living here.

But the fact that it happened at the same time when this country was dealing with this whole selling of Brexit, which was based on this idea of economics, but was sold through this fear of immigration. So, it had this nefarious subtext to it.

I think we just go through these cycles through history, that you can see, where totalitarianism comes to a head. And these fascistic aesthetics come into play, where divisiveness in the culture happens, and through the outpouring of subserving, where people who feather their own nest, as far as being this billionaire elite, and the real estate of the world, and this kind of control mechanisms.

So, in some ways, it's not surprising when you look at it historically, and thinking that, with some resilience and some resistance and with some activism, which we always have expressed, especially in youth culture, that we can bring it back into a situation that's more progressive and humanitarian-conscious. I think the big difference now, and that the pandemic, where we're all in this quarantine state and it's a global affair, that's a big difference, from when you can look at it, and history books, to some degree.

Because it points to a problem that we have that's more essential to the earth. It's about the health of the earth and how we're so much a part of nature, whether we like it or not. And that defines a lot of our existence.

I think a lot of what's going on with our social crisis is, of just the people who are on the margins, and have historically been on the margins, just through means of being oppressed, having to rise up and be angry. And, in support, so many people joining in with that fight, people who have the privilege of not being in a situation, to join in on that fight, as well.

It almost becomes secondary to the health of the planet. Because with the planet in a mode of destruction for the next 10 to 20 years, that will override any other situation. I mean, if you don't have a habitable world, it doesn't matter who you are. And so, that, to me, is something that's very significant and distinctive to what's going on right now. So when I see young people, particularly a very high-profile person like Greta Thunberg, really coming out and drawing as much cogent attention to this, it just does my heart good.

I saw an interview a few years ago with Naomi Klein, she's an essayist on politics, and focusing a lot on climate activism. And she said, when the U.S.A.'s really swung to this right-wing agenda that was exemplified by what the administration is now, she felt like a lot of people did, very, somewhat hopeless. And do you even deal with such inanity?

But then, to see somebody like this young girl from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, who Naomi said, "I'd never even heard of two months prior, all of a sudden becoming such a force of critical information," that just made her feel good about prospects. And so, I feel the same way.

I really feel, for the most part, the people that I come across are desirous of living in harmony, and wanting to have some more non-hierarchical socialized way of living, where everybody has equal value when it comes to healthcare. I rarely come across somebody who is so deluded by the fact that maybe it would be better off if we just allowed ourselves to be told what to do by this authority of this billionaire class. I don't really know people like this, but I know they're out there, because I see them on social media, screaming and yelling "Trump."

There is a real social division, and I don't live amongst that anger so much. But I certainly do see it. And I'm not quite sure, I don't really believe that that is the majority of the country, let alone the world. I think it's just the noisiest. And I say that as a noise musician who really focuses on noise. I can't compete with that sort of thing.

"A noise musician who can’t compete with noise." Well, there you go. Would you say that you generally consider yourself an optimist?

Yeah. I consider myself a musician and an artist who realizes that it's very important to be socially engaged in your work. And if your work is about the exchange of pleasure as information, I think there's something very political about that. I consider that to be a responsibility. So when I put together a record like this, at a time like this, I'm very aware.

And I'm very activist conscious when I call a record By The Fire, where it alludes to, certainly a lot of the heat that we see in the streets, in the contemporary streets of fires being lit through it, through anger. But it's also essentially about the idea of communication. I wanted it to be about focusing on sitting around a fire and exchanging ideas and dialogue.

It's funny you say that, because I was curious if By The Fire had any allusions to, say, Roosevelt’s famous Fireside Chats.

Sun Ra had a record called A Fireside Chat With Lucifer, which I always thought was really intriguing. But I think in a way, it was just, "What an interesting title."

I mean, if there's anybody who was a prophet of peace and understanding, it was Sun Ra. To call a record, A Fireside Chat With Lucifer, in a way it was him wanting to come to terms with everybody having a voice, and realizing that, right?

I realized there's a dynamic of voices in our culture, obviously. But for me, it's just, the activism measure is to keep promoting the voices that you find are to the health of humanity, especially to the health of the earth. People ask me if I'm voting for the Democrat ticket of Biden and Kamala Harris, and I say, "Yes, I am."

