Tyrese King
Naomi Cowan is someone who is leading the new generation of artists from the Caribbean. These past few months have seen her cross the Atlantic to work with the likes of UK DJ Toddla T, as well as bless the Rampage Stage at Notting Hill carnival last summer with the aforementioned and also Idris Elba and General Levy to perform their track ‘We Run The Area’
Now in autumn, and with a contrasting double release of the rowdy ‘Champion Bubblah’ and smooth ‘Starlight’, we get to find out the 1O things we love about the fully independent Jamaican artist through our conversation and how she has stepped into her own.
We love the idea of releasing a double-single
The whole purpose of the double single itself was to show different types of me and who I am. And also to inspire women to embrace all sides of who they are.
I think a lot of times navigating this world as a woman, you know, you feel a pressure to try and be a bad girl or a good girl or you want to be educated this that cooperate women or whatever but the truth is every women has a part of them which is all of those things.
And even for me as Naomi Cowan as person one and an artist two, I recognise that I had this struggle myself. So I thought let me challenge myself and put out these two different songs.
We love how much of a party vibe ‘Champion Bubbalah’ is
I actually wrote ‘Champion Bubblah’ in 2020 to be honest, so that song has been sitting around for quite some time. I wasn’t ready to put it out when we first wrote it, but was really happy that we wrote it because I was just really proud of the day that it came together, the message of the song, the vibe.
So for me it does have a proper proper dancehall feel, and that’s what I love about it because it represents a part of my culture, I feel as though even though primary my music is what people will call reggae or pop-R&B. Dancehall is very much a big part of who I am as a person and so I wanted an opportunity to express that side of who I am.
We love the thought that goes into her live performances
When I perform live, I like to think about what I would like to bring to the stage. So with a song like ‘Champion Bubbalah’ I can literally, ya zimme, perform a song that is my own that’s dancehall.
And that’s why I do things like mix up my releases and dat because I think about the future, you know, what type of vibe do I want to bring on my next tour. So, this gives me the chance to interact with the audience on another level.
We love how you present the different parts of Jamaican culture in the visuals for ‘Champion Bubbalah’
The bar where we’re at is a spot where me and some friends go to all the time. It’s in a neighbourhood called Cockburn Pen and the bar is owned by a women right, and it’s like her hub. In the community, everybody goes to that bar. She had a dominoes tournament and it just turned out that she had it the night we filmed.
Technically it’s in one of the more unsafe parts of Kingston but truthfully once your there at her bar, Its called the Gold Club, your fine, your safe and to me part of the community in Jamaican culture is we may have violence dis and dat but for the most part when your with good people your good so big up Sineeta for having us.
I just love the vibe of that space, it’s something that she has owned for twenty years, she even fed rice and mackerel on set!
We love how you want to promote female DJs in your work
“One thing that I wanted to highlight in this video is girls that DJ. So when you watch it you’ll actually see cutaways to girls playing music and djing. Becca Dudley from London, I have a girl called GabSoul, who has a trini background but she’s from New York, Lisa Bonet is from Toronto.
So for me what happened is, I had down a party at Pop Brixton last summer and previewed the two songs and I had done it with this promoter called Shabbaparty and when I spoke to him about putting the event together I said listen, I definitely want it to be all female DJs and he was done for it.
The party was such a vibe, we actually put it together in such short time and I wanted to continue that vibe in the music video of Champion Bubbalah by including female Disc Jockeys.
First of all I think it’s so dope and the coolest thing ever. I love to see them just out there and doing their ting.
We love the message behind ‘Starlight’
The song ‘Starlight’ is very much a low fi reggae jazzy vibe but if you listen to the lyrics I’m still very powerful in what I am saying because what the song is talking about is shining a spotlight on yourself and coming out of the shadow of the people.
Once again in the female experience whether you’re dating somebody or working in the workplace because, we are naturally nurturing and we tend to of course put other people before ourselves but we lose ourselves in certain situations. We get lost in other people’s narratives and ‘Starlight’ is about remembering who you are.
We love that you performed at the Rampage stage at Notting Hill Carnival for the first time last summer
Oh man, it was a lot to take in because there’s a lot going on but one thing I’ll say, after I got back home one thing that I was so amazed by was I think for me it was so beautiful to see the exultation of Caribbean culture.
Because one thing for sure, carnival on the other islands are nothing like Notting Hill carnival. Notting hill carnival combines the traditional soca, parade type tings and then it has a strong sound system culture and I think that it’s beautiful, because to me that is what the Caribbean feels like.
In other words when you come to Jamacia you might not see a bunch of carnivals, but you will see the sound systems, the Djs, the clashes and street dances. But when you go to another island like St.Lucia, Barbados you might get more of the traditional carnival. So for me, Notting Hill carnival is the greatest representation of the islands coming together
It’s special because you guys lockdown a whole neighbourhood, there’s food, music it’s really like nothing I’ve ever seen before. I’m not going to lie I was very overwhelmed at first because there’s so much happening, when I got home I thought that was magical.
We love the way that Naomi decided to get into music professionally
Truthly both of my parents are musicians and are in the music industry but that is not how I got into music because I was actually kind of one my own path for a while. I actually didn’t want to be in the music industry but it’s almost like I couldn’t avoid it.
I had hit a bit of a low point in my life and in my journey and I recognised that I wasn’t being true to myself and I also recognised that it’s really up to me to decide what I want out of life, so I decided to go for the music ting. I always loved it, I was always playing around with it but I know I was afraid of failing but after a while it started to eat at me
We love that you can express your creativity in other artforms like acting, and was a part of the Bob Marley Bio pic
I really enjoyed the process of learning about someone else’s story and putting that into me, if that makes sense? Actually, embodying someone else. I found it very fulling to be able to learn so much about someone else’s life experiences and find the best way to authentically incorporate it into my own expression.
I did a bunch of research and fortunately I was able to connect with the person that I was playing in the movie and had a lot of conversations with her. The movie also gave us an acting coach to work with as well.
We love that you pour back into your community
One part of my career that is very important to me is community service and yeah, in other words ever since I was a kid I’ve always been involved. I used to run a mentorship programme for teenage mums here in Jamacia and right before the pandemic, I was a speaker in a high school tour for girls to connect and encourage them. Right now I’m looking to partner with other organisations.
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