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Osun Lade

Visiting Ghent's Culture Club, the Beats squad had a short but illuminating talk with one of house music's rising stars. Time for some spiritual vibes with high priest Osun Lade.

Tekst: da volgaBabe en Johan Vrancken

Publicatiedatum: 28 juni 2002

It is already the second time in a short while that new deep house sensation Osun Lade is here in the gorgeous surroundings of Ghent's classy Culture Club to treat us to one of his shamanic DJ sets full of infectious tribal rhythms and ethno-spiritual vibes.
So we thought it time to ask the man some questions. His output of the last few years has been steadily growing in quality and quantity, giving him heightened exposure in the deep house scene with his own Yoruba People's imprint, releases for Dope & Gonzalez' MAW label, Versatile, and more recently, with his acclaimed, proper album Paradigm, on London's rare groove and roots dance label Soul Jazz. "With Paradigm, I had actually spoken about a year before Paradigm was released with the Soul Jazz people, and the concept of the album was already there. So I knew already exactly where I wanted to go with the album. I worked on it for some seven months, and I think I made it close to what I wanted it to be." On top of that he's embarking gently but steadily into a remixing career, so far with remixes for Zero 7, Michel Culthier (Diamant), 4Hero, Incognito, UFO!, and Spacek. But in the United States, the man is more renowned in R&B and soul circles and has worked with greats like Patti Labelle and Lauryn Hill.

Is operating an independent label, and pursuing a DJ career, then not a step back? "After a while your spirit wants to be free. When you work for a major corporation, that's exactly what it is: a corporation. They don't care about art. They don't care about the vibration that music is supposed to bring out to the people and the changes that are supposed to happen. After a while you get tired of that, and you want to have more. There has to be more than a nice car, a nice house. For me it's a way to say to the people: Hey, there is a lot of things going wrong. So you can say the reasons for leaving that system behind are mostly political." Neither does Osun Lade see why politics and house music should be necessarily opposed to each other. "House music has, from its very beginning, been about doing your own thing, speaking out for yourself, positioning yourself [versus] the more commercial leanings of music. But the greatest part of the mission still lies ahead, the way I see it. The state of America is a bad one at the moment: Everything is all strictly about money and power. The society has no morals anymore. Over here you got so much more culture and the connection with your history than we do. In America most people don't know where they come from originally. Its a misdirection of life, the search for things that are not real."

So the situation for innovating, non-mainstream music hasn't really improved much in America? . . . with Joe Claussell doing amazing things in New York, the Philadelphia scene at last booming with, amongst others, King Britt and Vikter Duplaix, or the deep house surge out of California? Will the house community ever reach outside New York? "I think it's actually more of an East-Coast thing. The West Coast has always been more about making money and commercialism. But there are actually more things going on in Philadelphia than in New York itself. New York is always the core of the scene. But anyway, everybody is pushing the envelope at the moment and that can only be a good thing." That being said, he does not really look upon his own music as 'house music' or anything else. "I consider myself a producer, but also a singer-songwriter. The most important thing about my music is the personal feeling I'm trying to bring up, not so much the musicianship. Let's talk no longer about house music: It's just music and whoever — from Berlin over London to Philadelphia — is doing new things, is making world music. It's a start, for beginning to hurt those big corporations, who hopefully will have to go away."

His misgivings about current American society and music business are also connected with his renewed interest in the traditions of his original ancestors. Osun Lade is, in fact, a priest in the Ifa cult, closely connected to the original African Yoruba religion. "In fact, my religion has more to do with ancestry than with just religion. It's like going back to the roots. It's connecting with the tradition and the ancestors to seek guidance." He hasn't been afraid in the past, nor in the future, to write and sing his own texts in the Yoruba language.
This spirituality, this incessant going back to the roots seems a rather essential part of Osun Lade's music. "To me, if I sing in the indigenous tones of my ancestors, there is a voice and spirit in those things. They will hear, giving me strength, guidance, and light."

Speaking of going back to the roots of musicianship: Lots of electronic and dance artists are trying their hand at playing live, with acoustic instruments and lots of vocals. Has he been playing with the thought too? "My first album, Paradigm, was more of an album that was easy to digest, more of a listening experience. But the next step is definitely live. It's just going to be Osun Lade with his musicians and probably some features." When we ask him, at the end of our little talk, if he sees something of a movement coming up, people he can connect with, he laughingly answers "I hope so, man!" Let us hope with him, I would say.

» Visit Culture Club's website @ www.cultureclub.be to stay informed about their future events !

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