Snippets, like trailers, are baits and sometimes all it takes to get hooked is those few preview seconds.
“Where’s the full song?” was my reply a few seconds after I’d opened the text from a friend contain the SoundCloud link to the first few seconds of Tomi Owo’s “Night Rain.” It was the question from a guy who’d gotten a spoon and wanted the whole plate of the meal.
Using a portion of a song on SoundCloud – a platform that’s more for clout than profits – as a pointer to the full song on other streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music etc.) is a shrewd tactic that will only work if an artist believes in the overall quality of their song. The best part of a song could be used as bait, but listeners won’t be hauled in if the whole song turns out to be a let down.
“Found it, and it is actually REALLY GOOD!” along with the Spotify link for the entire version of “Night Rain” was my follow-up text, minutes after my first reply. All it took was one listen.
A soulful gel of subtle highlife guitars, prim percussions and soft, groove instilling drums form the perfect sonic companion for Tomi’s minty vocals on “Night Rain.” A direct metaphor for rain as a cleansing and bliss-inducing agent, “Night Rain” is a gentle avalanche that sweeps into the listeners ears with disarming grace. It’s mildness on the ear is akin to the watching a butterfly flap its wings, elegant and endearing.
Clocking in at less than 3minutes, Tomi’s wispy vocals bring a dazzling ingenuity and a lingering vibe to the essence of her tasteful songwriting, with “Night Rain” ultimately being a soulful blanket to swaddle your ears whether it’s a rainy night, or not. It’s an intimate song from an artist whose music always stems from her own intuitive depth.
“I’ve always written songs in school, just for my personal sake or just to let stuff out,” Tomi explained over the phone, testing the proverbial waters well before she decided to start making music professionally. Although Tomi started recording and releasing music in 2015 with a project to release one song a month, she’s been inclined towards the art form through her love for music since a young age.
Being from a musical family with siblings who could play various instruments also fanned the artistic flame, not only for Tomi, but also for her younger brother IBK, who happens to be her main producer. With their relationship built on both siblings being able to effectively communicate musically and get the best out of each other. Their already impressive and growing output is only destined to continue aging like fine wine.
Similar to his excellent work (along with Tejiri) on “Night Rain,” IBK’s lush and eclectic palette always acts as the perfect foil for Tomi’s pristine voice and incise lyrics, helping define and expand the ‘Alternative Soul’ genre Tomi ascribes to her music on her website*.
Candid writing, controlled but highly emotive vocals and a continuously lush sonic carpet (mostly hewn by IBK) are the factors combined together on the excellent Pieces – the one month a song project which spawned five songs. The only feature on Pieces comes courtesy of guitar virtuoso Femi Leye, adding spatially brisk plucks to “Rora.”
As a collage of profound and brilliantly executed thoughts, Pieces makes a lot of sense as the foundation for where Tomi is headed as an artist. The only song without production work from IBK on the project is “Ile,” produced by Tejiri, and it doesn’t veer from Tomi’s sensibilities as an artist. On the sweeping song filled with a melancholic flourish of swan-like strings and sparse bubbles of percussions, Tomi sings about the residue of losing love and the resilience to not let the pain hold her back from opening up to love again. It’s another graceful example of how her songs are transmissions from her heart to that of her listener’s.
Tomi Owo at Basement Gig
A major part of Tomi’s charm is her voice and how she works it to express her great writing. Her collection of cover songs Nostalgia Sessions, immensely displays this quality. The songs covered range between genres and across generations, but in paying homage to “music that lives forever,” Tomi’s voice gives the short collection a gleaming and even quality. Guitars twang and whirr with the typical gloss and gossamer of acoustic covers, there’s also addition of strings and soft percussions on some covers, but Tomi’s majestic handling of the songs is undoubtedly the star of Nostalgia Sessions.
While Tomi is an immensely talented artist fixated on continually bettering all facets of her craft, there’s an eye on increasing the numbers and reaching more people. “The idea is to identify opportunities that would benefit the artist,” says Tomi’s manager Kingston, who equally sounded like a fan during our conversation. With their relationship predating the music, there’s genuine love and passion for being on the Tomi Owó team that I easily noticed while on the phone with Kingston. He believes in her, gushes about her work ethic – which he termed ‘inspiring’ – and he’s also very open about accepting external managerial assistance in order to move things onto a bigger scale.
For now, spreading the word organically and being consistent with the art is their current strategy for expanding. Following “Night Rain” with the release of Pieces as a body of work to other streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music etc.) continues the building process, casting a wider net with a more sizable amount of bait to reel new converts in.
Going forward and in keeping with being consistent, there will be a Tomi Owó LP in 2018, from which another single is scheduled to be liberated “sometime soon.”
Below is a lightly edited transcript of our interview with Tomi Owó, where she talked about her beginnings as an artist, influences and collaborations.
