Patrice
Patrice went to boarding school in South Germany. Come holiday time, he would hit the highway and drive to Hamburg, hooking up with heads there, and connecting with the city’s nascent hip-hop scene. That’s how he found an agent and had his debut EP Lions released in 1999 when he was just 17. As we found out at the 2003 Red Bull Music Academy, Patrice is well versed in testifying to his emotions thanks to his father, a political activist and poet born in Sierra Leone, while the sweet cadence he infuses into his reggae-soul helps the message transcend language barriers.
Hosted by Torsten Schmidt Well, this morning it’s, as you can see in our ever on going series of old and seasoned gentlemen, we have another very experienced one over here: Patrice. [applause] So, speaking of age and experience and wisdom, success: What is it, and can it come to you too early? Patrice Yes, it can. Definitely. Well, I’m 24, and I’m a musician, singer-songwriter, and I’m living successfully in Europe. I’ve done a lot of of touring, up to now I did three albums, one mini-album, I toured with several people. That’s about it. Torsten Schmidt How would you cope, let’s say tomorrow, if you were playing at a cafe on your own? Would you be able to do that? Patrice Definitely. I mean, that’s how it started out. When I opened up for people, it was just me and the guitar. It was quite a rough experience before learning how to do it; our tour was like in big arenas. That’s when she was at her peak and it was just me and a guitar on this big stage. And a lot of people. It was quite an experience. I was so nervous, the first time I played before Lauryn Hill, that my foot was shaking. I mean, about this much [imitating]. And I had to somehow adjust to the stool I was on so that I wouldn’t shake so much. I was quite nervous. Because you have to remember, her whole band was watching me as well, they were on the sides. Ron Marley, the Marleys, was a little intimidating. The first group I opened up for - that’s how I got started opening up for people - was The Black Eyed Peas, who have now blown up big time, but before they weren’t that known. And that’s also interesting: if you work with people and you play in small clubs and then all of a sudden they blow up, and you really feel happy for them. Torsten Schmidt So probably before we pass through the procedure of that biography stuff, why don’t you just play a song and let the music do the talking and then we go to what you came here for in the first place. Patrice OK, yes, I’m better at that. I’m better at playing songs. (music: Patrice plays "How Do You Call It") Patrice I just had some ideas and I just wanted to realise them. There was nothing other than the feeling or the wanting to do something creative and express myself. There was no other real reason other than that. Torsten Schmidt When did you come up with the language you’d write in? Your first songs, in what language were they? Patrice They were in English. All the music I listened to, all the music I liked was in English. So it didn’t come to my mind to write in German. The other day I worked together with this guy from England. His name is Cameron McVey, he is the guy who wrote “7 Seconds”. And I learned something from him because he would just go into a newspaper, for example, look up a sentence and use that. I don’t know, somebody would say something across the road, and would just pick it up, and add this to the thing from the newspaper. Basically, using a stream of consciousness and associations and stuff like that. Because if you check out “7 Seconds,” for example, it doesn’t make any sense, the song is just words. I think a good songwriter is a sensitive person who instinctively knows what it takes, and who processes the skills to express it, and has the style to make it sound cool. Torsten Schmidt But style, that’s probably like ideas. Is that something that you can train in or is it given to you? Patrice Style is [something you can train] in a way; I would look at what other people did and try to do it differently, for example. But I think that everybody naturally possesses his or her own style. You just have to learn about yourself more to find your style because I think everybody is different. And the mistake a lot of people make is that they are too inspired by other musicians. Torsten Schmidt Where does deliverance fall into this? Because when you have someone like, let’s say, an easy example, Frank Sinatra, it’s probably not necessarily his voice, but knowing exactly when to pause, where to put the cadenzas and all that kind of stuff. And even when you redo old versions of songs that you already recorded, and change these things around, is that an extension of the style? Patrice Yeah, it’s part of the style but all those things basically go together. I think those pauses and melody lines are really up to your feelings, what you feel like doing. You cannot really learn it, you just feel that there needs to be a pause right there, and that's where you will leave the pause. Really and truly you just have to try and be sensitive because I think good songs, they write themselves, you just follow the idea and let it talk to you. Torsten Schmidt So under which circumstances do they write themselves? Patrice Well, any circumstance. If you are just