8
Nicolette
NICOLETTE Love Suwoton is possibly the most individualist musician in this book. The producers and DJs in other chapters adapt club and soundsystem music for new contexts, discovering new twists and tricks as they go. But Nicolette's first records sounded as if they were beamed from the distant past and an alien future at the same time. They were both more rugged and more sophisticated than just about anything around. On the 1990 debut single alone, ‘School of the World’ / ‘Single Minded People’, you could hear hardcore being born out of house, hip hop and techno. But at the same time there was heart-stopping songwriting decades deep, Nicolette's velvet jazz voice harmonising with itself: “I can be as bad as you and then some” or “Single minded people, they can always find a way”. Inspiring and energising while also intimating deeper, weirder depths than your average rave hymn to positivity and energy.
The beats were by Shut Up And Dance, the East End rapper/ producer duo PJ & Smiley, who had been MCs for the Heatwave soundsystem they ran with DJ Hype and PJ's brother MC Daddy Earl in the mid-80s, doing warehouse parties around North London. They set up their own label in 1989 to release their own hip hop records, but when their faster instrumentals were picked up by the rave scene, they began to cater for this with a relentless production-line of tunes. With vocalists from the London reggae soundsystem scene, notably The Ragga Twins and Peter Bouncer, they came to define (along with 4 Hero and names like Satin Storm and Lennie De Ice) a new UK rave sound, via immense sub bass, bleeps and rolling breakbeats. Their style was rough and ready, with a magpie approach to sampling: unceremoniously strapping huge chunks of Prince, Whitesnake, De La Soul, Eurythmics and whatever else was floating around in the collective unconscious, to their breaks. (Sadly this approach got them into legal trouble at the peak of their success.) But any sense this was slapdash or merely instinctual was given the lie by the Nicolette tracks: as tough as anything in the SUAD catalogue, these were a perfect illustration of how deep the smooth soul-jazz streams in soundsystem culture ran, and how those streams were not antithetical to the rougher, darker sounds around them, but part of the same cultural machine.
Yet for all that they brought together existing strands, the Nicolette singles did sound like nothing else, with the album Now is Early (1992) collecting them and encapsulating it all. Perhaps its one true predecessor was Carlton's The Call is Strong, a single vocalist LP produced by Smith & Mighty in 1990, combining hip hop, reggae and soul with post-acid house influences. These two records created a blueprint for how an artist album might harness the creativity of the rave, proof of concept for a singer-songwriter forging a distinct identity in this very British, very grass-roots format. But if The Call is Strong retained distinctive licks from electro, house and so on, the Nicolette tracks were British breakbeat rave through and through, with her deep jazz undertow and the mischief and philosophy of her lyrics absolutely infused into all this.
This fusion has been the spine of her music ever since. Through the 90s, she released on Gilles Peterson's Talkin’ Loud, collaborating with 4 Hero's Dego, German noise beast Alec Empire, WARP's melodic electronica mainstays Plaid (on whose records she also appeared), and appeared on stone cold classics by Massive Attack. She was remixed by such masters of their craft as DJ Krust, Dillinja and Mad Professor. Acknowledging the Bohemian gem that it is, both timeless and utterly of its time, Now is Early was repackaged by the Berlin !K7 label (also home to Smith & Mighty). Her work since has been more sporadic, but never been less than entirely individualistic. If anything, she's gone ever further out: her self-produced third album Life Loves Us from 2006, is another masterpiece, essentially electronic jazz of the most “out” kind. There's still that mischievous defiance – if there's one theme that runs through her songs it's anarchic self-determination – along with an ability to weave her songs into electronic beats, not sing over them. And always that love of fearsome bass.
Even when you're covering Simon and Garfunkel68 or doing off-beam salsa,69 you still have that soundsystem influence. Is that fair to say?
Heavy bass is really important to me, not just as a maker but as a consumer of music. I love dancing, so I'm totally immersed in the consumption of music. Bass for me is just the direct connection.
