By: Jamie Steinberg
Q) Talk about the story behind your single “I Just Wanna Know.”
A) I wrote this thinking of someone in my life who I was really concerned about. And at a point I just had to let go of that concern and hope that they cared enough about themselves and that what they were telling me was the truth. That’s on me too – I just wanna know that I give af about me. The song is also like a personal confession and a communal anthem that reminds of self-healing, confidence and inner strength.
Q) What do you think it is about this song that fans connect to?
A) The beat is unhurried and yet bouncy and it feels so good and my flow is introspective and I’m trying new cadences in my wordplay that give poetic glimpses into my future and past. The track is an upbeat jazz-soul-hip-hop-infused track that captures the brightness of summer and my reflective thoughts. The production is really smooth too – the first song I produced and arranged with my homie Miles Wong. Matt Yang’s keys and Feven Kidane’s bass adds groove and the horn sections add jazzy flourishes. I was relistening to Common’s album Be while making this whole EP, so I hope that comes through in the warmth of the song.
Q) How does the video for the track play into the message behind it?
A) The visualizer is ethereal, set in a breezy field on a warm sunny day on a hill in east Vancouver. I’m congregating with a crew of friends who lip sync the song with me beaming bright. It’s summer-y and it’s fun – a needed breath of fresh air on social media and released on the strawberry full moon.
Q) Your EP sunniest of days is out now. What are some of the themes you explore on this release?
A) My main concern that I anchored into when writing this EP was reflecting my inner world. That lifted a lot of pressure from me to try to reflect on these crazy times. There is processing grief and there is the search for joy.
Q) Are there any track(s) hold a special place in your heart and what makes it so significant to you?
A) The last song on the EP piano swells “Bones” is dedicated to my friend who passed during the early pandemic. I was thinking about the line I wrote in it: “I was just the one who rocked your bag of bones, and when the sun rose, you made your way home” – how I shared deep intimacy with this friend and the next moment they were gone. My co-producer Miles Wong added a sound recording of the Vancouver skytrain in the background. We played with sound in that track and really stripped it down to just chords, that sample and my voice. Bare bones. I love that song and it’s helped me cry.
Q) Are there certain songs off the EP that have been the most fun to perform live?
A) Definitely “I Just Wanna Know”
Q) What do you hope lingers with listeners of sunniest of days – either as a message or emotion?
A) I hope they feel less alone or understood through my poetry. I hope they feel the same feeling I get when I listen to Dilla or Common or Jill Scott. I hope it’s similar to the feeling of a warm hug or like a quiet hopefulness under this immense grief.
Q) What is your songwriting process? Do you need music before you can create lyrics?
A) Lyric writing is tough but when i have a good amount of pressure to complete something my mind will latch onto anything that might spark me like: book titles, the way some of my friends say things in convo that I’ll note down, a string of four words in a book I’ll pick up, very specific historical references shared with clever wordplay.
Q) How much of a hand do you have in the production of your music?
A) It’s been important for me to go deep inside the musical production of each song before it’s a fully blossomed thing in the world. Sometimes I need to make the beat so I can massage my words into it so it fits like a puzzle. I’m only beginning to work more with producers, so I can focus on lyrics. Producers on this album besides me and Miles are Francis Arevalo in “sunniest of days” and Junia-T in “strange maze.” I did the sound design for the skit that precedes “strange maze.” By the way, the music video directed by Steve Roste that features Super Duty Tough Work comes out in September before I go to Germany.
Q) Your music has been featured in “The L Word: Generation Q” and in Animal Pride: Nature’s Coming Out Story. On top of that, your song “Sort Of” won Best Original Song at the Canadian Screen Awards. What did this incredible accomplishment and recognition mean to you?
A) Awards are whatever and, at the same time, it’s nice to get a moment of recognition. What stays with me most is whether or not I felt really good with the creative teams I work with, so I have gratitude for the way director Rio [Mitchell] and sound designer David [Parfit] really trusted what I offered to the film Animal Pride. The trust I was given and my musical instincts to stretch was a gift. I hope for more opportunities to score and get weirder.
Q) Who would you most like to collaborate with on a song in the future?
A) Saul Williams and Kenny Segal and Rap Ferreira and Kimya Dawson and Peaches.
Q) What artist/musician are you currently listening to and why do you dig them?
A) These days I’ve been re-listening to rap ferreira. I really admire his unique lyrical run on poems namely from when he went by milo raps and the production by the wild Kenny Segal in his album Who Told You to Think??!!?!?!?