Written by: luminoUS, Editor at Large
Photography by: Edith Williams of Diamond Digital Portraits
Photography by: Edith Williams of Diamond Digital Portraits
On a beautifully marveloUS autumn day, I sat out to join my ETM family at Gypsy Soul’s monthly Ear Candy event. Gypsy Soul sets out to bring the public responsible music and the event scheduled for the evening of October 20th did just that. Standing room only, people packed the urban chic walls of Teavolve, a local tea house locate in Harbor East Baltimore, for the digital release party of Melanie Fiona’s debut album. During an intermission following the performances of that Rock & B chick, Lydia Caesar and musical prodigy, John Bibbs, I sat down with three other journalist for a round table style interview with Canadian born Melanie Fiona.
How does the music scene in Canada differ from the music scene in the US?
MF: The music scene is really different in Canada because Canada is such a smaller market. We have as many people in the country of Canada; actually you guys have more people in the state of California than we do in our whole country. So, it’s a different market. Everything is taking a lot longer to develop there, on an industry basis. The music industry, eXpecially when it comes to Urban music, is a lot smaller. It’s definitely not at as big on a number sales scale. And then the actual labels up there, we don’t have many. The couple that we do have; Warner, EMI, Universal, you know, much smaller divisions and not as many artist signed. Urban music is a lot more difficult to break in Canada.
Let’s talk about the album, The Bridge, how did you come up with the title?
MF: We did an eXclusive release with iTunes today for $5.99. The album is [now] available and I’m very, very eXcited about it. For me, this has been a life long journey, a life long dream so, The Bridge is more of a symbol for me than it is a track title or a song. Bridges mean something. Bridges mean, to me, something that brings people together, you cross from one side to the next on a bridge, so I wanted my first album to definitely be that. I wanted it to be stories that people could relate to. I wanted it to be about real life, about real music, real instrumentation, real singing, but most importantly I wanted it to bridge things that separate people, because I feel like music should never be one of those things. Music should always be something that brings people together so different ethnicities are going to appreciate this music. For me, growing up in a multicultural city, I pulled from so many different influences from culture to different types of music and food and language so it definitely bridges the gap between genders, cultures and age groups. I’m a young girl with an old soul, always have been, and you know my parents listened to a lot of soul music from Sam Cooke to Nat King Cole and as I grew up listening to pop, R&B to hip-hop, I wanted to fuse the two together, you know the past and the present. That’s what The Bridge is for me and I just want it to be that for everybody else.
BET penned it but do you think of yourself as a “rising icon?”
MF: Oh my gosh! I’m rising, definitely. I don’t know about an icon. An icon comes with a lot of responsibility and a lot of pressure, I’m so flattered that I’m even considered any type of icon; rising, falling, it doesn’t matter. It was such an honor for me because I was like I don’t even have an album out, I’m still developing and trying to promote myself as a new artist and they put me in a category of artist that are established, have albums, people know, support their music and that was a huge compliment because BET is really helping to eXpose me to an audience of new people that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be eXposed to as a new artist. So, it’s a really great thing. We taped the special. It’s getting ready to air. I’m not sure of what the final date is but I’m really eXcited about it. It will probably air close to the release of the physical album, which is November 10th. It was a really great series and hopefully I will get to grow and evolve to think that one day I am an icon in my own right.
I know you come from a musical background but how did you get your actual break into the music industry?
MF: I was working in Toronto, where I’m from, just kind of developing what I was going to do in music and just learning the basics of what it was to recording and being an artist and I stopped working with the people I was involved with and I was like ‘what am I gonna do now?’ A mutual friend introduced me to my, now eXecutive producer, for my production company, Title Nine, her name is Carmen. She had a couple of artist that were signed at the time and was interested in doing artist development with new artist. She was in Toronto at the time that we met and she was kinda like, ‘If you’re serious, I like what I see in you, I love the tone of your voice, I love your personality. Let’s see what we can do.’ So, I packed up and would go to California with her on every holiday and every school break and every week that I had off and I just kinda like thru myself in that way. And then I would go back and forth until it became too much and then I just had to go over there full time.
What is your ultimate goal? Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
Earlier this year, I downloaded your mix CD with ?uestlove, which I absolutely adore.
MF: Thank you.
You’re welcome. It basically made me anticipate this album. My favorite song is “Cupid.” How did you hook up with The Roots? I know you met them in London, I believe.