I've been getting my head around what is so important about bass for the intro to the book, and it's precisely what you're saying. You can't fake it, you're either there or you're not. Whether you feel the bass or not tells you whether you are there in the middle, having the full experience
It roots you – literally, in one place – and it's very earthy and sensual, very close to the body's feelings of enjoyment, the feeling that it's beautiful to have a body. It connects us to our sensuality and sexuality and there's a very important beauty in that.
Can you remember when you first experienced big loudspeakers?
When I started raving, in the early days of rave. And working with Shut Up & Dance as well, they had these amazing speakers, like really vicious bass. Also because I went to university in Nigeria, there were parties there where they'd have quite a lot of bass. But I don't think there was an emphasis on it as such – it was just the music played was quite bassy, without it being “bass music”.
What was the first music you experienced growing up? What was surrounding you as a kid?
My dad used to play. Not professionally, but he was a very gifted musician and he made us play, record, compose and sing all sorts of kinds of music. A lot of classical and jazz, but also country and bits of George Formby. And my mum had good taste in Motown. Then there was James Brown and some African stuff, like Fela and King Sunny Adé. So quite an eclectic mixture. When we moved to Nigeria there was stuff that was playing in the streets. Reggae was very popular at that time. It wasn't a big influence on me in terms of my music directly – but there was a sort of a lyrical, emotional aspect to it that I enjoyed. Then there was the Beatles. There was just was so much.
Whereabouts were you before you moved to Africa?
I was born in Scotland and there till I was about nine. Then we moved to Nigeria and I was there until I was 19. I finished my degree, and then I came back to this country.
Did you feel Scottish? Did you feel Nigerian?
I didn't feel Nigerian until I got to Nigeria. I mean I did to a certain extent because my parents – especially my dad – exposed us to artistic and cultural aspects, in terms of folklore, music and so on, And of course they talked about our culture, and also we spoke Ibo at home. So there was an awareness, but really it was just us and what we did. At that time in that part of Scotland we were the only black people around, so there was an awareness of just being “African” above all else. Because we were a curiosity? I definitely internalised that, I felt African in this generalised way.
Did that extend into outright, hostile racism?
Oh there was some absolutely. I don't think any person in that situation, in that time, would have not experienced racism – but it wasn't as vicious as the stories I've heard about other people's experiences from then. There were more subtle forms as well, from teachers and so on, like patronising or singling out. But on the whole what really tempered it was that the friends that I had, and that we had as a family, were so outraged by it as well. It gave the sense that it was wrong, and that people knew it was wrong. That really helped. Then when we got to Nigeria I became very aware that I wasn't seen as Nigerian there, because I had an accent and a different way of seeing the world. So even though I feel Nigerian now, I don't feel it in the sense that I guess a typical Nigerian person born and brought up there would feel. I'm a bit of both. I do feel kind of British, and kind of Nigerian as well. Both sides have informed my creative process quite a lot. I'm really proud of being both. I love that.
What did you study at university? Did you have ambitions at the time? A life plan?
French. And yeah, I thought I was going to become an academic like my parents, a French lecturer or a writer or something like that. And obviously it didn't work out like that, because the music was calling me. But anyone that knew me at that time would be astonished I became a performer because I was very shy. I didn't want to be a performer, it was really the music that dragged me into that space.
What was the first time you recorded or performed?
We used to record all the time as kids, just for ourselves. My dad has loads of us performing as children. He used to make us perform for neighbours or relatives. But it was 100% never expected to be a career choice. It was really after I did my degree and I came to the UK that I just felt that that music was calling me somehow. I was resisting it – like “I can't possibly get up in front of people and sing,” and I didn't know what I wanted to sing anyway. I'd never written songs before, even though I'd always written poetry and novels or whatever as a child.
When I came to the UK I came to Cardiff because my mum lives here and my dad lived in Nigeria. So I went to live with my mum, and afterwards I went to live with my sister and got my own place. Before that I went to France with the intention of becoming a jazz singer. But I was so shy that I just did other things instead. I was about 23 when I got back, and I felt this music calling me really strongly and I thought, “If I don't do this now, I'll never do it.” So I dragged my sister into it and we formed a group called Les Voix Jumelles (“twin voices” in French) and we started booking gigs in Cardiff. I wanted to make her do it with me because she's a really good singer. The first time we actually went onstage I thought to myself, “If it doesn't go well, I'm never going to sing again.” But it did go well. So I thought, “This is great, I'm going to continue.”
