STACK February 2017 Issue 148

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SAMPHA
INTERVIEW
TASH SULTANA
The third single from
Sampha Sisay’s debut
album is (No One Knows
Me) Like The Piano: “No one
knows me like the piano in
my mother’s home/ You would
show me I have something
some people call a soul,” he
sings over a simple melody on
the titular instrument, going on
to describe its arrival when he
was three, and how it knows
he’ll be back home before long.
If you ever learned music when
you were a kid, you’ll recall times of utter
loathing for your instrument. In Sampha’s
case, there’s only perennial respect – he
loved the piano so much he basically
tried to ingest it. “My mum’s piano,
I’ve scratched all over it, I literally just
etched my name onto the side of it,” the
Londoner tells us. “I even used to bite
the keys. I put markings all over it. In that
way, I’ve kind of disrespected the piano,”
he laughs. “Wasn’t very nutritious. But I
never hated it.”
Sampha has produced, written and
lent his vocals to an enormous range of
top-tier artists (Beyonce, Kanye West,
Frank Ocean, Solange, SBTRKT, FKA
Twigs), but this is the first time he has
written and recorded for himself, and
the result is an immensely personal
album full of bare lyrics and some really
arresting rhythmic ideas – see Kora
Sings, with its rim shots, deep tom
booms and clipped snare, or single Blood
On Me with its awesome metal-bell
breakbeat. “I have a lot of Africa, Afro-
beat influences, Brazilian Batucada…
mostly West African,” Sampha
says. The main kit in Kora Sings
was played by British producer/
drummer Pauli “The PSM”,
with its bones a jam between
the Kora player and Sampha
on “this kind of xylophoney
instrument.”
Amongst that array of
instrumental familiarity,
Sampha gives the most love
and encouragement to his
vocals. “My voice is really
temperamental – I kind of have
to give it everything I’ve got,” he says.
“Some people don’t need to do that
much, some people can do anything.
But I can’t drink, I can’t smoke, it’s really
sensitive.” In behind-the-scenes clips
you can see the man warming up; not
just his voice but his entire body, with
press-ups and on-the-spot jogging. (This
is, in fact, how Sampha worked up the
deliberately puffed-out quality to the
opening phrases of Blood On Me.)
Sampha has previously said he’s
working on opening up to express
feelings other than the melancholy which
he was worried pervades his music.
He admits that endeavour hasn’t been
entirely successful, but he’s still working
at it. “Sometimes I have a lot of ideas
and goals and I end up just reverting
back to [my defaults]… I’ve always got
these challenges, and usually what
happens is I kind of make music in the
face of the frustrations I feel. So yeah, I
feel like I haven’t quite made it.” As long
as that means there's more to come,
we're happy.
Notion EP
by Tash Sultana
is out now via
Sony.
Process by
Sampha is out
February 3 via
Remote Control.
continued
08 FEBRUARY 2017
visit MUSIC NEWS
KEHLANI
It was a rocky childhood
road and the heartbreaking
rejection of her dream
career which sculpted
vocalist Kehlani, both in
personality and in her innate
understanding of soulful
composition. Bound for R'n'B/
soul royalty, Kelahni's powerful presence has
hastened her into the limelight she deserves.
After two highly regarded mixtapes, her debut
album SweetSexySavage is coming out to
play. This incredible creation encourages inner
empowerment with songs of the most alluring
essence.
Savannah Douglas
SweetSexySavage
by Kehlani is out now via
Warner.
Tash Sultana has slowed down the world a little. In
her early YouTube ‘Bedroom Sessions’ (whatever
‘early’ means for someone who rose at the rate of
Mach 3) our excitement never cracked into impatience
as she gradually layered her loops – we were totally
happy to lie back on the grass and watch the way her
cloudscapes shifted, thickened and waned as she added
or subtracted. Losing that ‘slow music’ effect is the
danger of bringing her into a studio, but it turns out that’s
a pointless anxiety because Sultana’s sound isn’t actually
dictated by the limitations of looping. On her EP, the
studio versions of her four Bedroom Sessions tracks
thankfully haven’t been cleaned up to within an inch of
their lives; they’re as glitteringly
atmospheric and real as they ever
were. With the addition of
a two-parter live track, Big
Smoke – which showcases
Sultana’s fluttering finger-
picking, beat-boxing, vocal
harmonies and proclivity for
messing with tempo and
style – she’s made a truly
impressive entrance
into the professional
arena.
ZKR
TOURING
03/02 - 05/02