{"id":8176,"date":"2017-03-08T17:41:02","date_gmt":"2017-03-08T17:41:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=8176"},"modified":"2017-03-12T13:22:49","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T13:22:49","slug":"rhoda-dakar-speaks-to-eyeplug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/rhoda-dakar-speaks-to-eyeplug\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhoda Dakar Speaks to Eyeplug"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rhoda Dakar<\/strong> recently took time out from her growingly hectic schedule to speak to The \u2018mighty\u2019 Scenester <\/strong>about her current activity including her all new fab EP, \u2018The Lotek Four Vol 1\u2019<\/strong> which is out now.<\/p>\n

BUY A COPY HERE<\/a><\/h4>\n

S: So, tell us a little about the new EP.<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> It started out from an idea about when I first took my son to the studio. Cecil and Terry Callier were recording \u2018Dolphins\u2019, Doctor Robert was the producer, up at the Church (The Eurythmics\u2019 studio) and my son was six months old at the time, and he was humming along.<\/p>\n

They wanted to have a parents\u2019 evening, a concert where the music teachers and the parents actually performed, so I said why don\u2019t we do \u2018Dolphins\u2019? One of the music teachers played piano, we didn\u2019t have a bass player. In our first run through, in the rehearsal studio, I recorded it on my phone. It sounded amazing. You really don\u2019t need all the fuss. If the song\u2019s good, and it\u2019s played well, and the arrangement\u2019s right, you don\u2019t need all the extra stuff. It\u2019s a different art form, putting the extra stuff on. So that was the idea for the EP, to get back to the essence of what a song is, so you have a good song, and record it in a good studio, with the minimum of fuss. It was all recorded it in two sessions, in one day. We were lucky enough to have The Black Barn. We recorded two versions of one song (\u2018Fill the Emptiness\u2019) just to show that it\u2019s not even about style in which you record it.<\/p>\n

The EP was recorded with my live band, and that was the real joy because we already had an understanding. I teach vocals and performance, I\u2018m used to working with different people. It\u2019s about weighing people up, seeing what they\u2019ve got to offer, and seeing how you can get the best out of them. There are some people you can work with a million times and still never get anywhere with them.<\/p>\n

S: What first got you into music?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> My Dad. He was a singer; he used to sing around the house. There was always something playing. We had a gramophone, and 78\u2019s; they had a big record collection, my parents. I had wanted to be an actress, and my first job was at the Young Vic, at the theatre wardrobe. My grandmother had been a theatrical costumier, she taught me how to sew, so I got a job in theatre wardrobe, and I was there for a couple of years, and in all that time, there was one mixed race actor came in for one play. I had been in the Youth Theatre and we\u2019d done Shakespeare at the Old Vic, and I went to the Young Vic, which is just across the road, working professionally, and I suddenly realised I\u2019d be playing nurses and prostitutes for the rest of my life. I just had to re-evaluate what I wanted to do. I went into the Civil Service but I was only there for about six months, and in that time, I got in a band, and we got a deal. I\u2019d actually been performing for over ten years by the time I got into a band. It takes a long time to be a good singer, and I wasn\u2019t when I started, I\u2019ve had to work at it.<\/p>\n

S: How well did you cope with fame at such an early age?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> I had been around bands for a long time. I went to see my first gig when I was thirteen, so I\u2019d seen lots and lots of bands and two of my friends were in the Sex Pistols, and I spent a lot of time with them. So I saw how they coped with it, and I saw how some didn\u2019t cope so well, and how one coped brilliantly because he was very grounded and when he wasn\u2019t doing anything, his Dad used to make him work for him. That keeps you on it. I have to say, that Paul Cook was a massive influence on how I behaved in the music industry. His attitude to people, his level-headedness, and I really loved that, so I took after him.<\/p>\n

S: Which artists did you like when you first got into music? Are they different to the ones you were into when you first became a musician?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> Some of them, I am, I mean, I can\u2019t say I\u2019m a big fan of The Partridge Family anymore, but that was kind of the first thing. Very quickly, I was into David Bowie, and that\u2019s remained a constant, although I have to say he went out of favour with me, and I think it was when I saw him cutting up lyrics, and I thought, I\u2019ve pored for hours over lyrics, and he just cut them up and put them together willy-nilly. I was a bit huffy about that, especially as when I wrote very much from the heart.<\/p>\n

S: Which of today\u2019s artists do you admire?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> There are loads of young grime artists that I like, when my son was too young to go by himself, I saw Skepta, Wretch 32 years ago, and I think someone who is going to do well is Stormzy. He\u2019s bright enough to know that you can\u2019t take one idea and go with it forever, you have to branch out, and he\u2019s got a little twinkle in his eye. There\u2019s an American band called The Interrupters, I think they\u2019re under thirty, and they\u2019re like a ska-punk band, which wasn\u2019t something I was ever into, but they have this song called \u2018Take Back The Power\u2019 which really resonates with me at the moment, you know \u2018What\u2019s your plan for tomorrow, are you a leader or will you follow? Are you a fighter, or will you cower? It\u2019s our time to take back the power.\u2019<\/p>\n

