Music > Interviews

Ibibio Sound Machine

16/01/15

Do yourself a big favour this month, and go watch the video for Let’s Dance by Ibibio Sound Machine. Eno Williams, lead singer and fashion inspiration gets down to the Nigerian beats accompanied by brass and graphic backgrounds. It’ll restore your faith in humanity, I promise you, and you’re bound to be a fan if you enjoy the tunes of tUnE-yArDs and M.I.A. Ibibio Sound Machine wowed the crowds at Latitude last summer with their African folk and jazz sounds and plan to do the same again when they play the Arts Centre this month. I found out more about what Eno thinks of the World Music genre and how influencial the melting pot of London has been on their music.

How did the band meet and come together?

We'd all been working in the London music scene and most of us knew each other in some way. Max and I spoke about how it'd be interesting to try something in the Ibibio language I grew up with, as it had been very little documented musically. That's how we started off; Max knew Leon who'd been working on some ideas separately with Benji, so we got together with them and the rest flowed from that.

Have you been singing all your life?

Yes, I grew up singing in church in Nigeria with my mum and sisters. 

You must have a wide variety of musical lineages in the group. How do you work together when recording and song writing?

Everyone brings something unique to the sound, so it all fits together remarkably easily. In fact, each member's individual musical background is essential to the sound of what we do.

To what extent is your music influenced by multicultural London?

Very much so. I think we are a distinctly multicultural band and that diversity is a real feature of the sound we make. I don't think we could have come up with our sound anywhere else but London in fact!

You signed to Soundway records late last year. How did that feel when it happened?

It was great to get things underway with releasing our album. Soundway is a great label with a fantastic catalogue, so it was nice to be picked up by a company whose output you have a lot of respect for.

You sing some gospel songs on the album. Is religion a part of your life now, and was it growing up?

Yes, I've always been very grounded by and connected to the spirituality that was instilled in me by my family growing up.

Your Autumn/Winter tour is supported by Arts Council England. Where else have you found support for your music along the way?

The Arts Council has been very supportive of us and we're extremely grateful for that - we couldn't have done a lot of the touring we've done without their help. BBC6 music has really been in our corner as well, so we are very thankful to them for 'getting' what we are all about!

Were you surprised not to be nominated for the Mercury Music Prize? I felt you should have been.

There's a story behind that which I can't really go into... let's leave it at that! Obviously it's a great award with an excellent tradition.

Your dresses and outfits are always so beautifully colourful and dramatic. Is that traditional Nigerian dress?

The materials are traditional fabrics, yes; however the designs are more contemporary and we were very lucky to have a talented designer friend, Nelson Santos who helped out with those.

What other African groups from the UK can you recommend we listen to?

Oh yes, there are loads of people doing interesting stuff here with African music on many different levels. For example, you have bands with African members like Young Fathers (Mercury award winners) who bring a flavour of that to their music. Then there are people like Afrikan Boy, who is guesting with us on a couple of our UK dates, that are more overtly African in their sound. And you have other people blending electronics with African sounds such as our friends Electric Jalaba and Owiny Sigoma - there really feels like a new wave of interest in music of the African diaspora building up, which goes beyond the curiosity and discovery of 'world music' that came before. It's like people seem to be much more musically interacting with these sounds now, as opposed to admiring them from afar!

In terms of the electronic side of your music, how do you feel you fit in with the scene in the UK at present?

The UK has always been at the forefront of electronic music obviously, and as a band we have a lot of respect for those sounds. I wouldn't say we're an electronic band as such but as a group we're very interested in how electronics can interact with more traditional instruments. We feel we have a lot further to take that particular concept and are working with that in mind... With the chaotic state of the industry at the moment it's quite an exciting time to be experimenting with different sounds and there are so many people doing just that. The electronic scene is a very big part of pushing into new and different musical territory.

What’s the reaction been to the songs you sing in English versus the ones you sing in Ibibio?

I think people like the little bits of English we throw in as something familiar in our sound; however Ibibio as a language has a very rhythmic character to it which makes it very well suited to music, and I think people have really connected with that in a way that is surprising and very nice!

Can you tell me a little more about the folk stories that inspire your songwriting and lyrics?

They are all stories, which I recall from growing up as a child. Elder family members would often recount tales, often involving animals and always with an educational or moral message behind them as a way of teaching us children what was what! When the idea of singing in Ibibio came up, my mind immediately thought back to those times and the stories, which obviously had a great resonance in my life.

Are your mum and grandma proud of you for singing about your cultural background in their language?

Well, my grandma is not with us anymore, but she would definitely be very proud and my mum certainly is too, yes!

What do you think of the genre of ‘world music’? Is it still a relevant term in 2014?

I think 'world music' harks back to an idea of fascination with the unknown and mysterious music of 'other' cultures. It was only fairly recently that labels like Peter Gabriel's Real World felt like something of a new and exciting thing. It just shows you how fast the world is changing and becoming closer; it already feels like we've moved into a new phase of connection between people that may render the term 'world music' a little passé. I think that art mirrors what is going on around us, so whereas 20 or 30 years ago there seemed such a difference between the music of one country and another, now the Internet has made everything so accessible to everyone, even in less affluent societies, and that certainly includes music. Young artists do not seem to feel restricted by geographical boundaries and in London and beyond many are experimenting with sounds they hear from places that once seemed so far away. Perhaps the zeitgeist is shifting, so that what was once 'world music' will become much more a part of everyone's consciousness.

Ibibio Sound Machine play the Norwich Arts Centre on 13th February. Tickets from www.ueaticketbookings.co.uk