silent and just try and really go into yourself and just receive. Torsten Schmidt Looking at ideals of how an artist works, when we sat yesterday on the rocks in Camps Bay, in a kitschy artist notion way, that would have been the ideal situation to write a song, looking at the 360 degrees of cinemascope, clouds and light and whatever. Patrice Well, there’s different scenarios. I mean, that is one way, but I’m not the type, for example, that sits down in a room with incense and starts meditating, necessarily. It's one way, yes, but you also can write great songs when you are in difficult situations or when you are in a room where there are just grey walls, like in a prison. I mean, I haven’t been in prison but, you know, the greatest music was created by sufferers. The greatest music is sufferer-music. I think you should put yourself in uncomfortable situations because that’s when you will really start working and you have to come up with something, you are really under pressure. And I think, one of the main factors that kills artists is comfort. A lot of artists that start out as great people, but after they find a certain degree of success, they’re getting worse and worse. And, as I said, sometimes you have to make yourself suffer, like, for example, you let the person you love quit you or something. So, you have to remember, it’s basically for a “greater good” because a timeless song lives forever and you basically keep your legend alive like that. Sometimes that’s okay, if you suffer a bit. So, let’s write a song. Torsten Schmidt So, where do we start then? Patrice [picks up the guitar] OK, does anybody have an idea, or which formula do you want to start with? Do you want to come up with the words first or the melody or...? Audience Member The words first. Patrice The words? OK, do you have any idea? You could come up with any sentence or...? Torsten Schmidt Hundred Rand? The local currency. Patrice Hundred Rand? OK, OK. Torsten Schmidt [holding the microphone for Patrice] This is going to be my special workout then. Patrice Yes, well, I mean, you got a lot of things here but you don’t have a mic stand. Torsten Schmidt Someone get a mic stand, please. Patrice OK, but nobody has no melody idea. I’ll just play some chords and you tell me which chords you like, OK? I’m going to play some of my standards first. [plays guitar] Right now, what I would feel like doing in this moment is, I would put the chorus twice at first. I would start with the chorus, then more chorus, and then I would come with a verse, a short one, about 8 bars, and then I would go back to the chorus, which is very simple and straight up. It’s basically what people would expect, but sometimes you can even give the people what they expect because there’s nothing wrong with that, if you feel like doing it. Sometimes it’s not so great because you have to keep the tension in a song. In order to keep it exciting, sometimes you need to put some surprises in there and give people something they don’t expect, which is another factor, tension. And building the tune. But this is about what I would come up with right now. Torsten Schmidt In a lot of the songs you say a lot of pretty nice and pretty personal things. Sometimes in front of a lot of people and they’re things in a way, not all of us would probably have the heart to say them, just in a one-to-one situation. Is this, once you crossed that barrier, is it a lot easier? Or how do you cope with putting these intimate things out there? Patrice I think that's what it's really about. I also think music really lacks this. I think people don’t really show themselves when they are on stage or when they do music. The other day I had a real great experience, I went to a Ursula Rucker concert and she was really just like showing herself. And when you went away after the concert, it was like you really got something. It’s not just entertainment, you haven’t just been dancing and having fun. No, you really took something with you. It really enriched me. I don’t know, I don’t have a problem with saying those things because for me it’s basically some sort of poetry. A primitive one maybe, I don’t know. It’s just the way I feel. Torsten Schmidt So, let’s say you are in a personal situation yourself and your girlfriend would go like: “No, Patrice, don’t give me that. You've sung that about two hundred times. Come up with something new.” Patrice Well, when I’m in a situation like that, usually I wouldn’t... I think, for me it’s a lot easier to express certain things in my songs, than in real life. Torsten Schmidt So it’s because of that virtual scenario? Patrice Don’t know, it’s just like that. I don’t have a problem with expressing myself in a song. But sometimes it’s hard to express yourself when you are in front of a person, you know? Torsten Schmidt If we come back to our “Hundred Rand” story, I mean, we had one line there, probably a second one, what would it take to get it to a three minute song? Patrice The “One Hundred Rand” thing? Torsten Schmidt It needs a little bit more work. Patrice It does, yes, true. Torsten Schmidt Would we look for rhyme words now, or how do we go from here? Patrice I mean, right now what I did was a lot of freestyling. You know, some stuff wasn’t so great. But sometimes you need to do a little bit more