It's not so much about Biden being versus Trump. It's more about me being versus Trump. And it's more wanting to bring these voices that I find really, really important in contemporary society, voices like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, these women who have these really political intellects, that are all about the welfare of everybody, regardless of the hierarchy in this society.

It’s progressive socialism, for want of a better genre term. But I find that to be these great voices for the welfare of the country that I was born and raised in. And so, I find at least a vote for the Democratic ticket allows them to have a voice at that table, more so than not.

I mean, that seems to be the promise, and a lot of it has proved the empowerment that Bernie Sanders has enforced in the last decade. I think the Democratic ticket recognizes that voice, and is very wary of it, because it's demonized as being, well, too left of centrist. But at the same time, I think at least it's going to have a welcoming into the government and its future policies, hopefully. I can only be hopeful.

I think anything less than that is without hope. So I see what's going on right now. And as far as the two-party system, when I look at the Republican Party, and how it's been hijacked, I don't see a grain of hope there. I see nothing.

It’s funny that you bring up both Bernie and AOC. Are you aware of the “Socialist Youth” T-shirt design that has Bernie and AOC drawn to mirror Sonic Youth’s Goo cover? It’s one of the best things I bought this year.

I do remember that. I was really happy to see that.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CE2Fh7TDfct

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Feeltrip Records (@feeltriprecords)

Had you planned to begin recording a record in March of this year, or thereabouts? Even if a pandemic hadn’t happened?

Yeah. Well, I knew that I wanted to put a record out this year, even before the pandemic became a reality. But when it did become a situation, it was just global, galvanized situation that we all dealt with.

Once I seriously focused on what the aesthetic of the record was, and how I would sequence it, I wanted to have the story on the record be more in tune to what was contemporaneous. So I sequenced it thus. I mean, all the material was recorded before anything happened.

But the record itself was put together while we were in quarantine. So, the material, I just organized it in a way where I wanted it to come out of the gate with these more joyous, short, sharp, rough, sonic rock and roll tunes. And then it moves into more contemplative material.

Then it would go into some darker spaces. And then it had this deliverance at the end—this long instrumental piece called "Venus," which was just this pattern-based guitar piece that opened up into this sound of deliverance, and with hope. And I wanted it to go out the door that way.

I really worked closely with the people who do the distribution and the manufacturing, all of whom were dealing with this sudden shock to their work days, and wondering where their revenue was going to come from, and how they could continue to operate. Summertime is traditionally a time when a lot of the record industry just goes on vacation. So everybody was on staycation mode. And I was like, "Oh, actually, I'll take advantage of that. You're home and you're working, right? So let's get the guts around this."

[By The Fire is] coming out this month, which is really great. It's coming out on the same day as this other community of records that I'm really happy being part of: Public Enemy's new record [What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down] that they're putting out on their old label, Def Jam. And my old friend, Bob Mould, has a record [Blue Hearts] coming out.

There's a local band in London that is really, it's a real strong voice for a lot of people here, called IDLES.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFmj5d4HkM7

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Thurston Moore (@thurstonmoore58)

Oh yeah. Sure.

And they have a record also. So, these things are all happening on that day. I just feel, if there's anything I really love about being in a band and playing music through the years, it’s the power of the community. And I've always loved collaborations. I always loved compilation albums. I was always drawn to being on compilation albums earlier, when Sonic Youth was first starting. I was just, if anybody asked us to be on a compilation, I was like, "Yes, of course, of course." The first record I was ever on was a compilation record that Glenn Branca and Barbara Ess put together in downtown New York, of all these different artists, doing one-minute pieces.

That was the first time I was ever invited [to collaborate], was when they asked me to be on that. And that was just at the very beginning of when Sonic Youth was forming. I don't even know if we had that name yet.

Speaking of New York, earlier in the year, New York City was especially suffering from high coronavirus cases and deaths. I wonder what that brought up for you, just as somebody who has such a connection to that city?