FilterFree: When exactly did music start for you?
Tomi Owó: I’ve always loved music from a very young age, my family is very musical, but then I started releasing music officially in 2015. I’ve always written songs in school, just for my personal sake or just to let stuff out, or sometimes even just to test out what songwriting is all about. I really loved to write so I would just write and read about songwriting, but I only started to release my music in 2015, that’s when it became official for me.
Had you started recording before then?
None at all, I had none recorded. So I started with a project to release one song a month.
That started in what month? I know it started in 2015, according to the timeline.
Yes, I think it was toward the ending of September.
For that project [Pieces], were you recording one song after the other or you already had them and was releasing them one after the other?
We recorded one after the other, it’s not like I had the recorded songs down, but they were written – most of them, not all of them were written. It was a very interesting process, we got to the studio, we created everything together, worked on the sound, worked on the rhythm, just trying to get the whole sound right. And you know, releasing music for the first time, it was a very interesting project.
Back to background, did you get any formal musical training?
Well, yes I did. I went to music school, and I took exams. There’s a music body called ABRSM, the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. They’re global, they have presence in a lot of countries, you just have to register. It covers music theory, it covers practical classes, it’s very comprehensive. When I was done with Uni, that was the first thing I went to get done.
But then, while in high school, I always picked music as a course, I was always on the music thing. Whenever I had the opportunity to select a musical elective, I did.
I checked Spotify some days ago, and I saw that you rereleased Pieces in a different order (the original order on SoundCloud is different). Is there any reason behind that?
The order on Spotify and other music platforms, it’s not according to how we released it. We decided to release it as a body of work, so everyone can have access to it. When we started off, we wanted it to just be on SoundCloud and for our Nigerian audience, pretty much to let this music out and get people listening. It was pretty much for our new school presence audience. It’s now a body of work, that’s why it’s not in the same order. But the original sequence with which it was released will always be there on SoundCloud.
How did you get to start working with Femi Leye? He did a remix of “Night Rain” that’s actually really good.
I’ve been friends with Femi for a bit now. When I started this journey, he was a friend of mine, even before I started releasing music. I’ve always respected him as an artist, also as a friend. This is not the first time we’re working together on something, or there’s a song that has both our names on it. I featured him on “Rora” off Pieces and I also performed at one of his intimate sessions, sometime in 2016 or so. We’ve been friends for a while and it was just amazing when he reached out and said he’ll make a remix to “Night Rain” and I was like “Oh, awesome!” And I was so excited when I heard it, it was so nice.
Speaking of sound, I know you work with your younger brother IBK, and the chemistry is really superb. When did that start?
I left the university just a bit before he left, he’s always been a music head, he’s always loved music. While he was in school, he used to produce for his friends and other artists there and then. So, it was just natural, when he left [university], we just started working together. That shared love for music and also being siblings, we have a lot of similarities. The musical chemistry is very much there, we understand one another, we know how to bring out the best in one another.
When you understand someone, that’s already one problem taken care of, you can now deal with the real issues. We are able to communicate musically and there’s still room for growth, so much room for so much more. We worked together for the first time on the one song a month project, and we’ve been working together ever since.
IBK is your major producer, are you thinking of working with any other producers?
I’ve worked with two other producers, I’ve worked with Tejiri [“Ile” off Pieces] and I’ve worked with a guy called Prince Boom – we worked on a separate project together. I’d love to work with more producers, it’s great to work with people who understand you as a musician and what you’re trying to say and we’re very open to working with people.
Speaking of working with people, are considering working with any other emerging female artists anytime soon?
It would be amazing, really. Collaborations are great and they bring out the best people, and as women, we have to find these avenues to work together, there’s strength in unity. I’m definitely looking forward to female artists. I have a couple of friends, once we have located that opportunity, and we have figured out something amazing to do, it can’t just be wishy washy, it has to be purposeful.
Names of any of these artists that you like and genuinely respect their craft?
There are a lot. I love Lady Donli, I lover her voice. I love Lindsey Abudei as well, I really love her voice and her craft. I also respect Falana, Nana Aisha. There’s a lady called Banke Music, there’s a lady called Bukky – Bukky and I are great friends, she also worked with me on Nostalgia Sessions.
Which artists did you enjoy growing and those that have influenced you as an artist?
It’s an amazing question. It’s cliché but it’s cool, we’ve all been influenced by a host of other musicians. I love Brooke Fraser, she’s like my number one. I started listening to her early on and she inspired me to put out work of my own because I saw how much effect her work was having on me as a person – her content, her work ethic, so she’s number one. There are a host of others that are amazing as well, I’m not saying the other person is number two, but I love Asa, I love Bez and a lot of people who are doing amazing things in Nigeria as well. Adele, Solange, I love Sade as well, there are so many.