Were you singing with instruments?
My brother would make us backing tapes, we used them first of all. Then I formed a band with friends and we started playing jazz funk around Cardiff. And I started doing jazz gigs in restaurants.
Were you connecting with any other mid-to-late-80s scenes? Like acid house or rave?
Eventually I started hearing it. People in Cardiff were dissing it really badly, but I was enchanted by it – it just sounded like jazz to me, like a new kind of jazz. Because jazz is all about invention and creation: these people were making music that was so good because they didn't have any preconception about what it should sound like. And they were creating their own sounds rather than using existing instruments – so all my creative instincts were drawn towards it. It was bass-heavy, it was innovative. And I loved dancing to it. I used to go to London all the time, because my best friend lived there. I decided I was going to move to London and get a record deal.
Can you name some of the raves or clubs you went to?
Oh god I can't remember now! I remember High On Hope, wow that was really ancient.
That was like real joyful house music, soulful American house, right?
Yes. But there was the hardcore scene as well. At that time they were playing the same sorts of music, but it all started to split off into little things, the more garagey sound and then a more hardcore sound started to emerge – which I really preferred. But I liked it all. At the time I was really into hip hop like Public Enemy, so my dream was to do sort of element in a house or a rave context.
You couldn't have picked better than Shut Up And Dance then!
Exactly. But I just thought, “Let me just see what I can find,” and it came together really fortuitously.
What did you think of the social milieu? They were crazy times in many respects
At that time it just felt normal and right. It was just really, really fun. As soon as I moved to London I had the most fun and it went on for years. I was expressing myself, so I was really, really happy. I was going out and doing all sorts of things I hadn't really been doing before.
Did you get a sense how the different preexisting scenes were ? Reggae soundsystem and gay culture and football hooligans – all these different people that came together into that
Now I can see it, but then I didn't really think about it. What was beautiful to me was that everybody came together, people of different races and backgrounds. I suppose the drugs helped in the sense that it brought people together but it was a social movement as well. To me it was very much a heart-opening movement, and I think the music helped. The music was quite tribal, it had this appeal to the heart, this heart-centred, ritualistic thing that I think is almost shamanic.
And again the bass experience, you can't fake being there. You're either in the middle of that ritual or you're not. You're either in it for eight hours or you're not
I went to a lot of the gay clubs later on [such as Trade]. Still the early 90s, but there were lots of gay clubs playing one strand of that music, the more kind of uplifting kind, going right through the night. That was another version of the ritual. We did that quite a lot, and I also played at them a lot as well.
How did you meet PJ & Smiley?
OK [laughs]. Well when I came to London I was just asking around, asking random people, “Oh, I'm looking for a record deal.” One of my friends saw this ad in the paper, they were looking for a singer. It was a strange ad, like for a dance troupe, but my friends thought it sounded really good. I was like “No, it's electronic music and they're not going to want me because my voice is jazzy,” and she was like “Oh, just go!” She gave me a glass of wine to relax me, and I went there and it turned out they were really fun. They set up a mic in the middle of the room and just played dance music – and they were one of my favourite artists of the time, but I didn't realise it was them. They played all these dance tracks and I improvised over them, jazzy stuff, Billie Holiday, over these house and rave tracks. And they said “Oh OK you're cool, OK, we'll sign you.” And that was it!
Did they have any musical background in jazz?
Not that I'm aware of. It's possible. I know they had a background in soundsystems and hip hop stuff.
Someone told me they sped their breakbeats because they wanted hip hop fast enough to jazz-dance to
I certainly remember they were saying that they wanted to make fast hip hop.
They were essentially a rap duo at that stage
They'd had a couple of dance hits then, but they used to rap a lot over their music.
Coming from a hip hop background, so slightly outside, what did they think of the raves?