Right. I think it's such a—more so than just about any other city I can think of—it's the most street-social city. When I was living there, nobody really had a car. You could actually walk from one end of the island to the other, and during the day, without a problem. I think it's, what is it, 12 miles long and three miles wide? It's all up into the sky, in a way.

The fact that it has such a huge population, and it was so condensed, that everybody's on the street and all the time. And everybody was in each other's way, in each other's face. You learned social responsibility from living in that city. It was gloriously multi-ethnic. And even though there was neighborhood divisions of ethnicities that had been defined from when people first came over from Europe and Asia and such, but they were soft lines, for the most part. And it was all about merging traffic. And I think that, to me, was a model for the world.

It’s the true essence of nature, where migration is so essential to nature. It was like, at the heart of nature, it's always about migration, and the plant life and animal life. With people, it's the same thing. And so, I think the situation where borders start going up, and it tries to stop the migratory nature of people, whatever the causes are, whether it's from climate, or where it's from seeking higher water, or trying to find salvation from war or violence. Or the impossibility of a life, in certain situations. And to prohibit that, through any border or law of movement, for me, it's like, it actually goes against the actual truth of nature.

That's where the problem is. It has nothing to do with anything else. Or anything else becomes, it just becomes bigotry. So I always saw New York City as this great experiment in coexistence from the end of the century. And I loved living there in the '70s, before real estate became more monied, and it allowed everybody to live in poverty, and still create, and be free.

That, and the creative impulse was still available, without having to pay exorbitant rents, but that's really neither here nor there. I mean, the city continues to be this great social city. And to see it have to deal with a situation where everybody has to stay away from each other, it's disheartening, to say the least.

I can only hope that that will fade away, and we don't have a follow-up, a virus coming through. Nobody has a crystal ball on this, that I can see. So, I take value from seeing people be of service to each other.

I have a 26-year-old daughter who lives in Bed-Stuy, and she is very activist, and she goes out daily and helps be of service to people who are living in the margins, or young women who are incarcerated and don't have any funding to deal with their plight, or people who are so marginalized, trans people of color who are just completely ignored by so many of the services of the city, and are at odds with the prejudices of the culture. She's out there helping in that regard. And so, it does my heart good. It makes me a proud daddy.

But she's not the only one. And there's just so many people, she's just in her mid-20s, and there's so many people at that age who are out there doing that. When I was in my mid-20s, we didn't really have such a crisis as this. We had Ronald Reagan who was like, he was really creating an economic division, and especially in the city. [But] it was something that we could actually have the privilege of somewhat just making fun of and ignoring, and protesting to some degree, through hardcore bands and stuff.

What people in their mid-20s are experiencing now, it's such a far cry from what I remember. And it's just, their lifestyles of having digital media, where there's this Internet connectivity of the open library. That's a huge paradigm shift from the reality that I experienced.

I love it. I think it's just completely exhausting. I'm really glad to be alive and witness this kind of world, and just thinking about what it will be in the next couple of decades.

Bartees Strange On 'Live Forever' & Why "It Shouldn't Be Weird To See Black Rock Bands"

GRAMMYs

Beverly Glenn-Copeland

News
Beverly Glenn-Copeland Talks 'Transmissions' transmissions-beverly-glenn-copeland-looks-back-long-and-varied-musical-life

On 'Transmissions,' Beverly Glenn-Copeland Looks Back On A Long And Varied Musical Life

Facebook Twitter Email
The longtime genre experimentalist has spent decades dabbling in folk, electronica, jazz, New Age, world music—and now it's all on display via a new career-spanning mixtape
Noah Berlatsky
GRAMMYs
Sep 21, 2020 - 11:01 am

Beverly Glenn-Copeland's new album, Transmissions, released on the artist's new Transgressive label, is a collection of recordings from a stunning, expansive and largely unknown five decade career in folk, electronica, jazz, New Age, world music and genres of his own invention.

Born in Philadelphia to musical parents, Glenn-Copeland entered McGill as one of the school's first Black music students. He was also one of its only out lesbians—a fact which almost got him ejected from the school. (Glenn-Copeland eventually came out as a trans man in 2002.) After college, he recorded a couple of folk albums before starting a two-decade career as a regular songwriter and performer on the Canadian children's show Mr. Dressup.

