Name: Nadeem Din-Gabisi
Nationality: Sierra Leonean-British
Occupation: Audio-visual artist, poet
Recent release: Nadeem Din-Gabisi's new album OFFSHORE is out via Moshi Moshi.
Recommendation for Bedford, UK: Green Earth Cafe, one of the best Vegan places in the UK!
Topics that I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I don’t get to talk a lot about anime! I have many favourites, from Samurai Champaloo to Legend of the Galactic Heroes to Berserk to Death Note. Sakamoto Days is one my favourites at the moment. I like fun, serious, silliness! Shove some some history and politics in there as well, into the anime that is, Vinland Saga is a masterpiece.
I really enjoy reading, I have soft spot for biographies, memoirs, Kwame Ture’s - Ready for Revolution is a favourite, Patti Smith - Just Kids kinda kick started the obsession and I remember reading my mums copy of Sidney Pottiers autobiography when I was younger and being hooked.
Shaolin Qi Gong, I don’t practice as much as I should but it’s a big influence on me, Shifu Yan Lei’s books, DVDs, are very very good! Also in the same vein, Yoga, exercise, keeping healthy, it’s something I really enjoy doing, the solitude and the concentration and the self discipline.

If you enjoyed this Nadeem Din-Gabisi interview and would like to stay up to date with his music, visit him on Instagram, tiktok, and Soundcloud. 
 


Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?
 
Yes, my interest in writing was sparked by a number of early musical experiences.

One of these experiences was attending my Anglo-Catholic Church (St Peters in Streatham) and being fascinated with reading the hymn book and singing hymns in Latin and in English. I eventually joined the choir after a member of the congregation suggested I join after hearing me sing (easily flattered!).

One of my favourite hymns was “Lord Of The Dance” by Sydney Carter.
 


Then, a bit later, my interest in lyrics was sparked by my introduction to Hip-Hop.

It was the first time I had heard artists convey complex emotions in a song. Songs that spoke to frustration, sadness, joy, nostalgia in a manner that I understood and painted such vivid scenes of theirs and others lives, whether it be rooted in hyper realism, fantasy or something in between.

“Mind Playing Tricks on Me" by Geto Boys is a brilliant piece of storytelling.
 


Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?
 
I’m drawn to the alchemical nature of writing, the fact that I can take a pen or open a word document, and literally create a new world. A world that has not existed prior and may not exist again. There’s a strange private, personal power to writing. It’s something that can be done without many resources, it’s relatively accessible.
 
When I talk of writing, I don’t just mean it in a literal sense, oral storytelling, singing, can all be forms of ‘writing’, of communication. That’s really the other thing that I’m drawn to, communication through writing, you can really play with who and what you are talking to, how you are talking.

The play and fun of writing is such an important part of my work and it’s such a vast and unconquerable field that I’ll always find joy in writing.
 
What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?
 
So early on it would be very Hip-Hop centric, 2Pac's - Me Against The World and Nas’ - Ilmatic.

What inspired me with Nas work was how vivid the worlds he painted were/are (“N.Y. State of Mind” and “One Love” are great examples of this).



What inspired me about 2Pac’s work was his ability to convey his feelings, to pull at heart strings to make you feel his pain, his fraughtness but also his joy and playfulness and reverence.



The song, “Old School” is an example of the joy and the reverence.

What moves me in the lyrics of other artists, is whether the lyrics can make me feel something, can the lyrics surprise me as well, and can the artists paint worlds that are new to me.
 
Have there been song lyrics which actually made you change (aspects of) your life? If so, what do you think, leant them that power?
 
I would say yes and no.

I don’t think any song lyric by itself has made me change any aspects of my life, I think what has happened at times, is the music I have gravitated towards and been more open to has spoken to the direction I want my life to take and there is a symbiosis between what I have heard and where I want to go.
 
So when I first listened to and seriously engaged with Marvin Gaye’s - What’s Going On, the whole album really, I was at a time in my life, where I wanted to hear this, wanted to question and investigate the things I held dear and wanted to be fundamentally a better a more rounded person and the album provided a soundtrack of sorts to that journey.



Another more specific example in terms of one song would be, Jimmy Cliffs - “Keep Your Eyes On The Sparrow,” which is just a very uplifting, keep on going song.



Those are some of my favourite genre of song, Curtis Mayfield’s - “Keep On Keeping On” is another example of this!
 


It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?
 
I don’t really know! I don’t really understand that phrase.

Words can be musical as well. Also I don’t really ever see words ending.
 
I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?
 
I think what draws me more to music is its accessibility. You don’t need to be able to read or speak the language of the music you’re listening to to be able to enjoy it, feel, and get something from it.

A lot of songs in languages I don’t understand, I feel them first and then I’ll take a look at the translations and  discover what I have been feeling is in the lyrics and the further I travel down that rabbit hole the more I enjoy the journey.
 
I enjoy a lot of Brazilian music from the 60s and 70s and there’s a song written by Walter Franco, called, “Me Deixe Mudo,” (Render me Speechless). The version I know is performed by Chico Buarque (I buy all the Chico Buarque albums I see).