On one side they really wanted to innovate, because they thought a lot of the stuff sounded the same. They didn't just want to make stuff that was anthemy or hands- in-the-air. I thought that stuff was great, but they were totally not up for that at all. I wouldn't say they were ravers per se, although they would go out – but it would be more to dance or to DJ or to do gigs.
What was the first thing you completed with them?
They gave me this backing track for ‘School Of The World’ based around a loop by Adamski. The first single was a double a-side, with ‘Single Minded People’, so they gave me those backing tracks. And I remember I didn't give them anything for about four or five months, I didn't know what to do with it. I was just like, “OK, I'm just going to do what I feel.” A whole process that goes through my mind where I think there's a logical way to do this but I can't think of what it is so I just have to do whatever comes. So I just scatted over it and did stuff like that, and eventually it turned into something.
The approach of their production is so simple. Sometimes it's just a loop and a few variations
Yeah, but they do that in such an innovative and compelling way. They have this sense of making things click. I don't know exactly how. I learned a lot from them. They're very, very musical.
Part of it is the importance of the enormous bass cutting through – but then getting the fine balance between that and the detail
What I love about bass is that my voice is so feminine and the bass has a more masculine energy, if you like, so I love that contrast. They were really brave because in a lot of songs in that genre, you'd get vocals in the breakdown, then the bass and beats come in, but you don't have them together. So what I like was that I sang over the bass and they kept that. That was exactly what I wanted: I just really wanted to sing with the bass.
So when did you first experience one of those tracks out in the wild as it were?
Well at raves they were played quite a lot. The first time I'd not long since moved to London, and the song had just come out, and we went to this club and my friend was like, “That's your song!” I think she went and told the DJ, and they were like “Yeah, whatever”. They didn't believe her. But what's beautiful is just seeing how people get happy from it.
Did you do PAs? Because it was a whole different connection to an audience
Yeah I did loads. That taught me about performing as well. The Ragga Twins were on the same label as me. They come from the soundsystem background and they were old hands, that was serious training. Watching them I was like “Wow!” I was quite timid and I thought, “They can really engage a crowd.” I realised how they were just being themselves but amplifying it. I found my own way to engage a crowd – just getting into the space of becoming natural with that.
That's got to be a baptism of fire for a performer. You're talking 10,000 people in rave's heyday, blowing whistles and horns at you
It doesn't really make a difference how many people. It's more frightening to play to a small amount of people. Once I start, it's fine, whether I was just doing a gig in a restaurant or that, it was the same feeling. It's so exciting! I loved that energy you can just join in and be part of that wave of beauty.
Once you'd got those two tracks, did the writing process get quicker and easier?
Yeah, they just kept giving me tracks, so I just kept writing stuff in a very casual way. I was partying a lot. It was very low-key, there wasn't any pressure. They put out three singles, I think. I can't remember, it was so long ago! It just happened organically. They were like, “Hey, it's time to put an album out.”
It seemed such a natural thing at the time – you've had some singles and here comes a great album. But actually nobody was making vocalist albums in rave music. Maybe Rebel MC – but his was more a collective record, with lots of guest vocals
I just thought of myself as a musician doing my own thing, that happened to be within these circumstances. I knew that I wasn't just going to keep doing that because that's not what being a musician is about as far as I'm concerned. Making an album was the logical thing.
As we've already mentioned, the scene was diverging: there's the uplifting stuff, the hard house in the gay scene, the more soulful house and garage – and then the more black British, breakbeat hardcore side that emerged from what Shut Up And Dance were doing and quickly became jungle. Were there particular strands that you liked most?
I was really into drum’n’bass. I just liked the harder aspects of it, and because it was breakbeaty – because I love breakbeats. But really I was into all of it. Later on when I started DJing, my DJ sets were always a mish-mash of all those styles plus other stuff. But if you ask me what I was going to dance to, I would definitely choose the more harder, high-energy sort of stuff . But I went through all of it. Every single genre within the British dance floor spectrum I went out and clubbed to and dance to.
How did the Massive Attack connection come about?
