I believe in Bonjay.
Not only are they some of the most fiercely creative, humble, genuine and ridiculously talented artists reorganizing the borders and boundaries of dancehall today, but their forthcoming fall 2010 EP “Broughtupsy” is set to turn heads. As in, a lot of heads (think “global takeover” status). I got a chance to talk to Alanna and Pho from Bonjay about versatility, fake patois, making post-exorcism music, and dreams of a posthumous Arthur Russell collaboration. Also, if you haven’t already heard Broughtupsy’s fantastic kinetic spooky stomper “Stumble”, you should absolutely download it here.
Interview by Brendan Arnott (my text in bold).
How was life breathed into the idea of Bonjay? Talk a bit about your roots.
Pho: I grew up really into hip hop and that eventually led me to all the original weird soul and funk samples, dancehall, and bass music out of the UK. There used to be a show on TV here called “Xtendamix” that would play hip hop, R&B and dancehall videos. It was hosted by a guy called Master T who completely took the screwface out of those scenes – he was friendly on-camera, his co-host was a synthesizer, and he would sometimes host the show dressed as “his Scottish cousin McT” (he was black). Watching him inspired me to start deejaying because here was a laidback, intelligent guy who could joke around with all the biggest names in hip hop and dancehall and R&B. I figured if he could be himself and get deeply involved in music then I could too.
Alanna: I definitely picked up the same Xtendamix influence as Pho. Everyone in our generation of Canada did. When we were little, music wasn’t so Internet-based and Muchmusic was still the main outlet to expose kids to cool new music. So every Saturday we all watched Master T play low-budget dancehall videos alongside Kardinal and Monica.
But my singing and music roots originally come from the church. I started singing gospel music when I was eight. Looking back, I was lucky to have the training that I did – church is like boot camp for musicians. During competition season I would sometimes spend 30 hours a week rehearsing. We had poor equipment and weren’t always that refined, but our teachers experimented a lot with our sound and we always tried new things with harmonies and arrangements. I remember singing in the large ensemble at one teen competition. We were an anglo West Indian gospel group, but we sang in French too and we added the vocal riff from the Fugees version of ‘Killing Me Softly’ to the end of our tune.
I spent part of my childhood in Ottawa, which is a mix of French and English. And my Mum ran a short-stay foster home growing up, so we had kids pass through who were everything from Portugese to African to Inuit. It didn’t necessarily inform my musical influences, but it definitely planted the seed for trying new things
