Leaving behind the 9-5 grind for the bright lights of the stage, supporting acts like Marsha Ambrosius, the breakthrough for this 27-year old from West London has never seemed so close. In the wake of her most recent EP, Once Upon A Time, with the track ‘Put Yourself in My Shoes’ shortlisted as BBC 1Xtra’s ‘Unsigned Track of the Week’, Obenewa talks with Tajha Myer-Ferreira about how she became the gifted and captivating performer with a sound that gets right under your skin.
Tell us a bit about yourself Obenewa as an artist and a person?
I’ve always been around music and always listened to different genres. I was classically trained from the age of 4 and that definitely has a big impact on the way I write and the way I do think about music. Most of the time I’m writing from experiences but also I write about my friends’ experiences or lately I’ve been putting myself in a different position or situation or a different character.
As a person, a lot of people find me relaxed, quite chilled and my voice is quite *umm umm*, my mum always takes the piss out of me [laughs]. I guess I come alive a lot on the stage. It sounds really clichéd but the crowd is my home, I actually feel the most comfortable when I’m performing. I love art, drawing, animation, reading, I love reading about other peoples lives because it also puts things in perspective about how people struggled to get where they get.
Who are your musical influences?
I love Raphael Saadiq; I like listening to Bjork, Bob Marley, and loads of different things I’m open to.
Describe the concept of your EP “Once Upon a Time”.
Basically it’s the beginning of a concept that I am building on. I came up with “Once Upon a Time” because it was me telling a story through all the songs I’ve written at a point in my life, so they kind of went together one after the other. It’s like the beginning of a bed-time story of my life that I’m running with and will continue into the next EP.
And the stories to each song…
“Bed” is something that I think everyone can relate to. It’s about doing a job, a 9-5, any job, and you just don’t want to go and you just want to stay and do what you really love. There’s a million people like me doing a job to get by to make ends meet and grateful for it but their heart is in something else – ‘Eff it, I don’t want to get out of bed, I want to do what I want to do.’ And that’s me wishing, thinking of the day when I can do just that. Sometimes you have a bad day, you can’t always be happy, you can’t always be like, ‘I’m going to work and when I get home I’m going to do my music’. It’s only natural to have them days so that song was just about letting off steam.
Then you’ve got “Make it better” and that’s about trying to explain to somebody that they can trust you. They might have been hurt before and you can make things better if they just give you a chance.
“Drummer Boy” is not exactly what it means. It’s about a time when I felt a little paranoid about the relationship I was in. I came up with the concept of putting myself in the shoes of the mistress, like “Does your girlfriend know about me?”
Then I also wrote “Put yourself in my shoes” which is about explaining to somebody how you feel and how they aren’t seeing it from your point of view. People say it everyday, ‘put yourself in my shoes’, so I just used it in my song to raise some of my issues. Every time I play that song, for some reason it clicks with a lot of people. People always seem to remember it.
So do you try and make most of your songs relate to everybody?
I don’t make it a purposeful thing but I think that I am a normal young lady growing up and we have all have stuff in common naturally, whether that be love or just struggling to make ends meet, you know, just following your dreams, woman, man, whatever. That’s what I write about and I think that naturally connects with people.
Compared to your last EP, how does this one differ?
The last EP/mixtape was just me having fun and showing my song writing skills, writing on different instrumentals and also with originals and working with producers I’ve worked with for a long time as well. But I guess this EP is a lil different because I’ve written the songs right from scratch. I play the guitar as well and I’ve written them all from scratch with my own melody.
Back to your craft in general, what made you decide to pursue music, especially after studying Music technology at University?
Music has always been my forte, like art has always been my forte – I like drawing as well – but from a young age I’ve always been distracted by music. I remember when I was young I wanted to be fashion designer but then in my teens I started song writing with my uncle. By my late teens I started to realise that this is what I wanted to do and this where my heart is.
Is your family also quite musical?
Well my older sister Nadine (Charles), she also sings as well, and funnily enough my mum’s learning the guitar now. She can’t sing though [laughs]. And my two other sisters can sing, but the younger one is more interested in the dance side of things, so having a musical background, having a family who is into music definitely makes it easier for me to get into it. I write a few songs for my sister, which she has performed and we plan one day to do an EP together.
What is next for Obenewa?
Do more gigs, more song writing, and work on the next EP. Hopefully do some collaborations like with my sister and we will see where life takes me. I’m going to take one step at a time and try and do as much everyday as I can. Every gig you have a different crowd, with people you may know and people you don’t, but it’s a good test. I’ve been performing from young, I enjoy performing and I love the stage. You’ve got to perform; you’ve got to connect with people. Recording music connects with people, but for me seeing someone live, when it’s amazing, that makes me wanna buy their cd straight away. It’s very important to translate your music and the best way is through live music.
Future collabs?
I would love to collab with Ed Sheeran, Espada, Coldplay, Stevie Wonder, Raphael Saadiq, gosh, there’s so many people [laughs]
Buy “Once Upon a Time on iTunes. Obenewa also features on two tracks from the latest Dego album A Wha’ Him Deh Pon?
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