They heard ‘Wicked Mathematics’, the fourth single, and their manager got in touch and asked if I wanted to do it – and I was really really shocked that they wanted me to because the music I was doing was so different from theirs. But I was happy to do it.
But they had come out of British soundsystem culture too
Absolutely, yeah, but they were inhabiting a completely different world. I was aware of them but that was it! With Shut Up & Dance, we'd worked super-fast – we'd go into the studio and record, then they'd mix it all in one day. With Massive Attack it was completely leisurely. It was good because it was a lot more luxurious and chilled out. I was not used to that. It was a complete paradigm change.
Did you do more than the tracks that were released?
They gave me three and then chose those two [i.e. the singles ‘Sly’ and ‘Seven’ from the Protection album]. I don't think I even finished doing the third. They had the idea that they wanted various collaborators. They always do that anyway. There was never a plan to do a lot.
How did you feel about how they fit into the shape of the album and the remixes that came out?
I like Mad Professor's version of ‘Sly’. There were so many remixes and I thought they were all quite good, but I liked his the best.
Had you also met Plaid at this point?
When I was working with Massive Attack I was kind of starting on my second album. I had all these ideas floating around, I'd go work with them and then go off and do some stuff. So I was asking around about potential producers and [Plaid's] name came up. So we just thought we would see if it works or not. And it worked out immediately.
You clearly know how to spot someone who needs a vocalist. Shut Up & Dance had this musicality that you brought out of their simple but effective sample collage. And in a very different sense, Plaid were always melody above all. It was like “Ah, they should have had singers all along!”
Plaid had this quirkiness and the melodic construction that really appealed to me. This strange approach that I thought was really interesting.
…which again was quite jazz-connected
I never thought about it that way, but maybe. It's difficult to escape jazz really! It's in everything.
And Plaid were hip hop as well, especially the earlier stuff
Yeah, they were b-boys. I remember we went on a trip once and they were breakdancing. It was funny.
This is that mid-90s post-rave point, where all these different elements – hip hop, dub, electronics – just reconfigure and reconfigure in different patterns
Yeah, and electronica became this thing that wasn't just about dancing as well. It became more symphonic, more pensive if you like. Strands that came up were more shoegazer – which is very important. Introspection is important too.
Did you all write Let No-One Live Rent Free in Your Head70 together?
It was definitely affected by the different ways of working of the different people, but it felt like an album as I was doing it.
And you were able to remain connected to the dancefloor by commissioning remixes
That's your taste in hard drum’n’bass right there then! There were some fairly fierce mixes
Yeah, I wanted that because the album was so diverse in the way it actually approached music. So we just wanted some proper dance mixes. And because I wanted to perform them in that way when I was doing gigs. They were always more dancey and harder than the actual album. I just love dancing!
So were you going out to places like Metalheadz?
Yeah, I went to Metalheadz a lot, and Talvin Singh's thing from around that time as well, Anokha.
Did you follow garage?
I followed all the 2-step – dubstep and grime emerged from that but they also had a drum’n’bass influence. But yeah, I followed garage. The only thing that bummed me out was having to wear proper shoes! That was annoying! I went to a lot of garage clubs from the beginning.
So you got to watch as it turned into the ‘Sunday scene’? Black London DJs speeding up US garage, playing it on Sundays after the drum’n’bass raves at people's afterparties
Ah no, on Sundays we used to go to gay clubs. I never went to any UK garage clubs on a Sunday.
You worked also with Kevin Martin, The Bug
Yes, I did something with him, but it never came out. I really loved what he'd done. I think he approached me and wanted me to do something on his album. So we agreed that we do sort of an exchange and he'd do a remix for me on my album. We did a couple of tracks but he never used them. I never heard the finished results. He used to do a soundsystem thing which was a mixture of different things, a lot of dancehall and stuff. Plastic People. I sang over what they were playing at Plastic People once, it was really fun.
That's such an interesting connecting point for all of those strands of London. Plus the Nigerian connection, because of Ade who ran it…
Oh yeah. I didn't know him at all. I know people that kind of knew him.