S: Which person has had the most significant effect on you?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> Musically or attitudinally? It\u2019s got to be Bowie, I as a fan when I was 13, even before I went to see him. At the time, to be a Bowie fan was like, we were called Bowie freaks; it was so different to what was going on. Also, I\u2019ve met so many people, with whom I\u2019m still in touch, and they shaped my adolescence. One of them, Jill from Bromley, ended up going out with Paul Weller, she was into Siouxsie Sioux, and so we all ended up knowing Siouxsie, back in the day. Essentially, the reason I\u2019m still hanging around with bands is all about those people connected with Bowie. People I\u2019ve reconnected with over the years, like Hugo Burnham, who was the drummer for the Gang of Four, he was one of our group, all have ended up connected with music in some way. I wasn\u2019t one of those people tearing my clothing when Bowie died. I thought it was a shame, very much so, because I thought he was influential in a good way and the fact that he was starting to make music again. It was just brilliant. As I was coming up the escalator at Piccadilly, somebody was singing, \u2018Where are we now?\u2019 If a busker can\u2019t ruin it, it\u2019s a good song.<\/p>\n

S: (Mentions \u2018Kooks\u2019)<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> I was there; I did it with Dr. Robert! We did an acoustic version, we were invited onto the Women\u2019s Stage at Pride, and we sang \u2018Kooks\u2019, and my son was like 18 months old, in the audience, in his pushchair. It (Kooks) was about his son, wasn\u2019t it? I let my son think it was about him. I remember him (Duncan \u2018Zowie\u2019 Bowie) when he was a little tiny boy in his pushchair, \u2018cause I used to sit outside Bowie\u2019s house. I was that mad about him.<\/p>\n

S: If you could travel back in time, to any place, when and where would it be?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been asked this before. The answer I should have given is to go back to Swinging 60\u2019s London, however, the real answer is that I would have loved to go to my Dad\u2019s Jazz Club in Piccadilly, in the 40\u2019s, and see what that was like. My parents met there in the Second World War, I\u2019m sure my mother shouldn\u2019t have been there, but in those days, people just thought \u2018Well I might be dead tomorrow, let me just go and see what this is about, a Jazz Club in a basement behind the Regent Palace Hotel.\u2019 My Dad hosted the Caribbean Club there, and the house band was the Ray Ellington Quartet. There is some great photos I\u2019ve got from there, amazing. My Dad was so charming. Oddly enough, it would have been his 120th birthday today. He was 62 when I was born. He was from another era; he was the youngest of eleven.<\/p>\n

S: Is there anything you would like to have prevented coming into being?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> Gosh. Very difficult, because you want to say, \u2018prevent Hiroshima, prevent Nagasaki\u2019, but I think I\u2019d like to have prevented HIV. A terrible, terrible thing and I really don\u2019t know how it came about. I don\u2019t know how selfish this would be, but maybe prevent Trump being born.<\/p>\n

S: If you could backtrack through your career, what would you edit, if anything?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think I\u2019d really excise anything. I\u2019d like to add more. I\u2019m putting this thing out now (EP) and I feel like I finally know what I\u2019m doing. If I\u2019d done more, would that have come to me earlier?<\/p>\n

S: If you were to meet yourself in your early twenties, what advice would you give yourself?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> The advice I would give myself would be either \u2018get yourself a decent manager\u2019, or \u2018learn about the music business\u2019. I have lost and have been eased out of thousands and thousands of pounds over the years, because I trusted people to do things for me \u2013 because we never had a manager for more than about six weeks, I never joined the PRS. So I missed out on money there for example. Another one; just never reading paperwork properly that was given to me. Get acquainted with the business, and be on point, as the young people say.<\/p>\n

S: What songs or arrangements are you most proud of, and why?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> I would say I\u2019m proudest of this latest EP, particularly because I was in charge of making everything happen, for the first time ever. Nobody found the studio for me; I found it. Nobody decided on the tracks; I decided on them. I made all the big decisions, I designed it, and it\u2019s all down to me. If there\u2019s something wrong, it\u2019s my fault. Even the free download, it was my decision.<\/p>\n

S: \u2018The Boiler\u2019 is such a powerful piece of work. Did you have any misgivings about it? Has it ever proved a millstone around your neck?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> I don\u2019t think of it as a bit of a millstone. For me, it was a transition between me doing acting and singing. It was the only original song we had at our first gig. It was where I started to become a songwriter. I\u2019d think of it as a millstone if people still expected me to do it. That said, I can\u2019t do it because it\u2019s very much a piece about someone like my younger self, I\u2019m not twenty, I don\u2019t think the same thoughts. It would be me faking being twenty.<\/p>\n

S: How did the launch for the EP go?<\/h3>\n

RD:<\/strong> I\u2019m pleased I\u2019ve had a positive response, it\u2019s very rewarding, and we\u2019re already writing the next one!<\/p>\n

Rhoda Dakar spoke with Scenester1964 23\/2\/2017<\/em><\/p>\n

Rhoda Dakar; The Lotek Four Vol. 1 (LTK4V1CD)<\/h3>\n

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