FEATURE: Spotlight: Pa Salieu — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Zek Snaps

Pa Salieu

___________

AS we are now in 2021…

IMAGE CREDIT: The New York Times

many people are offering up suggestions as to which artists are going to dominate the year - those that we really need to look out for. I think Pa Salieu is someone poised to strike big! Late last year, he released the superb album, Send Them to Coventry – I shall quote a couple of glowing reviews for that album later. Before I get there, I want to bring in interviews…because it is important to not only learn a bit of background regarding Salieu, but how he is looking to the future. The twenty-two-year-old Gambian-British rapper from Coventry has been tipped by the BBC in their Sound of 2021 longlist; I would not be surprised if he were in the winner’s position very soon. The first interview I want to bring in is from DAZED. We get to learn more about Pa Salieu’s heritage and what life was like in Coventry when he was at school:

“The Gambian-British rapper has many reasons to be happy, despite everything. In the last 12 months, he has become one of the most hyped new musicians in the country, with everyone from FKA twigs to Virgil Abloh tapping his talent. Things really took off with “Frontline”, a gritty and urgent tale of “block life” set against twisting and colliding beats, which became Radio 1Xtra’s most-played song of 2020 to date and amassed more than three million views on YouTube. From there, his tracks only got weirder and darker, with “Bang Out” sampling the silky and ghostly jams of UK jungle favourite, Japan’s “Ghosts”.

Born in Slough, Salieu moved to The Gambia to live with his grandparents for five years, before returning to the UK to join his mum and younger brother and sister in Hillfields, a deprived area of Coventry (his brother, Tee, joined him for this shoot). Salieu’s lyrics don’t sugarcoat his experiences of hardship and violence growing up (several bullets remain lodged in his skull today after he was shot at last year), and yet, there are slickly playful moments that permeate the darkness. Where “My Family” depicts the grit of Hillfields, “Betty”, his other smash track, is richly melodic; club-ready and dancehall-tinged.

Do you think it’s harder for British rappers coming up from outside of London?

Pa Salieu: Take hip hop; it started in (the Bronx), but it spread across New York, then there’s a scene in LA, in Atlanta. You know what I’m saying? Now that’s what’s happening here too. There’s more than just a UK scene; it’s London, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham – seeing (Manchester rapper) Aitch, that makes my heart go... It’s mad. If you’re in the hood, you’re in the hood, wherever you are. Coventry is not like London; there’s less opportunity. The only part I loved about it is the culture. I know Urdu words, Afghan words, I know Somali words. There would be 50 different nationalities just in Hillfields, you know? That’s the good thing, the culture.

How did you adapt to life back in the UK? What were you like at school in Coventry?

Pa Salieu: I was a cheeky kid. I wasn’t a troublemaker, but I always ended up getting excluded. School failed me. I’m dark, my African accent is strong but it was even stronger back then. In those times it wasn’t ‘cool’ to be African – well, it was always cool to me. I was very proud of who I was, that’s what Gambia did to me. I’ve lived in a place where nobody gives you dirty looks because everybody looks like you. You’re not going to take the piss out of me. So when people at school dissed me about being African, I wasn’t gonna let it go. I didn’t take any of it; I stood my ground. I always fought back.

Do you feel hopeful about the future?

Pa Salieu: Yeah. Our generation ain’t a joke! You saw how racist this country is, I feel like we’re very stubborn now and nothing’s going to pass us like that, you know? I see it. This is about unity. I went to the Black Lives Matter protests – it was mad seeing the unity of everyone, I feel strong on it. Music is one of the keys to that and I think it’s going to be a big key in uniting Africa, I’m telling you. Look at (Hackney group) NSG; they’re building a studio in Ghana. I’m so proud of all this stuff going on. We’re all building”.

It has been amazing seeing Salieu rise and reach so many people. I am not sure whether he would have predicted he would be in this position, even as early as the start of last year. His album has made a big impression, but I think his consistency and incredible passion and talent has made most of the waves! Even though I said that Salieu himself would not believe how far he has come, as we discover from an interview with CLASH, there was a certain degree of inevitability to his formidable rise:

“Today, a career in music is allowing Pa to secure his family’s future. “There’s no plan B. This is a gateway. I can help my mumsy. I can make some generational wealth while I have the chance, doing something I love. The energy you put towards this world, in some way or form it’s gonna come back to you. If music is gonna make sure my mum’s calm, my descendants are calm, then it is what it is.”

Perhaps it was written that Pa would flourish as an artist; music is in his blood. “My auntie is a Gambian folk singer. She goes around the world, and she always used to come to my house every year. So I used to be around music, just not in it. I’ve always felt intrigued. I love what she does, I love the feeling she gave at naming ceremonies, weddings, I admire it.”

Of the circumstances that led him towards “doing mazza inna frontline” Pa is beautifully succinct. “I was around life, real life. You just gotta survive innit. You gotta eat.” But perhaps fate intervened. “If it wasn’t for being on road I probably wouldn’t even go to a studio. I went to a friend's house to do whatever and there was a studio there. The whole idea of putting down my story and my message and then listening back to it. I fell in love with it. I still feel the same way now. Everything happens for a reason.”

