'Nigeria music industry will fix itself' - International DJ says

Accomplished electronic music producer, DJ and multi-record label owner Jerome Sydenham was in Nigeria recently.

Sydenham is acclaimed for defining a Pan-African Electro direction within the House and Techno genres, and his music expertise spans the business—with award-winning A&R experience at Atlantic Records—as well as in production and performance with multiple chart-topping releases and his DJ bookings in steady, high demand.

Born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria, Jerome Sydenham was schooled in his teens in England before migrating to New York City in the early 80's to further his music interests with his family there. He is now based in Berlin, Germany running a stable of record labels including Ibadan Records as well as actively touring as a DJ and producing music. His flagship imprint label Ibadan Records celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2015.

Sydenham recently visited Nigeria, courtesy of beverage firm SAB-Miller where he remixed Dammy Krane’s hit song ‘Amin’. Pulse Nigeria had an insightful conversation with him about music, art direction, and the future of DJs and publishing in Nigeria.

Below is the full transcript of that conversation.

You were born in 1967, in Ibadan, were African music is at its core, moving down to England and later New York, and Berlin, did the new sounds blur your basic childhood understanding of African sound?

“Not at all. When we were younger, I lived in University of Ibadan (UI), so there was a record store right at the gate of UI. Right there we used to buy all of our vinyl from. We started collecting vinyls when we were 9years old. By the time we were in secondary school, we were already doing the thing, there was no mixer, no computer, no nothing. We called it ‘Pause mixing’. You play with one record, and one cassette is ready, you release the pause button and switch the thing to tape. So Phonotape.

It started teaching us how to edit. You couldn’t blend in those days, so it was switch, pause, and cut. You had to have your timing perfect. So that was how we started, and then we entered London briefly, before we entered New York. Then we tried to buy two turntables and of course we didn’t know anything, so we bought the wrong turntables.

At the end, the technique centre was already existent, but we were not aware of that. It was only when we entered New York, and then went to a proper record shop, and we saw proper turntables, that we had to now buy it, and start from zero again. We always had our Naija music, we also had our reggae, we also had our Hip-hop, and we had every genre that you can think of in this world. We were listening to everything all the time. But then, at the same time we have to remember that at that particular stage, that is 1984, 1985, this is when house music started. It was a completely new sound, and it had just started at that time.

So we were very enamoured. I didn’t get it the first time around, but when I went to Paradise club, Funmi Ononaiye took me to Paradise Club because he was already there at the time. We went Chicago with Frankie Knuckles Diamond park, late Frankie Knuckles, because they were the Godfathers of House, they were the pioneers of this music. We still didn’t really understand it, we just knew that something was happening.

When we now went to one club in New Jersey called Club Zanzibar, and one DJ called Tony Humphries, he now mixed with full mixing power. He mixed Fela’s ‘Zombie’ with one song by One Way. The mix lasted for five minutes, and then he mixed one of these House records on top of it. We heard three different genres in that one moment, and my brain was destroyed with happiness.

So then we always concerned ourselves with the House music genre. We maintained our Hip-hop presence, we maintained our reggae presence, our disco presence, and then year after year, we built ourselves to where we are today.”

In those days the DJ could play reggae, he could play Hip-hop, all in the same party, and then play House music on top of it. So the House music hasn’t bled into Naija yet, which is a whole other wahala.

We are heading to the quality level where the songs would evolve, it’s not just EDM. We will have transition music, where you can still bring the Akpala back, do the House Music, and everything can be, all the way from Calabar, to Kano, back through Warri, through Ogun State, back to any language.

This is really important, I am adamant about this part. The musical scene is changing so rapidly, that it is really important and very very positive and progressive, that even now, when someone is speaking pidgin English on a record, like full slang, whether it’s Igbo or Yoruba, or Warri. The Yankee people, it is the same thing when a Hip-hop man starts doing Atlanta slang, Brooklyn slang, Ebonics, full Ebonics, we still need translation for that one too. It all becomes one, and it’s very translatable. This is so exciting, and I am very happy about this part of the movement.

That’s the blur. That’s the blur.

You took the name of your hometown, Ibadan with you, eventually naming your record label after the popular town. Is this reflective of your childhood memories? Today, how much of what you practice and your ideologies as a person is tied to Ibadan?

All of it. Completely.

Because Ibadan was a very musical place, and you know Naija song, when it’s a birthday, weddings and funeral, there’s always music. No matter what. So there was always live music, and when you don’t want live music, then someone will DJ. Alex Kondy for example. These are names that you might not even know about. These are the pioneers of Nigerian DJs, Alex Kondy. So when you combine all of these, it gives you a wealthy experience of how you now can hear things, and interpret things.

So we are not afraid of any music. We know the music, and we are still students. I am still learning right now, I’m always learning all the time. It’s a never-ending journey . So this is an ongoing reality. We know our roots, because we were playing American music then, you know the James Brown. James Brown came to Lagos. They all came. Even in the late 60’s, early 70’s they were all here. Everybody was influenced by this multicultural situation.

South Africans had their thing, which under the apartheid it was really tight for them. Which is why they are dominating now. Then we have that sort of Senegalese thing, we have the Zoukous from Congo. All these things are the same music, and Ghana now has entered their special rhythms and so on.