Glenn-Copeland was still writing his own music, though, including the stunning, forward-looking electronica New Age album Keyboard Fantasies. Released in 1986 to virtually no notice, the album was rediscovered in 2015 by Japanese collector and music store owner Ryota Masuko. Masuko had links to adventurous music communities worldwide, and suddently, people knew about Glenn-Copeland's music, and wanted to hear more. He toured Europe in 2018 to enthusiastic audiences. And he was able to start rereleasing old albums—including Keyboard Fantasies. He's also planning to release new recordings.

Transmissions only scratches the surface of Glenn-Copeland's vast back catalog. It includes a couple of tracks from Keyboard Fantasies ("Ever New" and "Sunset Village"), but also many tracks that have been unavailable to most fans. GRAMMY.com talked to Glenn-Copeland about the creation of the album and some of the highlights from his long and varied musical life. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Transmissions is a collection of tracks from your 50-year music career. How did you pick the tracks?

Well, let me put it this way. I didn't have anything to do with this album. Except that I had the say "yes" or "no" about each track.

My publishing house, my record company and my management company, friends for many years, all three of them, they got together and started brainstorming stuff. And the head of my publishing company had come with my manager to my wife's and my house back in December, before things closed down. So he showed up and they poured through everything I've ever written for 55 years. In every format, you can imagine. And they took them away as though they just found all kinds of diamonds or something.

Wow. How much music was that they looked through? I mean, it must have been hundreds of hours of music.

More than hundreds of hours! More like thousands of hours of music!

I mean, literally, they took out boxes of stuff. It was like a treasure hunt. I've been writing music and I had all kinds of formats, everything from cassettes to things that no longer even exist in terms of machines even to translate it, to big reels, to old fashioned floppy discs that you stuck into the computers.

Oh my god, they had a blast. They went berserk. They were just so happy. They were like kids that had found Christmas early.

So they poured through that stuff, month after month in great detail and then they got together to brainstorm.

I was going to be recording with my with band Indigo Rising, but that was canceled because of COVID.

So they came up with this release instead. And they also released a live album in August from a show at Le Guess Who in the Netherlands.

There's a track on Transmissions from that session, right? The song "Deep River." When did you record that concert?

I think it was the first one we did, which would have been fall of '18.

Was it a good experience? The track sounds really fun. You got the audience to yodel with you.

Oh my god. Noah.

I mean, I was still at the point of—I'm still at that point, if people show up for concerts, I'm thrilled. When I walked into that concert hall, there were 3000 people in there! For me?! They actually have a recording of me walking in and going, "Oh, my goodness, there's so many people."

There's some people who will have 50,000 a concert. But I'm not among those. My concerts normally had 200 people if I was doing really well, and that was back in 1902. [Laughs.] It was a stunning experience for us all. They were singing along. It was wonderful. It was wonderful.

When is the song "Deep River" from originally? How did you write that?

I had put out an album that I published in 1999 purely from my own studio and sent to a very few people. It was called Crossing Over. And the whole album was a retake and an Africanization of Negro spirituals.

Instead of singing them the way they were sung in the United States, I sang them the way they might have been in Africa. I put the drums back in, because the drums were forbidden to slaves in the United States. So I put drums back in and I put all kinds of sounds in it that might sound more like what I imagined you would hear in various villages.

I began playing this piece live but instead of Africanizing it in the way in which I had on this album I came up with other sounds that people could sing.

So I know you didn't pick the songs on the album, but I'm curious if there's a track on the album that you were particularly excited to see made available.

There is one piece that I'm that I'm excited about. And that's "River Dreams." Because that was something that was written just a year ago. That has never been on any album at all. I just recorded it at home for fun.

And they listened to it and went, "Nevermind, it's good enough! We're putting it on."

It was one of the things that I had hoped to be able to with Indigo Rising.

Who is Indigo Rising?

They're the band I've been touring with. [Nick Dourado – piano; Jeremy Costello - voice, keyboards, electric bass; Kurt Inder - guitar, keyboards; Carlie Howell - acoustic bass, clarinet, percussion; Bianca Palmer - kit drum and percussion.]

