Jamala – QIRIM

By starrymag | November 10, 2023

By: Jamie Steinberg

 

 

Q) How would you describe your sound?

 

A) To be honest, I have never been asked a more difficult question. I will explain why, because my songs contain everything that is in my life. There was a lot of music in my childhood because my mother taught piano lessons at a children’s school and my father played the accordion. Just as my dad often played at Crimean Tatar weddings, in my childhood there was also a lot of folk music around and folklore songs. Growing up, I was into rap music like The Fugees, 50 Cent, Tupac Shakur and pop-soul Whitney Houston and Toni Braxton. Jazz came at the age of fourteen. At that time, I was also very interested in all traditional jazz, from Bill Evans and Miles Davis to the deep vocals of Billie Holiday, the incredible technique of Ella Fitzgerald, etc.

Already at an older age, I listened to a lot of electronic music such as James Blake, Caribou and Jungle. My sound was constantly changing. For example, how do you grow out of certain clothes, thoughts, not that you are constantly changeable there, but really you change depending on the circumstances – so is my style. My release of the album QIRIM is a kind of summary of all my knowledge, music that I love and listened to, from the simple and meaningful form of Joni Mitchell, to the ethnic and super technical Imma Sumack and cosmic Bjork. This album has everything, my whole background. All my premonitions are multiplied by the discoveries I found in these unique songs and melodies. So, my sound is an absolute fusion of genres from academic symphonic, to a completely modern song form, which is actually going through an interesting revolution, because the song form of a thousand years ago in the form of these songs from the QIRIM album is already clear to us because people change, but song form and confession do not. Because songs about love, loneliness, consolation are just as relevant today as they were a thousand years ago.

 

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

 

A) It’s actually a huge background. If we talk about the present and my release of the QIRIM album, I was inspired by the classical music of Beethoven and Bach, as well as the music of the Romantic period. It is important for me that music conveys you. For me, the music of all musicians vaguely reminds me of myself. Probably, it should be so that when you listen to the music of a certain musician, you think that a very familiar person is singing. Billie Eilish, for example, seems very similar to me because of her musicians who make music at home.

Of course, I didn’t have a familiar label that could come and listen to my songs. As a child, I used to sing in the fields when I herded the sheep, literally. I had six sheep that I had to herd for a couple of hours after school. I sang my best songs to them. My parents had a great influence on my music as well, because they brought me up and gave me the best of their musical experience. Although they didn’t want me to be a musician at first, because they knew it was difficult. Of course, like every teenager at the time, I listened to the pop music of the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears. I was very interested in Michael Jackson. I mainly listened to American soul or the British wave of new electronic and alternative music, for example Ben Howard and others.

 

Q) Do you remember when you first realized you had a talent for singing?

 

A) My mother watched me and one day, when I was three years old, she brought me home from kindergarten and I started telling her a story about the fact that I had a concert, that I had a lot of flowers and that I was beautifully dressed. Mom was surprised, but when I said that there were also many animals among the guests. She understood that it was my dream.

I don’t remember myself at the age of three, but I remember that I sang a lot. At the age of nine I took part in my first music competition in Alushta, which was called “Golden Rain.” I remember that there was a lot of homework at home and my solfeggio teacher came on the eve of the competition and said, “Get dressed, we are going with you,” and told me about this competition. He wanted to accompany me on the piano and I should sing. My mother was very surprised. My teacher really believed in me, practicing with me after our lessons. We prepared several songs with the teacher, and I went to the competition where I won the prize. My reward was two chocolates – Snickers and Mars. I was very happy at that moment and probably then I realized that I could sing.

 

Q) Your album QIRIM is out now. What are some themes you explore on it?

 

A) Since, in fact, neither the music nor the Crimean Tatar language is known to the general public this is a rare phenomenon. It is the first Crimean Tatar music album. In it, I explore the mentality and uniqueness of Crimean Tatar melodies and meanings. And what I found from different corners, from fourteen different places, these songs can give us an indicator of what the Crimean Tatars were like, what they thought about. In these texts, I found many identical thoughts. I found a trait responsible for loyalty, temperament and desperation. These different themes of losing home, loyalty to a loved one. “Dağlarniñ Yolları (Mountain Roads)” is a song about loyalty and devotion, when you go somewhere in search of food or money, taking care of your family, as well as religiosity. For example, “Arafat Dağından (Aqmescit)” is one of the few songs on a religious theme). It is a personal story about an ordinary confession about whether you love or not. All these fourteen songs are different, but my general theme is one – to raise and tell the truth that was not revealed, not known, it was tried to be silenced for many years.

 

Q) These songs are very personal for you. Do you have one that is especially close to your heart?

 

A) I cannot answer this question. Absolutely every one of these fourteen songs and a symphonic outro. Every word, every note is personal to me – a lot of stress, saving the album under bullets, losing the person who worked with me on this album. Therefore, after the release, each song acquires a new meaning for me and remains very personal.

 

Q) Was there a song on the album that challenged you the most creatively or even emotionally?

