Ghostpoet – “It boils down to the individual”
Obaro Ejimiwe is a difficult man to work out. His musical pseudonym Ghostpoet is a swirling mix of influences, which is strangely peerless in its composition. The main ingredients to his work could be loosely categorized as spoken word poetry, hip-hop and electronica; but there are so many other subtle flavours. A blend I can imagine that leaves record shop staff slightly unsure of which section to put his releases in.
It is almost exactly one year since his first full album, Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam, dropped on the acclaimed Brownswood Recordings label – a label owned and curated by left-of-centre aficionado, Gilles Peterson. The album earned Obaro a coveted Mercury Music Prize nomination and propelled him into the limelight with high profile support slots alongside acts such as Metronomy and James Woon.
“I have always had an innate fascination, an obsession, with music” starts Obaro, as I hear the rustle of keys in the lock of his London apartment from the other end of the telephone, “making music felt like the next natural step in my life”. Indeed, it is a step that Obaro has been in no rush to make. Choosing to wait until his late 20s to start his career, much of his music draws on things he has lived through. “I think to me personally, it was right to start things now. My music is about experience – things I feel and read about […] it boils down to the individual”.
Obaro’s tone is dreamy and distracted – owing largely to the fact he is in the middle of a cross-London journey while we are speaking, but this is a distraction which permeates his work. His musical style refuses to rest in one vein and schizophrenically hops around between genres. His influences are equally mixed – citing Bad Dream, At The Drive In, samba house, bass music and electronica in the same breath. “I just listen to everything which comes my way and seems interesting,” he elucidates, “I will listen to it for a while and I’ll be obsessed with it for a period of time and then move on to the next thing”.
In an age where popular music often treats lyrics as a meaningless afterthought, it is refreshing to see Ghostpoet wrestling with a philosophy for the everyman. Lyrics like ‘Round and round we go, when’s it gonna stop? I ain’t been paid and I ain’t got a lot, It’s us against whatever babe ’ drip with a heartfelt and hard-learned wisdom. “It’s about being alive, about being a human being” sums up Obaro, “I am very much an artist who is influenced by his surroundings”. It is easy to see how these “surroundings” are present on the record – not least in the London vernacular he uses to deliver his thoughts.
“Do you think this makes it harder for an international audience to identify with?”, I put to him. Obaro pauses, seemingly caught deep in thought… “Even if people don’t understand the lyrics they are able to tap into the feeling of the track, the emotion I am trying to get into […] people come up to me and say they don’t completely understand the words but they understand the feeling. It’s humbling”.
Our conversation drifts through his Mercury music nomination, something he feels he “needed to achieve”, before settling on the moment when he signed for Brownswood Recordings. Ghostpoet had a meeting with Gilles Peterson’s label after he was contacted via Myspace. “At that meeting Gilles was in attendance. We had a talk and a listen to the music and chatted about where I wanted to head career-wise and how I made music blah, blah, blah […] he was very casually admiring and he said ‘Yeah, let’s put an album out’, I was like okay then!”. Obaro says the words with a gleam of pride; he is clearly honoured to be part of a label with such obvious left-field credentials.
Finally, I try and glean a little about what 2012 will hold for Ghostpoet. After a little digging he hints at a new album, which should (hopefully) be due for release in early 2013. When I ask about future collaborations he clams up a little, “There should be some things collaboration-wise, [but] I don’t like talking about things in case they don’t come to fruition”.
Will Ghostpoet be making a trip to Japan anytime soon I wonder? “I hope so” he replies in an excitable burst, “it’s a life-long dream to come to Japan. If it is possible I would love to come. I mean, I would run to the airport!”
Ghostpoet’s album Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam is out now on Brownswood Recordings.
Words: Mark Birtles
Translation: Asuka Ozutsumi
February 27, 2012