I initially found the members separately, I thought. They played with me for six months and then they told me after six months that they'd been playing together for years. I just flipped out. What a joke! That was their little personal joke on me that they kept secret.

The last song on the album, "Erzili," is from one of your earliest albums, right?

Oh yeah. That was the 1970 recording "Beverly Glenn-Copeland" on the GRT label. The song was an exploration of my African roots. And I was exploring it with four of the finest jazz players the world had ever seen— unbeknownst to me! I had no idea how famous these guys were. Lenny Breau, one of the finest guitar players that has ever lived, was on that album.

They all got in the studio and they were so kind, they were so loving. And they said, "Well, would you like to just play the song for us." And I'd play a song for them. They'd go, "Oh, lovely." And then the producer would hit record. And all of the songs were taken live off the floor, first take.

So "Erzili" was live off the floor, first take, and they'd only heard it five minutes before they played it.

That's pretty impressive. Because it's like 10 minutes long.

Yep. I let them hear the basics of it and then we just cut loose.

It wasn't like it was going to be exactly 10 minutes. We just played it the way you play a jazz piece. You play it until you finish with it.

It was absolutely a stunning experience for me. I mean, I was like a little kid from lollipop land, landing in the midst of, you know, French cuisine.

There's an audience for your music now that there hasn't been through much of your career. Do you have a sense of why that is?

You know, young people these days are world citizens and they're connected with each other all over the world, and know what's going on all over the world. And their tastes are very catholic, small c.

They listen to all kinds of music and the average young person these days will listen to everything from ambient to rock to classical to you name it.

So that being true, they've been able to identify with the different music landscapes that I've traversed over the years and they enjoy all of the different styles. All my mixtures of this and that.

Lang Lang On The Inspiration Behind His Latest Album & Why Aspiring Concert Pianists Should Never Give Up

Grammys Newsletter

Subscribe Now

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Be the first to find out about winners, nominees, and more from Music's Biggest Night.
GRAMMYs

Kiran Gandhi

Photo by Maggie West

News
Q&A: Madame Gandhi Talks Remixing 'Visions' qa-madame-gandhi-talks-remixing-visions-waiting-me-new-music-2021

Q&A: Madame Gandhi Talks Remixing 'Visions,' "Waiting For Me" & New Music In 2021

Facebook Twitter Email
The electronic artist and activist opens up to GRAMMY.com about filming "Waiting For Me" in Mumbai, the process of remixing 'Visions' and what we can expect to hear on her forthcoming effort, 'Vibrations'
Rachel Brodsky
GRAMMYs
Aug 27, 2020 - 11:22 am

If anyone is making the most of their time in quarantine, it's Madame Gandhi. The electronic artist and activist, who has toured as a drummer for the likes of M.I.A., Thievery Corporation and even Oprah on her 2020 Vision Stadium Tour, recently released a visually stunning music video titled "Waiting For Me," not to mention an all-female remix edition of her 2019 record Visions. On top of all of that, the musical polymath is currently working on a 2021 release titled Vibrations. 

Shot in Mumbai last February, the video—which featured a cast of queer, trans, female and gender non-conforming people—was intentionally released in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic "because we believe it reflects many of the themes of personal liberation, questioning societal norms and global protest that have come up," Gandhi wrote in a statement. 

Below, Madame Gandhi opens up to GRAMMY.com about filming "Waiting For Me," the process of remixing Visions and what we can expect to hear on her forthcoming effort.

How have you been primarily spending your time in Quarantine?

In the first few months of quarantine, I found myself performing and DJing live on virtual concerts very often! I developed kind of a staging area in my loft in the Arts District of Downtown L.A., and a pro-audio rig, and designed set lists for different scenarios. The idea was to be able to continue to contribute joy to my audiences, participate in the needs of the time and adapt my work to a new medium. It felt simultaneously energizing and lonely at the same time! In the past two months though, I have shifted my energy to focus solely on writing my new album Vibrations. Producing my own music and choosing women collaborators for this project is deeply important to me, and that process has been really rewarding because I rarely have the time to focus and invest in my own skill sets! 