 

A) If we talk about the performance technique, absolutely all of them are difficult. But there are three that are difficult both technically and emotionally. For example, “Kene Aldı G̃am Beni (LONGING OVERCOME ME).” This is a song that comes from a person who wants to end their life by suicide.

“Arafat Dağından (FROM MOUNT ARAFAT)” is a very mystical song that really has a power that we don’t understand. It was necessary to adjust oneself for a long time to perform it.

“Noğay Beyitleri (NOGAI SONGS)” is a technically complex song. This is a kind of ballad mantra, more humorous.

 

Q) What is your song writing process? 

 

A) It happens quite differently, sometimes a song is born from a melody. It happens that today the verse was born and tomorrow the chorus was born, but the bridge was never born, so you left this song. During the war, to be honest, it was really difficult to write something new. “Take Me to The Place” came somehow very consciously and then I wanted to thank everyone for their support. This is how the song “Thank you, Stranger” was born, which reminds me of work in the best traditions of The Beatles.

 

Q) How much of hand do you have in the production of your music?

 

A) Well, 99.9%. Of course, I am always proud of all my collaborations, co-authors with arrangers. But the idea itself, the form and, for the most part, the almost ready demo of the song is my work. However, I am always happy about cool collaborations, because creativity is always collaboration, like life.

 

Q) There is a great deal of emotion poured into this album. What was the recording process like?

 

A) I felt like I was Steve Jobs the moment he realized he had found something special and could tell people about it. For example, the first computer. So, I had the same feeling at the time of creating the QIRIM album, that I found something that people definitely don’t know yet, but it definitely deserves their attention. Eighty musicians participated in the creation of the album. The conductors, the film crew, we were all in some amazing process of creation. When the recording day ended, somehow, we all even felt sad and wondered if there would be a continuation.

 

Q) What kind of response have you been getting from the fans about the album? Tears? Applause?

 

A) There were many favorable reviews and many people asked where they could listen to it because these songs are not the kind that you can do sports and listen to, or they are often played on pop radio stations.

How to approach this? It’s, you know, like some truffle you were given or some wine that’s a hundred years old and you think maybe you shouldn’t open it because you just need to preserve it. The reaction to my album was about as cautious. At the same time, everyone was having a skin crawl that it was something that they definitely did not know and did not know how to relate to these songs. Many cried and there were ants, and there was a smile and there was applause. A special moment was in Liverpool when twenty thousand people in the open air applauded me when I sang them completely unfamiliar songs.

 

Q) What do you hope listeners take away from listening to QIRIM as a whole? Hope? Change?

 

A) I can say that this is the first biggest modern album of Crimean Tatar music. In it, I explore the mentality and uniqueness of the Crimean Tatar melody, the Crimean Tatar meanings and what I found from different corners of fourteen places, which united in this album. These songs can give us a good indication of what the Crimean Tatars were like, what they thought about, what they sang about and where they were. This is my research work. I found a lot of the same thoughts in these lyrics, despite the different meanings of the songs, I found that mental trait that is responsible for loyalty, that is responsible for desperation and temperament. These are the themes of losing a home, loyalty to a loved one, caring for a family, thoughts of suicide, religiosity and so on. That is, they are completely different. But the general theme is to raise and tell the truth that has been unrevealed and unknown for many centuries. Or they constantly tried to silence her, hide her.

 

Q) Where are some of your favorite places to perform and what makes those locations so significant to you?

 

A) I really love the festival stage and outdoor performance stage. Because there is always a completely different atmosphere. For example, Glastonbury is a festival in Great Britain with an incredibly large number of people. When you perform for them, you understand that all these people came there to really live three days with music. In fact, each and every place by itself doesn’t really mean anything because the most important thing at every concert is the people. People are doing a concert. Not a stage.

 

Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?

 

A) I think it could be James Blake, Bjork, Madonna or Hozier, who I was really fortunate to work with during the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors. Together we sang at the closing of the ceremony. We sang a U2 song together and it was amazing. You can listen to how it was on the Internet.

 

Q) What artist/musician are you currently listening to and what makes them so special to you? 

 

A) I listened to Jorja Smith’s new album today. She is a very interesting singer, in my opinion. I also really like the singer Erykah Badu and constantly listen to new selections of songs for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

 

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

 

A) I would really like you to listen to my QIRIM album, whether you are familiar with my work or not. I wish you would give this album at least a minute to listen to and I’m sure you won’t be turned off any further. Be sure to also find music for you that will help you dream and inspire you.

My message is that my album is in a language unfamiliar to Americans, just as English was unfamiliar to me at the time in my village in the Crimea, where I spent my childhood. But in this music, I found truth, inspiration and the impetus to live. This is exactly what I want to offer in years to come. Yes, although I grew up on Ella Fitzgerald’s “Lullaby of Birdland,” now I want to offer the American public to listen to Crimean Tatar music, which can be an inspiration for someone in New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore or another city in the USA. And maybe just as I fell asleep to “Lullaby of Birdland,” someone will put their children to one of my songs from the QIRIM album.