So everything is everything. There’s an Indian word, we call it ‘Funtoosh’, like correct stew.

Do you think new genres can still be birthed at this time?

Of course! They are coming. We are going to make the Naija people produce the Oyinbo people. We are going to make the Naija people produce the African-American brothers and sisters, it’s going to cross-collaterise immediately, and it’s going to be great. It’s still sophomore-ish, but it is a beautiful inevitability. Because you know boys are sharp here. It’s going to enter. It will enter.

Does this mean that with the changing landscape of our sounds, and the fusion of our pop culture with Westernised influences, that the globe can have a single sound which appeals to everyone?

My answer is no. Because somebody will wake up in the morning and think of something else, therefore it will be something else. But, the point is the mental temperament that you are receiving from the genre, the openness of your mind can now allow that to also succeed.

Bringing everybody together? Yes that will happen. There will be a unifying force, it will. There will also be other things happening at the same time. Because everything is individualistic, some things will just be market. Somebody does one style, and they will copy it, and finish the genre. But in between that, there will be even better individualism that we all, based upon our open-minded educational sensibilities, we will allow ourselves to embrace it.

Therefore, in conclusion of that matter, everything will be open, we will hear new flavours all the time. It won’t be one unified music.

How about your first love? Having been in Nigeria for some time and listened to DJs, what do you think of what our mainstream DJs play? Can that be made better?

I don’t wanna mention names, but I think there are some correct guys. There are also some other guys who are just using Serato, using sync buttons. I don’t regard those people as DJs.

So even for us who have been doing it since the 80’s, there’s nothing wrong with syncing every now and again, but to be open you need variables. You have to have variables.

In another way, for example, Serato, Traktor and others, many people in Europe and America are using it, but in the next two years, everybody is going to be using record box. Which is true the pioneer Nexus Mixer. This allows you to do more things, and it is not a computer. So you actually have to apply yourself. It is so easy to use, but it is manual.

Now people are using Logic to make music, soon they will be using Ableton. They will use Logic for some things, but Ableton has more proprietary plug-ins and things that Logic lacks. So the smarted it gets, the more people will move to the smarter things.

But because of the market, especially in Naija, there will be a delay, but it’s inevitable.

What’s your advice to DJs in acquiring this skillset?

You have to listen to all sorts of music. It doesn’t mean that you have to play it. Listen to as many styles as music, every form of music that we know as black music. Rock N’ Roll is black, even Punk Rock is black. Every African in this world can claim Oyinbo music, because it’s black music who invented it in the first place. Even the Piano.

If you allow yourself as a consumer, to open your mind to all forms of music, it will help you as a DJ. You won’t have to play those things, but it will help you as a DJ. Just open up you ears, your mind, your periphery. In the end, even if you are just playing Hip-hop, you will have a better selection of only Hip-hop.

In 1989, you were recruited into the prestigious A&R division of Atlantic Records, where you honed your skills in label management, and blew a number of artistes? What do you think about Nigerian Record labels? Do you think we have it right? Can we ever get it right? How?

Of course, because it’s business. It’s the music business, the record business. Is it not business at the end of it?

Everybody is sharp here. All the union problems with intellectual property, publishing, writers and all the stuff that everybody is fighting about now, it’ll fix itself.

Because it has to. Another person who is sharper than another person would say let’s organize it properly, let’s put in structure, let’s make it fair. Nigeria will fix itself.

So down to ‘Amin’ Remix. Why did you choose to remix that of all the sounds?

Out of the many tracks that were sent to me, I like that one. It’s a very positive track, it’s a good song, very well-produced, and I just attached myself to it. And then we can lift it a little without spoiling the rhythm, the source vibe and the message.

According to Dammy Krane, he said he liked it. He gave us two thumbs up. Two thumbs up.

How much potential do you think this remix does for the song, and consequently the artiste?

We don’t calculate it like that. It is a new document. That new musical document, let it just be itself, grow to where it wants to, reach where it wants to reach. We are not looking like let it rush to chart. Let it rush to internet.

So with this, should Nigeria expect more of these collaborations with you?

It’s all one by one. No body of work, bit by bit. There won’t be any compilations yet. It is better piece by piece.

Prior to Dammy Krane, why haven’t you worked with a Nigerian artiste?

Because we were busy doing what we were doing. We were busy doing our own world, which is another too much wahala in itself. Every time, every studio session, I’m already fully booked with my own self-development, with my own expansion of my publishing.

There’s no time for anything. We always want to, so now there is a sort of synergy occurring, we’ll do it.

Are you considering setting up your record label in Nigeria?

Absolutely. We are not going to do it under the banner of Ibadan Records, we will do it in the form of the publishing area, so that we can help the younger artistes make sure they don’t get ripped off by record labels. We are going to do it in a different way, so that we can be completely international.

To do a record label in Nigeria is too labour intensive, if you are not already doing it.

We’ll help the artiste with the writers, we’ll help the writers with the producers, to make sure that the music gets to Europe, Asia and America. We’ll some sort of business like that, and in a fair, honest position, so that everybody gets their due.