I’m hardly through my first cup of coffee on a sticky morning in late-July when I get a call from Derrick Ashong, the front man of the burgeoning six-piece band Soulfege and the host of Oprah Radio’s The Derrick Ashong Experience. It’s a bleary 7AM in Los Angeles where Derrick is calling from but he’s already been up for a few hours to get some work done before heading into the studio to work on Soulfege’s 3rd full length album, the follow up to 2008’s Take Back the Mic. Clearly, the man has a lot on his plate, yet he’s taken the time out to talk to me, an amateur journalist still going through undergrad, and so, right away, I can tell there’s something special about Derrick.
There’s something special, too, about his band. With members hailing from Seattle to Ghana to Portland, Soulfege combines light reggae guitar melodies with driving rock chords and heavy hip-hop beats, along with more traditional African music. For those who cringe when they hear about a new “fusion” band, I feel you – but Soulfege, in terms of both sound and message, is deep into a style that is unique and part of a larger, emerging trend around the world. That trend is best described as “afropolitan,” a term the band itself is fond of (so much so that they’re using it to title their forthcoming LP). “Afropolitan,” Ashong explains, “is the idea of, not citizens, but Africans of the world… They are people who are not necessarily African, but who connect to that culture.” They are the generation created by an ever widening global cultural sphere that is not only more expansive but more accepting, and are thus able to draw equal inspiration from Africa as they are from the West. Embodying the spirit of this population, Soulfege creates music that can blend the musical influence of multiple continents with messages that transcend cultural differences.
Walking this line between genres, however, has not always been easy for Soulfege. “World Music has always been people from the Western world seeing people doing something that is not Western pop and calling it ‘World Music’ and taking a nativistic view,” Ashong says, “like ‘you got to get these traditional instruments, and have really wonderful polyrhythms, and we want to see the traditional garb, and it’s amazing – oh my god, I love Africa.’” In other words, having an African band leader, African musicians and recording an album in Africa was not enough to keep these so-called experts from scoffing at Soulfege for its hip-hop and because, as Ashong puts it, “no one pulled out an mbira.” Meanwhile, hip-hoppers weren’t feeling it because the trend in hip-hop is toward gore, not feel-good reggae rhythms. Yet, as the years went on and the band released more music, Soulfege began to carve out a niche, because, as evidenced by the crowds that show up to their shows – whether they play in Boston (the group started at Harvard where Ashong and the group’s second vocalist Jonathan Gramling met in choir) or Berkley – is that the afropolitan movement is gaining ground. Soulfege’s musical flavors reflect a new generation of people who are willing to look beyond their immediate surroundings for “good art.”
Look no further than this site for proof that music fans in the United States are no longer allowing the gate keepers of the World Music genre to decide what does or doesn’t make it into their headphones. Rather, listeners here and abroad are using the resources at their disposal to discover music for themselves, and the result, Ashong believes, is that kids in the USA are starting to listen to the same music that kids in Africa are listening to, not what they’re being told represents a mythical, caricatured Africa. According to Ashong, the current generation of young adults is the first generation that is actually capable of doing this. It is also the first generation that can really wrap its head around how Ashong got his big break: as a YouTube sensation.
In a moment that has now been seen over one million times, Derrick was standing outside of an Obama-Clinton debate during the 2008 election season when he was confronted by an aggressive journalist and his camera. Clearly hoping to find some bozo in the crowd, the interviewer was taken aback by the detail, eloquence and sophistication of Ashong’s responses as he elaborated on the reasons that Obama was a superior candidate. Derrick quickly became the voice of a generation of young people who not only cared, but knew what they were talking about, and, most importantly, were willing to say something in the first place.
Since then, Derrick’s public profile has continued to rise, and with it, so has Soulfege’s Take Back the Mic single, “Sweet Mother,” which checked in as the number 3 video in Ashong’s home country of Ghana. The band has since been playing to packed crowds on both coasts of the United States. There’s no way to tell what will happen to Soulfege, if they’ll be able to maintain their own identity between genre classifications or if they’ll be overpowered by the mainstream machine, but the trend toward African-influence (and good music in general) is certainly in their favor.
Responding to this idea, Ashong recalls an old saying, “a rising tide carries all boats,” and it occurs to me if this man, who has just talked to me with equal ease and dexterity about the real issues facing Obama’s presidency (“this is not a problem, this is just what happens when you try to take ideas into the real world, things have to be smoothed out”) as he has about the intricacies of the music business, continues to captain the ship, Soulfege has some very, very promising waters ahead.
- Mike Rosen
Derrick and Soulfege have been kind enough to let us stream a few selections from their album Take Back the Mic – to download these tracks or hear the others check them out on iTunes.