MF: I met them in Paris actually. We were both on tour with Kanye West and I met ?uestlove. That was the day, actually, their bus had flipped over. So, we spoke that day and we were sharing the eXperience together and we kept in touch and started working in the studio and then I said, ‘Do you want to help me with a mix tape?’ and he was like, ‘Ok, yeah. Let’s do it.’ I had no idea what I was getting myself into because I had never done a mix tape before and I was thinking about doing some hip-hop tracks with The Roots and he was like, ‘Come to the studio on Sunday and we’ll figure it out.’ I got there and he had the Illadelphonics, Adam Blackstone, Randy Bowland and a keyboard player by the name of Eric Wortham, all from Philadelphia, amazing musicians that he works with and we went into the studio and we said, ‘all right, we don’t have a date for the album, but we want to give fans and listeners an opportunity to get familiar with the music before the album releases.’ So, we started free-styling music and he was like, ‘sing your song on top of this’ and I started following the beat and singing and improvising and changing melodies and changing lyrics and really just making it a really free-styled idea and that’s what you hear on the mix tape. Very raw, very organic, unrehearsed… we maybe went back to fix one line, other than that there was no editing. So, what you hear is really raw and organic and I love it because I did things like the “Monday Morning” version that I did on that, which is so completely opposite because all of the songs are remixed versions of what’s on my album, so they are different. If they were up tempo they became mids or ballads and “Monday Morning” is probably one of the things that I think that I’m so proud of to date that I did just totally free and I think it was the energy in the room that allowed me to go [places] really creatively that I totally wasn’t eXpected to go. We covered “Cupid” which is one of my favorite songs by Sam Cooke, we did “Heartless” by Kanye and that kinda became something that I was known for and then we just did the songs on the album. It was really a great thing and I’m happy that I made something that people can have and enjoy for years opposed to a DJ just spinning songs they’ve already heard.
How heavy was your hand in the writing process of the album?
MF: In my album, before I started this album, I was completely on my own. I was independent. I was writing and choosing tracks and vocal arranging and doing everything myself. When I started working on [this] album, I met Andrea Martin, who is an amazing producer/song writer, who’s written for Leona Lewis, Monica, SWV, all of the LaFace artist; just incredible. We met and we instantly had creative fireworks. She was like, ‘you are the artist I’ve been waiting for. I’m like, ‘you are the song writer/producer I’ve been looking for my whole life. Help me become better than what I am right now.’ And I’ve worked with Andrea almost on every song on the album, the majority of the album. Whether I wrote it and recorded it with her, whether we co-wrote it together, whether she wrote it, we definitely had a great relationship in creativity and it takes a lot as an artist to kind of feel like your trusting somebody to help you to be a mouth piece to tell your story but for me because this album was about telling other people’s stories as well as mine and making an album that was classic and timeless it was only the best eXperience for me to be able to have somebody who took me under their wing and said, ‘here I’m going to take you to another level.’ I think that’s why people enjoy this music so much because I feel like, even for me, I grew so much in doing this album. So for me, definitely, whether I write, which I do write, I’ve written for Rihanna. I have a publishing deal and I’ll be writing for future artist as well. I definitely never sing about anything that I don’t stand by. That is an absolute must for me. I’m not one of those artist that’s like, ‘this is a hit song so let’s just record it,’ and I don’t believe in it. I can’t do that. For me, I feel like my integrity comes so honestly in my performance that the audience will see it right away. So, for me, it’s always about real content that I believe in, that I know people can believe in, that people can believe me telling their story because if it’s not my story and it’s someone else’s I want them to be able to be like, ‘yeah girl I felt you, that was me I was going thru that.’ So, that’s where a lot of the records came from on this album and I’m going to continue to work with Andrea for the rest of my career hopefully.
You mentioned that you wrote for Rihanna, did you work with her on the upcoming album?
MF: I did not [write] on the upcoming album, I did a song on her second album called “Them Haters,” which had a reggae kind of feeling. Rihanna’s from the islands and my families from the Caribbean as well. So, I definitely wanted to have that reflected in my music. I was doing a lot of music that had that reggae influence at the time and I got that song placed on her album.
Are there any other artist or producers that you would like to work with?
MF: I would really love to work with Wyclef Jean because I feel like he’s got a great
understanding of music and he does a great job of bridging music together as well. I’ve been to a few of his shows and it’s totally international. His crowd is all over the place. The music is definitely international. I’d love to work with Kanye. As a new artist, I’d love to work with Ryan Leslie. He’s probably one of my new favorite artist and albums of this year. Love it! Love it! He’s just a musical genius and I would love to see Ryan Leslie put his stamp on Melanie Fiona and see what he can create for me. That would be really great.
understanding of music and he does a great job of bridging music together as well. I’ve been to a few of his shows and it’s totally international. His crowd is all over the place. The music is definitely international. I’d love to work with Kanye. As a new artist, I’d love to work with Ryan Leslie. He’s probably one of my new favorite artist and albums of this year. Love it! Love it! He’s just a musical genius and I would love to see Ryan Leslie put his stamp on Melanie Fiona and see what he can create for me. That would be really great.
What inspiration can you give to other young artist trying to where you are?
MF: Wow, I would say surround yourself with positive people. Your team needs to be your foundation. You cannot do this on your own. It is probably the most difficult thing in the world when you have to pick up and leave and you have nobody who’s fighting for you just as hard as you’re fighting for yourself. So a team, definitely who are out for your best interest and who will keep you on the right path as a person, not necessarily as an artist. Be very clear about what you want to do as an artist. It’s one thing to love music and to sing and to want to be an artist, but really, what it takes to be an artist is a lot of hard work, so be very clear about what you are getting yourself into and just push. Just push. No matter how many times people told me I should have changed the type of music that I do or I need to do more of this type of music or I need to be more of this type of artist or dress this type of way or do whatever, if I would’ve listened to what everybody said I would have no direction as to who I am so if you are sure of who you are and what you want to do, go with that and believe in that and follow that thru because the more you insist on who you are and what you want to do people won’t fight you on it anymore.
Much peace, love and light
*For more information on Melanie*
www.melaniefiona.com
*For more information on Melanie*
www.melaniefiona.com
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