You're currently working on the remix to your 2019 album Visions, using all female producers to remix each song. How did you go about selecting producers for this project?

I knew I wanted to reimagine my album Visions for the dance floor and for folks who love working out. So often, we tolerate sexist lyrics in music because we love the beats or how the music energizes us. I wanted to make an album that could provide all of that without the oppression! And so I reached out to six of my favorite female producers and MCs to each remix the album. The track order is the same as the original, just this time with each remix. The album art work was shot and created by the same all-women and gender non-conforming team who shot the first album, but with contrasting colors so it feels "remixed."

Why did you decide to call your forthcoming 2021 album Vibrations?

My first two albums are Voices and Visions. I always knew this would be Vibrations. I like the sensory experience of it. I like the power of healing and positive vibrations. I want the album to feel healing and meditative. I want to take frequencies that address each chakra, or energy center of the body. I also like the "V" alliteration as a subtle reference to celebrating the female and feminine anatomy, which is often so policed and censored. 

Why did it make sense for you to produce Vibrations yourself?

These songs are a collection of work I have produced late nights in my home in Downtown L.A. This is where I feel safest to take the most risk, sonically and lyrically. I am bringing on incredible collaborators though to help me bring my own work to the next level! It will have a mix of traditional arrangements, and arrangements that make you feel like you’re on a journey!

You shot your music video "Waiting For Me" in Mumbai, where you grew up. Why did it feel important to set it there? You've commented in an interview that the "Waiting For Me" video was intentional in its decision to "not reduce Indian culture to Bollywood." What do you wish American media would do differently when portraying Indian culture(s)?

I spent a lot of time growing up between Mumbai and NYC. I went to school in Mumbai between 1997-2000 and had a deeply rewarding experience dancing to local music, celebrating Indian festivals and wearing Indian fashion as a young person! I have my own relationship to India even though I can barely speak Hindi. I love the maternal energy that permeates the country, the nature, the meditative spirit, the divine food, the commitment to vegetarianism. I wanted to tell a story that was authentically my own experience, rather than perpetuating only the norms that seem to get exported from India and imported around the world.  

Right before the pandemic hit, you opened for Oprah on her stadium tour. What was your favorite part of that experience?

I had never performed in a stadium before, nor had I ever been part of such a deeply healing and culturally important operation. I loved being able to hit the first drum beat every morning of the Saturday tour and know that my meditative energy pulled everyone from the audience in to know we were starting the show! I loved dancing on stage with my collaborators at Daybreaker, and meditating with 15,000 other people, knowing that we were bringing their vibration high to receive the lessons that Ms. Winfrey would teach. I learned that it is vital whom we surround ourselves with, when we are doing work with the intention of healing and bringing joy and value to others. 

Read More: The Rebirth Of Kelly Lee Owens

Grammys Newsletter

Subscribe Now

GRAMMYs Newsletter

Be the first to find out about winners, nominees, and more from Music's Biggest Night.
Top
Logo
  • Recording Academy
    • About
    • Governance
    • Press Room
    • Jobs
    • Events
  • GRAMMYs
    • Awards
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
    • Store
    • FAQ
  • Latin GRAMMYs
    • Awards
    • News
    • Photos
    • Videos
    • Cultural Foundation
    • Members
    • Press
  • GRAMMY Museum
    • COLLECTION:live
    • Explore
    • Exhibits
    • Education
    • Support
    • Programs
    • Donate
  • MusiCares
    • About
    • Get Help
    • Give
    • News
    • Videos
    • Events
  • Advocacy
    • About
    • News
    • Learn
    • Act
  • Membership
    • Chapters
    • Producers & Engineers Wing
    • GRAMMY U
    • Join
Logo

© 2021 - Recording Academy. All rights reserved.

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Copyright Notice
  • Contact Us

Some of the content on this site expresses viewpoints and opinions that are not those of the Recording Academy. Responsibility for the accuracy of information provided in stories not written by or specifically prepared for the Academy lies with the story's original source or writer. Content on this site does not reflect an endorsement or recommendation of any artist or music by the Recording Academy.