Pa rediscovered the freedom and space he’d known in Gambia, within the confines of the recording booth. “It’s something special, it’s not a joke innit. When I go studio I feel free. It’s a different feeling. That’s why I don’t believe in genre”.

I am going to finish off by sourcing positive reviews for the incredible Send Them to Coventry album soon but, before then, I was captured by an interview in The Standard from the summer. The Black Lives Matter protests last year was one of the most important social and political movements in recent memory; ignited by the murder of George Floyd in the U.S., Pa Salieu was very much involved in voicing is support for change and equality:

“He has been vocal on the Black Lives Matter movement and attended protests in London. Last month he posted a long essay on his Instagram profile: “We need to start explaining why our lyrics contain so much pain. Why violence was dropped upon us. This was never our nature,” he wrote.

“I think it will change. This generation ain’t having it,” he tells me. “Here’s an example: if I’m running through my street and I see someone walking ahead, I’ll cross the road. I don’t want them to get scared. I’m a dark guy, I’ve got a hoodie on. They’ll get shook. This is all normal. I know people are afraid of me. It shouldn’t be like this.”

He continues: “I had a friend that died. We called him ‘the hood representative’. Since he died, that’s me. I’m the hood’s representative. I’ve seen everything. There’s so much in my head. I need to speak out. I’m not going home, just kicking back. I’m taking this serious. I know there’s a power you can use with this music thing. I’m just getting myself ready for greatness”.

If you have not heard Salieu’s music, then I think that his Send Them to Coventry album is a good place to start – though many would advise one to his earliest work to get a real sense of how he has grown and where he started. 2020 was a terrific and busy year in terms of albums that stunned the senses. I think that Send Them to Coventry is among the very best of the year. This is what Pitchfork wrote when they tackled the album:

“Combining elements of dancehall, Afrobeats, hip-hop, and grime are now par for the course in the UK’s saturated rap scene, which can make it difficult to innovate. Pa Salieu makes it look easy. On “Over There,” he bends the pitch of his voice to inhabit a cast of characters and skips from trap trills to baile breakdowns without missing a beat. “Betty” packs all the lyrical braggadocio of road rap, but the track’s lean, skittish drum rolls, and Salieu’s playful delivery—dancing between a half-sung flow and full-throated proclamation—round off the sharp edges and transform it into something else entirely. On “More Paper,” he mourns the death of his best friend over gentle rimshots and a synth line that could have been lifted from Clint Mansell’s score for Black Mirror’s “San Junipero.” He channels Youssou N’Dour’s rich harmonies on “Flip, Repeat”; the offbeat stabs of “No Warnin’” and picked guitar on “Block Boy” nod to canonical West African pop.

This is an extraordinarily assured first offering from a young artist capable of surprising at every turn. The result is not so much a foreboding portrait of a forgotten, boom-and-bust city, but an invitation to a place and people unduly ignored—and an introduction to an artist who won’t be. Not so much sent to Coventry, then, as visiting voluntarily”.

There has been a lot of love for Pa Salieu’s Send Them to Coventry. I think The Guardian’s observations are especially important:

“Salieu has pulled off his breakthrough largely through carving out a musical space entirely of his own in a crowded market. You can see where the comparisons to J Hus have come from – there’s a distinct note of Afroswing about the beats – but Salieu’s music is largely devoid of Hus’s lush melodicism. The most obviously hooky of his 2020 singles, Bang Out, which sampled Japan’s Ghosts, is absent; the closest he leans to pop comes on More People, with its 80s soft-rock synths, and Energy, decked out with limber bass and vocals from UK soul singer Mahalia. Instead, he taps into the ominous atmospherics of grime and the minimalism of dancehall, the latter particularly noticeable on No Warnin’, featuring a vocal from Trinidad’s Boy Boy. On Frontline and Flip, Repeat, Auto-Tuned vocals are marooned over a bleak landscape of ghostly, high synth lines, minor chords, murky bass tones and dubby echo; Betty has an insidiously catchy chorus, but it’s set against a backdrop that’s creepy and muted, the electronics churning in the distance.

The overall effect is to spotlight Salieu’s voice, which is fantastic and, like the music, seems to exist in a space between genres, his delivery slipping naturally between rap flow and dancehall toast, between understatement and imposing bellow. His lyrics lurch between thoughtful considerations of his African heritage and its place in what he calls “the wild west”, and grimly unflinching reportage from the “frontline” of Hillfields. The macho swagger of the gun talk is undercut, lent a hollow, desperate tone, both by the music and his willingness to shift from boasts to sudden moments of stark clarity and introspection: “All I’ve known is patience”; “I never saw my power”.

It’s smart, original, raw and occasionally cathartic listening. Perhaps the success of a track like My Family – a raucous, unrepentantly aggressive collaboration with BackRoad Gee, another UK rapper audibly in touch with their African heritage – does have something to do with the events of the last eight months: rather than escapism, it feels like a release of pent-up emotions. But Send Them to Coventry sounds like it would have been successful at any time, regardless of extraneous circumstances: it’s too fresh and inventive to ignore”.

There are going to be a lot of great artists breaking through this year; so many potential idols of the future making some very big moves. I feel Salieu will have a very successful year and, when we can all get out and see live music again, he will get a chance to bring his latest release to the masses. There is a huge fanbase behind him already but, as his music and name gets out there even more, I think he will…