Gq joss stone album
Source: GQ
Source: Joss Stone
Inspired by the sounds of music around the world, Joss Stone create an organic soundtrack to showcase her new life on Project Mama Earth.
While on a world tour in 2015, Joss Stone was inspired by the musicians she jammed with around the globe, picking up different styles of singing, sounds, scales and ways to record. Her journey inspired her to create her seventh solo album, Water for Your Soul. In similar fashion, Project Mama Earth, an EP released last week (TK), is inspired from musicians from her continued world tour (her plan is to visit every country in the world) and from Mother Nature’s gifts around the world.
She has moved effortlessly between genres like R&B, rock and funk and mixing genres together like reggae and hip-hop. As a musical purist, she is on a continuous path to find inspiration to spawn new music. In the case of Project Mama Earth, she assembled her band (Nitin Sawhney on guitar, Jonathan Joseph on drums, Etienne M’Bappe on bass and guitar and Jonathan Shorten on keyboards) for the project that long-time collaborator Jonathan Joseph proposed to her. Joseph had written a drum book that focused on two ancient Cameroonian rhythms, Mangambe and Bikutsi and he wanted to do a project showcasing those rhythms.
The caveat that Joss proposed was that they prepare nothing. No songs written. No chord charts, no game plan whatsoever. The music would happen organically.
Ten days later they had an EP of five songs.
“Everything was really created in the moment,” said M’Bappe. “That was really just a mind-blowing experience. It’s like when you’re cooking. You open up your fridge, see what you’ve got and suddenly you’re creating a great dish. This EP was really intense in terms of creativity.”
@Okayplayer talked to Joss Stone about the making and the release of the album. Enjoy!
Source: GQ
Okayplayer: Last time we spoke you were in the midst of a tour where you were trying to reach every country…
Joss Stone: I haven’t done it yet. Right now I’ve done 128 countries, still have another 70, maybe a little bit more to go. It’s like opening my whole mind.
OKP: I would assume musically it is opening things up as well...
JS: Each country we go to we make a visit to a charity and we make a little video and play a gig and we make a music collaboration with someone from that place.
OKP: I love what you did with this project in that you went in, no songs written down, no chord charts, and within 10 days created an EP. Tell me how did that come about?
JS: Jonathan [Joseph] has studied the two rhythms that are running throughout the EP. They come from Cameroon. They are Mangambe and Bikutsi. He said, ‘I really like this rhythm and I want to make a project with it. You want to do this project with me?’ I was like, I’d love to do it. I’ve never sang on this kind of rhythm before. We never wanted to make an album, that’s a huge undertaking. It’s six tracks, an EP really. It’s just a moment where a group of musicians got into a room and made some music. It doesn’t need to take months and months of preparation. All you need to do, is do what you do.
OKP: It’s like a fantastic jam session, if you were lucky enough to record it...
JS: We put so much music together and we have a great session and we’re like, ‘Oh, we have to put this out. We have to make it into something.’ Sometimes it takes something very simple and very easy and very natural and pure. We had a nice ten days and now we’re going to share it with people.
OKP: I’m sure in your travels you’ve found that in a lot places there are people where music is just a part of everyday life. And that what have you have done and recorded is almost like what some people do as a regular part of their routine...
JS: Yes and because we are from the Western world we may be used to a different sound maybe or we will be used to a different taste. It is interesting when you get a different taste of someone’s culture. It’s very inspiring. I found that you can mix it all up. There’s no reason why I can’t sing on a piece of music that was made in Vietnam. We are making noises where we are part of something that is a universal language. All of these different sounds and styles they can fit together. I think we don’t because it may not be popular or the masses may not embrace it.
OKP: Or maybe the business people, the record labels don’t embrace it...
JS: Right, they are afraid because they want something that sounds like the last thing that came out. That’s very effing boring.
OKP: Tell me about your bandmates, Jonathan is an African American from Florida?
JS: Yes, and Etienne is from Cameroon which is the place where this rhythm comes from. That was a lovely thing because he would tell the story of what the rhythm was. He said it was like a celebration of spring coming and parties. It was a very happy rhythm.
An artist from Cameroon painted the artwork for the album. I found him in Cameroon when I was on the world tour. I was making a collaboration there and we were doing it in a garden, right next door to an art gallery. I went in and I saw these amazing paintings. I said I have to find this artist. We told him the concept of the EP and he made that beautiful lady with the world on her belly.
Shorten is from London and I have worked with him since I was 14. He’s just a master with anything with black and white keys.
Nitin came in a little bit later in the project. His influence is Indian. He’s really into the drum and bass, but also orchestras and he writes scores for Blue Planet. He’s a really talented guy. He came in and gave us an injection of India. And his lyrics are brilliant. Before it was just me writing the lyrics and he’s like this scientist when it comes to writing and music.
OKP: Talk about the single, “Entanglement” for us, please?
JS: “Entanglement” is just saying we are all connected and there’s no way you can split us and stop us from being connected.
That’s how they’ve tried to prove the theory of Quantum Entanglement. We are connected to a blade of grass. The grass is connected to the plane in the sky. That is Mother Nature and its influence.
OKP: A great concept in this time period, where climate change is being questioned and debated...
JS: Right. People think they can disrespect the Earth over here on their side of the world and it won’t affect what’s going on on the other side.
Stream Project Mama Earth below and keep an eye out for when Joss Stone and her mates come to a city, town or parish near you!
Ericka Blount is a journalist, professor, and author from Baltimore, Maryland. Her book ‘Love, Peace and Soul: Behind the Scenes of Soul Train’ is available on Amazon. Please follow her (and us!) on Twitter @ErickaBlount.
