Originally from Eritrea, North London based artist Wauve, sits down with us to talk about his music, journey and inspirations.
How did your journey with music begin?
My journey with music began with producing and just me and a laptop. I started listening to trap/rap based songs and being curious about the beats and who made them. I watched YouTube videos of producers, found a guy called Lex Luger who produced a hell of a lot of trap music around 2011/2012 and I just started to imitate and learn. At first, it was just a hobby to show my friends at school, but they fucked with it and started jumping on my beats. Eventually, I started using that microphone I bought to record my friends, on myself, and then a few years ago I began to realise ‘okay this is good enough to release’. My first music video got good reception and here we are. So it was a natural progression really.
Do you have a musical process?
Yeah, so my process at the moment has been my process since I started. I always start from the beat because I like to feel the music rather than approach it from a perspective of writing lyrics. I'm based heavily on feeling. So I'll just make a beat, and it could be a totally unfinished beat, might be just the chords, just the drum pattern, but as soon as I start to feel something, that’s when I’ll start freestyling, even if it doesn’t make sense at first. As long as it feels good. Most of the time I’ll leave the studio with a beat and just me humming or freestyling random thoughts over it. From then, because I’m basing it on feeling, the words I tend to draw from surround the topic naturally, and from then I can connect the words and try to make something more cohesive out of it.
“I try to break the barriers in my music by changing the barriers of communication.”
What inspires you and your music?
I get inspired by life, people around me, situations that have happened in my life that I find funny. Like there are certain things that happen in life that are awkward or whatever, that you would only tell your closest friends and I just put that into music. Stuff that you wouldn’t really feel confident saying in a room full of people. It’s funny because it’ll be something I'm just laughing about privately, while to everyone else listening, it just sounds like a good song. So yeah I try to break the barriers in my music by changing the barriers of communication.
What influence does London have over your sound?
So obviously the main instrument in a song is the voice, so like my accent, my lingo that’s all London. I’m from North London so yeah you’ll hear a lot of that. Also, sound-wise, I do listen to UK music of course, so I myself subconsciously implementing things that I hear production-wise in that music as well.
“The youth nowadays as well, are more and more fearless in terms of making their music. They don’t see rules, they don’t see boundaries.”
Tell me about your hit single Pamela?
Yeah so Pamela is a girl who comes from Africa but she's not really as in touch with her roots as she would like to be because she was born in London. So it’s basically saying like before I get to know you, you’ve got to get to know yourself, so let me take you back to show you everything to appreciate about where you're from. It’s a song which is trying to inspire people to just look within. Especially nowadays I feel like because of social media etc, people don't tend to think about things that actually matter, as much. So it felt like a good message to put in a song and also at the same time to just give vibes and something to dance to, not making it too deep. I don't like to force messages down people's throats you know, so just a light-hearted dance vibe with a message.
What part do you feel young people play in the music industry today?
I definitely feel like young people shape the industry. Like everything revolves around the youth and I feel like it’s a young man's game as well to an extent. They’re the core of the industry, and the new trends and everything coming in and out, affects music. The youth nowadays as well, are more and more fearless in terms of making their music. They don’t see rules, they don’t see boundaries. A lot of people, I realised, are stuck in the old ways whereas the fearlessness of the youth makes them do things that older people wouldn't have the audacity to do. I like that and I try to keep myself in that mindset as well.
What advice do you have for young people trying to make it in music?
I would say just believe in your own wave. You know my name Wauve, wave with a U in the middle, so it’s like believe in YOU, you are the wave. These days everyone's just looking online, looking at the next person, trying to be like everyone else but just know that you got your own source, you get me? And you just have to look within and believe in your ting, just be unique.