thinking, when it comes to the lyrics. I mean, melodies I find quite easy to find. It's just the lyrics sometimes, in order to really say something, you need to think about it. I would put the chorus first. Then come up with the verse, maybe an 8-bar verse. Then come back with the chorus, then do something like an instrumental part in which there would be no singing. And then come back with the verse. Add some elements to it, vary it a little bit, like don’t follow the same melody line like in the first verse part, but vary it a little bit. And come back with the chorus, after that maybe do like a bridge, and then come back with... Torsten Schmidt So we are talking arrangement here, but you said you would need to think a little more about the words. Want to help us in this room? So shall we give the words a bit more of a think then? Patrice OK, no problem. Torsten Schmidt How would you go about it? Would you still strum the guitar and think about the words while they’re being added, or do you sit down, under a tree, with a little note pad? Patrice It depends. I mean, I think I would do a little bit of thinking without strumming the guitar. In a situation like this, where I better come up with something, I usually come up with something. It’s just that you have to overcome your laziness almost. OK, let’s do it. So we were saying “a hundred Rand.” I started out saying: “They want to buy my soul for a hundred Rand.” Can you pass this microphone stand? Torsten Schmidt But who would be in a position to have to be in the danger of selling a soul for a hundred Rand? I mean, that’s about 10€. I mean, that must be a person who’s not exactly in your position. Patrice Yeah, but everybody has to work for a living, and has to survive. Torsten Schmidt We have a person, that’s working for a living, that’s a good start as a setting. Patrice I think most people are. We have to work in order to survive. And a lot of times we have to do work, that isn’t very fulfilling, but we have to do it in order to make some money. I mean, a hundred Rand is just an exaggeration, but just to show people for how cheap we have to sell our soul sometimes. So to look at it in that way: “They want to buy my soul...” then... Torsten Schmidt Pressure. Patrice And then: “Not a soul around in this no-mans-land”? What about that? Is that okay? Torsten Schmidt Do you decide beforehand, whether you will end up on an uplifting or on a rather depressing note? Patrice Not really. I mean, we’ll see: “In this no-mans-land, nobody to give me a hand.” What about that? What did we say? Audience Member One-man band. The one-man band, I know, I know. It fits this situation but whether it fits the song is the question. [Audience Member speaks, inaudible] Torsten Schmidt Are you at some stages afraid of words which might sound too cliché? Patrice Of course, yes. Torsten Schmidt As in which ones? What are the ones you are trying to avoid? Patrice Right now? Torsten Schmidt Right now and in general. Patrice It’s not about clichés, I mean, every song has a kind of concept. Like, right now when I started writing this, I didn’t really know about the concept. But now I think the concept would be, that what we have to do basically, is to survive. And we sometimes have to compromise our ideals and principles. If you understand what I mean. Torsten Schmidt But, what do you know about compromising? I mean you... Patrice Come on, trust me, I know about that. As you work with other people, you always have to compromise. Let’s say, especially when you work with people that have different interests. Sometimes when you work with record labels, you have to compromise. Because you have some weird A&R people walking into the studio, trying to tell you how to do things. You have to listen to them, which is already a compromise or you have to give them the feeling that you are listening or that you are respecting their view, stuff like that. Or, let’s say, sometimes you play gigs, people told you one thing, and then you show up at the gig and it’s a whole different scenario. And you are just playing because the people came to see you. That’s also a compromise. I think everybody knows about that. Audience Member In the beginning you were saying: “Gonna sell my soul for a hundred Rand,” maybe it could be a possible option to come back, when you do the chorus in the end, so it could maybe be a kind of happy end, or maybe some turnaround point. Now it’s like, “You wanna buy my soul.” Because in the very beginning, when you sang it the first time, it was like “sell.” Patrice Yes, exactly, that was it. Torsten Schmidt So, what do we got there now? Patrice The paper is quite small but I would say: They want me to sell my soul for a hundred Rand, Not a soul around in this no-mans-land, Today is a day, I won’t pretend,
Not again... There is this mountain to climb, Heavy load on my back. I put my shoulder to the wheel I feel, Must put myself back on track, The town in the valley, held to my left. This is my homecoming, There ain’t no turning back. And then, chorus again. And then: They wanna buy my soul for a hundred Rand, And there’s no soul around in this no-mans-land. But today is the day, I won’t pretend, No, no, no, not again. As far as I remembered them. OK? (music: Patrice plays the untitled song in its entirety)