New band of the weekMusic This article is more than 7 years oldNew band of the week: Ojerime (No 134) – murky, melancholic R&B
This article is more than 7 years oldThis musical poet of south London’s city streets offers a distinctly British take on quiet-storm soul and noir R&B
The Guardian’s product and service reviews are independent and are in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative. We will earn a commission from the retailer if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.
Hometown: Brockley, south London.
The lineup: Ojerime (vocals).
The background: R&B is the dominant force in music right now, given albums of the year lists in 2016 were dominated by Frank Ocean, Beyoncé, Solange, Rihanna, etc – and the year’s bestselling records came from the likes of Drake and the Weeknd. Which makes Ojerime either very brave, or very foolish, stepping into such a thriving, competitive market. But she’s coming at it from an angle – a 1990s/00s angle. The 22-year-old fashion promotion graduate grew up loving Destiny’s Child, Brandy and SWV (her voice, the tone and cadence, is apparently modelled on Cheryl “Coko” Gamble’s) as well as Keith Sweat and Blackstreet – “all the 90s dons”, she says (although she insists she didn’t consciously listen to an Aaliyah record till 2014). And she claims to be offering a new take on that era’s R&B, with an attendant focus on old-school MTV Base-style music videos for her imagery and visuals.
But it’s also a British angle. Has there ever been a UK female exponent of this sort of retro/quasi/avant/neo-R&B? SZA, Kelela, Jessy Lanza, Jhené Aiko, Syd tha Kyd and the rest are all American or Canadian. Ojerime – a south Londoner of Jamaican and Nigerian parentage – is doing something quite different; quite dark. Of her homegrown (female) peers, Nao is more poppy, twigs more arty. What Ojerime has done over her two EPs to date – Silhouette and Fang2001 – is conjure a sustained atmosphere of murky melancholia. She’s done it using beats found online, with a variety of producers, including the highly regarded Evans. “I’m still waiting for my Boy-1da,” she says of Drake’s regular studio wingman. “It would be so much easier to find someone I connect with in that way.” She’s not doing badly. There are doubtless details and depth missing from a more expensive set-up, but from where we’re listening – on the move, via a laptop, through bluetooth headphones, with the bass and treble turned up – the sound she and her team have come up with, from a bedroom in Brockley, is worthy of the finest studios in Toronto and New York.
You wouldn’t know this music wasn’t from Toronto and New York, such is its sophistication and matt sheen, and the immaculacy of Ojerime’s vocals, all parochial vestiges polished away. But there is the odd bit of vernacular and allusion to things local to remind you of its provenance. Take 56 Plate Corsa – Ojerime insists the title, and lyrical references to driving through the capital at night, feeling sad and lonely because everyone she sees is all “loved up”, weren’t deliberate attempts to make a Brit version of shiny urban music from North America. “It’s authentic,” she argues. The lyrics are riddled with such mild provocations: “Shouldn’t be fuckin’ with you this way,” she sings over muffled backwards-tape moans on R U Sure, while on Showing You Off she admits, “You can see that I have a taste for darkness.” “There was a lot of uncertainty in my life when I wrote those,” she explains of the songs on the Silhouette EP, “to do with guys in my life. A pattern emerged … Their intentions were not very clear … So I did a lot of writing.”
On Lights On/Lights Outro – featuring, somewhat disconcertingly, a sample from Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit – the melody creeps up on you like fog at night. On Standby she seems woozy, as though she’s singing in a narcotised state. Her second EP, Fang2001, another cohesive mood piece, is so-called because as a child she had “canine teeth – they were long and sharp, but I learned to embrace it. That’s my tagline now. I’m small but sharp, and people know that.” Creeplude is a fug of messed-up soul samples on which she sings in a low Mogadon mumble. Ojerime – who was involved in every aspect of her work, from the music and lyrics to the photography and videography (she even made sure the few hard copies available of her EPs came with a photo book, “like you’d get with an album from 2000”) – gives her murk a glamorous gloss. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. The track Kids With Depression is about her. “I’ve suffered from depression on and off since secondary school, and it can be overwhelming,” she reveals. “I can manage it more now: I read self-help books, and I’m also interested in Buddhism and meditation, and those things have really helped me.
“If I didn’t do music, I wouldn’t be as depressed,” she adds. “Being in the music industry at first made me feel like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. The pressure … Your self-esteem can be lowered at any point. There are a lot of triggers, especially through social media. So I wrote that song based on being in the music industry: it brought out insecurities and anxieties I didn’t even know I had.”
In her own way, through her fractured downer sound (not downtempo – that suggests it’s mellow when it’s anything but), quietly stormy soul and lovers bass balladry, Ojerime is turning turning the idea of the together, confident R&B artist – even one confident of their neuroses and dark urges – on its head. “I’m not saying I don’t have those qualities,” she cautions. “But don’t envy me from what you see on the outside. Don’t believe I’m better than you or having a better time. It’s easy to be envious of someone and think they’re having a better life. But you actually never know.”
The buzz: “Ojerime is your new favourite 90s-inspired R&B star.”
The truth: She’s Aaliyah if she was from Brockley not Brooklyn.
Most likely to: Take you on a journey.
Least likely to: Drive a 56 Corsa.
What to buy: Fang2001 is available on Bandcamp and SoundCloud.
File next to: Jorja Smith, Aaliyah, Ray BLK, Drake.
Link: soundcloud.com/ojerime.
Ones to watch: Lyves, Silent Riders, Drab Majesty, Idles, Magnus Bechmann.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEoKyaqpSerq96wqikaKWlqLake5FpaHBnmpa7cHyYaKajnaKeuqZ5zZ6uZpqRo7Fuu8Vmq6GdXayyprc%3D