It’s Afropolitan: Derrick Ashong’s Soulfege
I’m hardly through my first cup of coffee on a sticky morning in late-July when I get a call from Derrick Ashong, the front man of the burgeoning six-piece band Soulfege and the host of Oprah Radio’s The Derrick Ashong Experience. It’s a bleary 7AM in Los Angeles where Derrick is calling from but he’s already been up for a few hours to get some work done before heading into the studio to work on Soulfege’s 3rd full length album, the follow up to 2008’s Take Back the Mic. Clearly, the man has a lot on his plate, yet he’s taken the time out to talk to me, an amateur journalist still going through undergrad, and so, right away, I can tell there’s something special about Derrick.
There’s something special, too, about his band. With members hailing from Seattle to Ghana to Portland, Soulfege combines light reggae guitar melodies with driving rock chords and heavy hip-hop beats, along with more traditional African music. For those who cringe when they hear about a new “fusion” band, I feel you – but Soulfege, in terms of both sound and message, is deep into a style that is unique and part of a larger, emerging trend around the world. That trend is best described as “afropolitan,” a term the band itself is fond of (so much so that they’re using it to title their forthcoming LP). “Afropolitan,” Ashong explains, “is the idea of, not citizens, but Africans of the world… They are people who are not necessarily African, but who connect to that culture.” They are the generation created by an ever widening global cultural sphere that is not only more expansive but more accepting, and are thus able to draw equal inspiration from Africa as they are from the West. Embodying the spirit of this population, Soulfege creates music that can blend the musical influence of multiple continents with messages that transcend cultural differences.
Walking this line between genres, however, has not always been easy for Soulfege. “World Music has always been people from the Western world seeing people doing something that is not Western pop and calling it ‘World Music’ and taking a nativistic view,” Ashong says, “like ‘you got to get these traditional instruments, and have really wonderful polyrhythms, and we want to see the traditional garb, and it’s amazing – oh my god, I love Africa.’” In other words, having an African band leader, African musicians and recording an album in Africa was not enough to keep these so-called experts from scoffing at Soulfege for its hip-hop and because, as Ashong puts it, “no one pulled out an mbira.” Meanwhile, hip-hoppers weren’t feeling it because the trend in hip-hop is toward gore, not feel-good reggae rhythms. Yet, as the years went on and the band released more music, Soulfege began to carve out a niche, because, as evidenced by the crowds that show up to their shows – whether they play in Boston (the group started at Harvard where Ashong and the group’s second vocalist Jonathan Gramling met in choir) or Berkley – is that the afropolitan movement is gaining ground. Soulfege’s musical flavors reflect a new generation of people who are willing to look beyond their immediate surroundings for “good art.”
Look no further than this site for proof that music fans in the United States are no longer allowing the gate keepers of the World Music genre to decide what does or doesn’t make it into their headphones. Rather, listeners here and abroad are using the resources at their disposal to discover music for themselves, and the result, Ashong believes, is that kids in the USA are starting to listen to the same music that kids in Africa are listening to, not what they’re being told represents a mythical, caricatured Africa. According to Ashong, the current generation of young adults is the first generation that is actually capable of doing this. It is also the first generation that can really wrap its head around how Ashong got his big break: as a YouTube sensation.
In a moment that has now been seen over one million times, Derrick was standing outside of an Obama-Clinton debate during the 2008 election season when he was confronted by an aggressive journalist and his camera. Clearly hoping to find some bozo in the crowd, the interviewer was taken aback by the detail, eloquence and sophistication of Ashong’s responses as he elaborated on the reasons that Obama was a superior candidate. Derrick quickly became the voice of a generation of young people who not only cared, but knew what they were talking about, and, most importantly, were willing to say something in the first place.
Since then, Derrick’s public profile has continued to rise, and with it, so has Soulfege’s Take Back the Mic single, “Sweet Mother,” which checked in as the number 3 video in Ashong’s home country of Ghana. The band has since been playing to packed crowds on both coasts of the United States. There’s no way to tell what will happen to Soulfege, if they’ll be able to maintain their own identity between genre classifications or if they’ll be overpowered by the mainstream machine, but the trend toward African-influence (and good music in general) is certainly in their favor.
Responding to this idea, Ashong recalls an old saying, “a rising tide carries all boats,” and it occurs to me if this man, who has just talked to me with equal ease and dexterity about the real issues facing Obama’s presidency (“this is not a problem, this is just what happens when you try to take ideas into the real world, things have to be smoothed out”) as he has about the intricacies of the music business, continues to captain the ship, Soulfege has some very, very promising waters ahead.
- Mike Rosen
Derrick and Soulfege have been kind enough to let us stream a few selections from their album Take Back the Mic – to download these tracks or hear the others check them out on iTunes.
Soulfege - Beans n Rice(You can download “Beans n Rice” for free on the band’s website.)
Soulfege - Johnnys Song