The song is very jumpy and angular, paradoxical but beautiful and the translations are essentially surmising that the song speaks to feeling comfortable even if you are just starting.
 
The relationship between words and music has always intrigued me. How do you see it? In how far can music take you to places with your writing you would possibly not have visited without it?
 
I feel my relationship to music and writing is a bit odd.

Some of my lyrics I don’t write to music, I just write and then I fit them to music afterwards. Sometimes I’ll demo songs to pre existing instrumentals that are different to the final song, some songs I’m a part of the workshopping and production process from beginning to end and sometimes people have sent me instrumentals that I write to and I suggest changes here and there that alter the music. It really depends on the song.

What the music can do is influence pocket, rhyming patterns and melody that can really have me thinking outside of the box.
 
What are areas/themes/topics that you keep returning to in your lyrics?
 
Belonging, identity, home, what home is, what home isn’t, memory, childhood, the impacts of colonialism on me, my family and my place in it, earthly responsibility, what are we on the planet for, climate change .. oysters ...

On the basis of a piece off OFFSHORE, tell me about how the lyrics grew into their final form and what points of consideration were.
 
So the thing with lyrics is often time I don’t really remember the origin points exactly. But with “Shade” I have a bit of a better recollection.

I was inspired to write it listening to a live performance of Moses Molelekwa’s song, “Mountain Shade,” and channeled a sort of fictional reimagining of elements of his life, interspersed with details of my own. And in there somewhere is my relationship to England and Great Britain.



Not everything in writing or lyric making is cerebral. Sometimes the spirit comes and you answer it.

In many ways I feel I am always channeling something. So there is an intention but there is also allowing or giving the world enough space to talk to you, being able to listen. So you can talk back, that’s the conversation …
 
Do you tend to start writing with what will be the first line of the finished lyrics? The chorus? At a random point? What are the words that set the process in motion?
 
Sometimes the first line of the first verse is the beginning of the song, sometimes it’s the chorus.

With the song “Enter Claim,” it was the first lines of the first verse, ‘Can’t get justice in war, let alone peace, man be shotting offshore tryna find peace/piece’, and this became the basis for all the verses.
 


My righteous indignation of the world not being a fair place for all oppressed and marginalised peoples, whether that’s in times of peace or war and the illegal activities some members of these marginalised groups find themselves having to engage in, trying to find a piece/peace.
 
This was written reflecting on members of my family, people I’ve known/know and myself, the reality is it’s almost impossible for African people to be on equal footing in a world that was not designed for their success.

Yet the chorus of “Enter Claim” is somewhat challenging that in saying (in Krio/language in Sierra Leone), that time is limited and you/we/us should go out and shine our light.
 
I'd love to know how you think the meaning or effect of an individual song is enhanced, clarified or possibly contradicted by the EPs, or albums it is part of. Does the song, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?
 
I think albums, and EPs are like people - they are walking, talking contradictions.

I feel an album for me should be a good conversation between songs, weave an interesting overt or covert narrative that is engaging and moving. I feel if an album is effective all the songs should provide better clarity and context for the other songs.

But an album doesn’t have to linear, life isn’t! As my friend, photographer, writer, David Kwaw Mensah says, “There are no straight lines” - so make the lines interesting!
 
When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?
 
100 percent, I see very much a connection between my voice and the text.

I feel it’s taken me a while to develop my voice and perhaps that’s why I only started to feel confident in writing and releasing music after my voice had developed. I don’t want to sound or write like anybody else, it’s important that what I’m channeling through me is me!
 
However contradictory or straightforward, that me is. I feel comfortable performing other people's songs once I’ve digested the lyrics and the context and applied it to my own lived experienced, then I can do someone else’s words justice.
 
I would love to know a little about the feedback you've received from listeners or critics about what they thought some of your songs are about – have there been “misunderstandings” or did you perhaps even gain new “insights?”
 
Usually critics have understood my songs. There was incident, however, with a one time collaborator.

There was a misunderstanding and a fallout over the intention vs. what was understood and the nuance in the song. I actually changed the lyrics because what I was attempting to convey wasn’t clear upon reflection - but the ways in which this collaborator went about talking to me about it muddied the ground.

So there was a falling out and no reconciliation but I did gain new insights! It very much after the fact, forced me to be clearer in my writing and not too assume every listener will understand where you are coming from …
 
Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing song lyrics or poetry is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee? What do you express through music that you couldn't or wouldn't in more 'mundane' tasks?
 
I started off writing they are different and then convinced myself they are the same thing! When I cook, I want people to enjoy the food, ask for the recipe, when I write a song, I want people to enjoy the song, sing they lyrics.
 
When a chef cooks they are interested in becoming better, gain a better mastery of flavours, of plate composition, of understanding different palates etc. and in the same way when I’m writing a song, I’m interested in writing better from different perspectives, becoming a clearer communicator, building more livable worlds.

It’s all the same really!