He said he based it on dark clubs in Lagos. He said that's why he wanted it to be dark inside
Ah OK! I never went to any clubs in Lagos, I never went clubbing in Nigeria at all. Just parties.
After your second album your records are fairly sporadic. What kept you busy?
When I left I Talkin’ Loud, I wanted to start my own label, but it was a lot of work, I didn't realise how much work. Time just disappeared. And I feel like I had a crisis of confidence. I was like, “Oh, what am I going to do now?” I left Talking Loud because I consciously wanted to go in a new direction. But I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. I didn't have that blanket underneath me. I felt like I failed at something – even though I was the one that decided to leave. So I was running around like a headless chicken. And because I'd come from a major label situation, I was trying to do mine like a major label, which is impossible. I was making a lot of content, all the time, but I didn't always put it out. I would put it aside or do a limited release and that's what I kept doing. And time just passed on. So I had this crisis of confidence, coupled with trying to keep the label going – and those two things created a whole need for a healing process that I had to go through. So for a while I was just trying lots of different things, and collaborating with other people as well, through that time.
What were your favourite collaborations through that time? What were the most interesting ones?
I did a song called ‘Desire’ with John Tejada, and something with DJ Cam as well, called ‘Love’. They were a bit later though.
Where did the !K7 reissue of Now is Early come into all that?
That happened earlier, when I was still signed to Talkin’ Loud. 1997 I think or 1998, I can't remember. Stefan was running !K7 at the time and he approached me. I knew him because his partner was doing publicity for me in Germany. He asked if I'd be interested in doing a DJ mix and I was really surprised. I never thought of being a DJ but I was willing to give it a go. So I did! I worked with Plaid on that as well. They helped me with the technical side, the segues and stuff like that. The launch gig was in Germany and I had to DJ live – so I had to learn how to use decks really quickly. A friend who is a DJ said, “Oh, it's easy, I'll show you,” and I practiced at her place and got myself a pair of decks. And because that went down really well, I just continued.
And a vindication to get the first album reissued outside of the rave context
I think so. I don't think it is a rave record, even though it's got a strong rave influence. There are some aspects of rave music that I really am attached to. When we dance to it, we love the fact that it can mentally fuck you up. So I really like that! But I just thought of it as an album, and that's how people approached it generally. I remember when DJs would play ‘Dove Song’, people would get confused because they didn't know how to dance to it, because the beats were so weird!
So what took you out of the slump of confidence?
I've always been someone who worked ridiculously hard. What do you call it when your body stops working because you are working too hard? Burnout. I had that when I was signed to Talkin’ Loud and I was in the middle of touring and I had to get myself together and get myself well again. So it was realising that I had to really re-prioritise everything and also pay attention to me. Because music had saved my life. I had created this life which allowed me to be myself, to express myself, to feel like myself. So it became too important to me – I wanted to treat myself better.
And now you're obviously working at your own pace. This album's taken a while!
I think that's mainly been financial because there's so much going on with it. At every stage I had to get the funds to get to the next stage. It was supposed to come out in 2016 but it took a lot longer, so the funds dried up quite quickly. I had to say, “OK, I have go back in and sort this out”. And that's what I've been trying to do, bit by bit.
You're still recording as if you had major label budgets. Your production sounds quite lavish
The last one didn't because I lived in the States for a bit, and I only had a home studio, not that big. I recorded and mixed it there, so it was quite minimalistic. Then I got rid of the studio and equipment, got rid of everything really. So when I wanted to make this album, it was clear to me that I wanted it to be enormous, in every way. I don't know why. I wanted it to have loads and loads of different musicians and an orchestra and all these things. I thought it was going to come out in 2016, but it wasn't ready. There's a lot more live instruments, but the foundation is still the electronic side of it.
What do you listen to for pleasure most?
Right now I'm listening to a lot of birdsong! I was putting birdsong on one of my tracks and I was just listening to it and I thought, oh this is fantastic! I found this radio station called Birdsong FM.
Sometimes you need to listen to non-music to clean your ears out
Just listen to silence or the wind or bird song or the dogs barking. But I think silence is the best. There's so much happening there!