By Martyn Pepperell, NZ Musician, December/January 2009 (Vol:14, No:7)
Self-styled calyptro (calypso electro) artist Sheba Williams was born in New Zealand and raised between the triad of Wellington's K-based suburbs; Karori, Kelburn and Khandallah. Sheba is the daughter of a Guyanese storyteller and, on her father's side, granddaughter of a woman she describes as the 'closest thing to the Queen of England in Parnell'. She tells Martyn Pepperell some of her own story upon the release of her debutdouble album 'Sheba'.
In her words, Sheba is "an artist in whatever media best suits what I'm trying to do", and "a bit of a kleptomaniac with languages. It's great to be able to express yourself in different resonances and frequencies".
Loosely translated, this means when considering her as a creative, think of her within the various constructs of performance artist, singer (in 12 different languages), musician, photographer, film-maker, writer and beyond. Performance artist is the critical description there though, and considering the international context she operates within, global performance artist might well be the ideal turn of phrase. Sheba's performances involve multiple costume changes, props, and emotionally exaggerated stage drama. It's all very cabaret, but neo, with a multimedia, avant-garde video art edge.
Cutting a striking figure in the flesh, from a clichéd viewpoint Sheba could be held as visually reminiscent of Skin from Skunk Anansie and Grace Jones, with tasteful overtones of oriental fashion. "The Japanese, in terms of aesthetic, have got it over everyone," she tells me. Looks and image aside though, what Sheba really shares with these iconic artists is a creative approach based around cross-cultural and cross-genre pollination.
"I think some of the best music has been where black music and white music crosses over," she explains. "Classic Kraftwerk, Blondie, Janis Joplin; and I'm quite seduced by that. People look at me and they think of me as black, but I'm actually as white as I am black... in the end it's all a big mash-up. There's no way of saying, 'I do black music', or 'I do soul music', or 'I do afro-beat'; that's superficial. I think [right now] it's [all] coming from, you know, two thousand years of music."
After years of what she describes as, "…running around the world, again and again and again," Sheba formally released her debut solo album in early November (through her own label Afrobombastic Records). It's a self-titled double CD affair that encompasses a studio album, produced by Wellington beatsmith Skylab, and a live album with her backing band The Afrobombastic Orchestra (Justin 'Firefly' Clarke, Myele Manzanza, Crete Haami, Lex French, Lucian Johnson and Richard Wise), recorded, mixed and mastered by Brett Stanton.
The album contains a selection of additional digital bonus treats - music videos for three of her songs (Paekakariki, Shy Guy and Philistines), two of which are self-made, and an excerpt from a novel she wrote while living in Shanghai, titled 'Shanghai Sheba & The China Monologues'.
"Essentially I'm a performance artist, and I got to a point where I put on these shows that were incredibly involved and elaborate, and then after the show; there was nothing to show for it.
That's what made me want to record. And I also think that by recording you can move on... it's a nice way to just finish a chapter, [and] explore some styles."
As that suggests, the album is more or less a review of Sheba's experiences and creative endeavours up until now. Experiences and endeavours drawn from a life which has seen her study art on a student exchange in Switzerland, live for extended periods in Berlin and Shanghai, visit locations such as Turkey, London and New York, all the while working on, and developing herself as a cross-discipline artist and performer.
"It's definitely autobiographical, and it's based on my experiences. I think the biggest inspiration for the album came from my trip to Shanghai. Shanghai was my muse and that's what the book was [about also], you know? I was writing it at the same time."
Spending six months there in 2005, Sheba took employment as a cabaret singer, singing for up to four hours a night, six nights at week.
"I was a night creature in Shanghai, and Shanghai's the most amazing city in terms of its night and the history of its nightlife, and you know, gangsters and opium, and cabarets and vice..." she laughs. "I was [also] researching a lot of music from the '30s, and learning Chinese and writing songs in Chinese."
At the same time, she was writing her book Shanghai Sheba (which she read live on Radio NZ earlier this year), and somewhere amidst those sleepless opulent nights began dreaming up her album.
Work on the release really began in earnest when she returned to Wellington. "When I came back, I formed a band, [and] gigged around a bit. Then I recorded five of the songs, the 'International' EP, which no one knows about in NZ."
Having put together her first EP, with the recording, mixing and mastering duties taken care of by Trident Studio's Mike Gibson, Sheba then took off overseas again, heading to Berlin and London. She filmed a low budget music video for Shy Guy and decided she needed to remake the material recorded for the 'International' EP.
Returning home again, Sheba soon enough accidentally met up with an emerging Wellington beatmaker called Skylab, who was to end up co-producing the studio disc on her double album with her.
"I met Sheba at Buena Vista [in Wellington]," Skylab (James Winchester) reflects. "I was playing there every Friday, she came down, and she was the only one dancing; it was a meeting of minds... We went into the living room and came up with an album!"
Working primarily on an MPC 1000, as well as using a Cubase rig on PC and a couple of second hand synths, over the course of three months Skylab fashioned a smooth selection of wonky, shuffling calyptro-tinged future soul beats around some of Sheba's old acapella recordings from the EP. He wove a series of fresh instrumentals for her to record over at his house in Tawa.
Concurrently, Sheba was working at Trident Studios with her Afrobombastic All-stars and, as she refers to him endearingly, "Mix master Mike Gibson", to record instrument parts for Skylab to use on the studio disc. Once the music was ready, they shifted the whole operation over to Trident, and called on local percussionist Andreas Lepper to add some extra colour and tones to the music before Gibson handled the final mix and mastering.
The live disc on the other hand, was recorded outdoors about a year earlier during a free evening summertime concert in the Wellington Botanical Gardens.
Dicing and delving between afrobeat, electro, funk, electronic, calypso and soul Sheba has created an unlikely and compellingly creative musical landscape within which she tackles lyrical subjects such as the demolition of our cultural heritage (Philistines), and her take on New Zealand's non-existent dating culture (Shy Guy). Her delivery ranges from the serious to the hilariously absurd, in a risqué and thoroughly eccentric fashion.
It's not perfect, but it's a series of captured moments in time, and in the process she's created Paekakariki, a horn-driven, raga-tinged 1920s love story turned song you simply have to hear to believe, surely destined to be a cult NZ classic in years to come.
Looking forward to the next stage, Sheba plans to return to the live arena with wild abandon.
"I think it's [about] getting back to performing, and also collaboration. It's given me a platform to say, 'This is me, if you want to do something come to me, I'd love to cross it over'... I really want to get back into performing live, that's all I used to do before I recorded. I'd plan these amazing shows, and I really want to push it. I really want to push it further with the costumes and the dancing, and the states [of consciousness]. Getting into a state!
"I got really inspired when I saw Sharon Jones at Womad. Just to see an entire audience lose it. I've never seen anyone who can command that, because she's a class act, and the band is a separate entity; who are a class act. They kicked ass at Womad, it was ridiculous. To me, she's a better dancer [than a singer], she's essentially a dancer and that was some freaky voodoo when you saw that. It was quite amazing too, interacting with the audience and having an unknown quantity which the crowd loved. That spontaneity! That's the essence of jazz, and that's the beginning of modern music."
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