B Wise
Following on from Monday’s review, is as promised, the B Wise interview.
This Saturday, you’ve got your first ever B Wise headline show. How are you currently feeling about it?
I’m really excited and nervous at the same time. You know when you used to throw a party at school or like a house party and you always have those jitters but it always turns out alright. I’ve always been like that. I think people are at the point where they want to see me perform live in my own element. It’s going to be an absolute party though, DJ Captain Franco, is doing a set. My own tour DJ, Klasik.1 is doing a set. One of the homies Nes, is going to be there. She’s really good. I am excited about it man, yeah it’s gonna be one crazy night this Saturday!
Could you finish these sentences?
You should check B Wise out because…I’m different… It’s a cliché but I’m different.
My favourite food is… pasta
When I’m not writing or record songs, I am… watching Netflix.
Who’d be your dream to take on the road, and where would be your first and last venue?
Let’s start with venues… I’ll start in Melbourne, because I’ve always loved the Melbourne culture and their nightlife always kills it! I’m going to say… the Esplanade. I’d love to come home to Sydney and do Enmore. I’ve always liked Enmore. I’d take my home girl named Thandi Phoenix. She’s a great singer, I wanna have her there, she’s an amazing performer. I’d want to have the homie Miracle on and, of course my own tour DJ, Klasik.1.
B Wise, your latest release “Prince Akeem” produced by Raph Lauren, how’s it been received?
So far from what I can see it has been pretty well received from the fan base that are there at the moment. It’s also been received pretty well over at Triple J and FBi (Sydney Radio Station) and what not, which has been good. The feedback from friends and people in the industry have been really positive and it’s been a good direction that I’m heading towards. The last single went pretty well, however I can already see the growth in “Prince Akeem”.
Rumour has it, there’s a music video on the way. Anything you can share about that?
It’s expected to drop sometime really soon. It’ll hopefully be ready sometime this week. Expect a lot of colour, rose bearers and really quirky moments. It’s really cool from what I’ve seen so far so I think people are really gonna feel it.
The story behind “Prince Akeem” seems to come from a slightly sadder time in your childhood. Would you mind going into more detail about that?
The influence for “Prince Akeem” came from when I was younger and we lived in rural NSW, near Dubbo/Coonamble area. I’m from a mixed background, my dad’s from West Africa and my mum is Australian. While me and my sister were at school it was predominately Anglo Australians which was cool… However you stand out like a sore thumb and kids will be kids and so we experienced bullying – a fair bit of it so it was just kind of confusing as to why that was occurring because I felt just like everyone else but obviously I wasn’t.
My parents gave this little explanation as to the reason why they were picking on us. They told us that it’s because we were from a royal heritage or something. How else are you going to explain to a 7 year old the concept of racism or prejudice? It’s a tough topic but that was the easiest way they could put it.
We believed that and it gave us a sense of self pride. Coming To America was a movie starring Eddy Murphy, and the character he played was Prince Akeem. I would watch that movie as child and I always had a thing for that movie. It gave us a sense of self pride of our background and heritage and things like that. Even though it wasn’t depicting our country it still had all the same concepts.
Because I’m very musical, the score in “Prince Akeem” has always been something that has stuck with me its always been in the back of my head. Raph sent the beat and it immediately reminded me of the movie. Before I knew it I was writing down a few words, lines and concepts and chanting out a little melody and before I know it I was screaming out “I’m Prince Akeem”. So from then it just felt natural and the rest was history.
We’ve had some little sneak peaks at what we might be able to expect on the album and it’s got me pretty excited. What’s the overruling theme to the record?
If I could put it this way, it’s everything from these past years. I’ve been making, writing and recording music for like 10 years, however I’ve only started taking it seriously the last 2 or 3 years. For anyone’s debut album, I think its’ a lot of pieces of them and their growth over the years. It’s the story from when I was a young child up until now and it’s all of those little pieces put together.
I would say the overall theme is kind of like an introduction to who I am. You’ll get a sense of where my head is at and my influences from the past. It’s also important to find something that’s relatable and I believe there’s a lot of content in the album that people, especially young Australian’s, are going to find it very relatable.
You’ve got some pretty big producers including Nic Martin, Pro/Gram, Momo and of course Raph Lauren, coming on to help with the album. How was it working with such a high quality of producers?
I think it’s just been about timing – really good timing because over the years I’ve established relationships with each one of those individuals. For example with Momo; I supported Diafrix about two years ago and maintained a friendship through him. We had never done anything musical together but had kept that relationship going.
Pro/Gram was a similar thing. We’d been introduced by mutual friends and we had a strong relationship, we did a lot of songs together. Basically, a whole mixtape together and we’ve still kept that communication going.
Where I record at the moment in Alexandria, it’s shared office/studio spaces. Nic Martin used to be in one of the rooms next door before he moved. We were able to meet before he left.
Then with Raph, I supported Jackie Onassis last year and afterwards he was just like I’d love to throw you some beats because I’m really interested in what you’re doing. The next day he sent me like a whole folder of stuff.
Now that I’m doing my first actual album I’ve been able to talk to all those people along with my team and be able to get all those heads involved in this project through the relationship I maintained over that period.
Following up on that, why do you think you stood out to those guys and why do you think they were happy to get on the album. Was it because of that friendship you built in the past or do you think they saw something in the style of music you were playing?
I think they also saw the growth as well in what I was doing because over that time a lot of those individuals saw were I had started. I believe 2 or 3 years ago I was making good music but I wouldn’t compare it to the quality music I’m making now. Along the way I had to grow as an artist, just like anyone else, I kept perfecting my craft and I think they saw that growth.
Even though we had that friendship though at one point they would say to me; I want to throw you some beats or I want to do this with you. Otherwise, I’d reach out to one of them and be like hey I want to do something with you, would you be interested in this project and they would agree that now is the right time. That was a good indication of how I’m progressing.
I’m trying my best to stand out in the Australian Hip-hop music community.
Coming to America was your favourite film as a child, if you had the ability to recreate the movie would you and who would the major characters be cast by?
If I was to recreate the movie, who would be funny? I’m a bit of a movie buff movies are something I consistently watch. But I’m just trying to think, it’d be really hard because that movie was such as classic but like a re-make in today’s world… Like a Part 2 or something could be cool.
I would like Kevin Hart in there somewhere, he could play Prince Akeem because he’s funny as hell. I’d need to see like Will Smith in there somewhere. There’s just so many options, it’s extremely hard because I’m so picky.
Lets put it this way, I’d love to see some of the best comedians that are out at the moment in that particular movie and I’d definitely want to see the return of someone from the original movie to play a key role. If like, James Earl Jones came back and played a key role, that’d be amazing. Eddie Murphy, obviously. Let’s say he doesn’t play Prince Akeem but makes an appearance somewhere.
Thanks heaps for that B Wise.
Thanks mate.