Soul singer makes noise with bold new album Pink Elephant
In the Congo and Angola the name N’dambi means “the most beautiful.” In this case we’re referring to the Dallas, Texas soul singer with a voice like honey. In the deep blue lounge of New York City’s Stay hotel, N’dambi sits serenely as she speaks to us in her southern drawl. The little girl who once led her father’s church choir is all grown up and ready for the limelight. N’dambi got an early taste of fame as a backup singer for fellow soul songstress Erykah Badu and independently released the albums Little Lost Girls Blues in 1999 and A Weird Kind of Wonderful in 2008. Her latest release, Pink Elephant marks a new era for her as it is her debut album on the legendary Stax Records which was once home to soul luminary Isaac Hayes. The album itself is a loaded with soul and funk and bursting with tales of love found, love lost, and love gone dead wrong. AfriPOP! sat down with N’dambi to chat about the elephant in the room.
So let’s talk about the album. How did you get the name Pink Elephant?
Pink Elephant is a play on the term there’s an elephant in the room, people know it’s there but just ignore it. But what I’m really focusing on with the expression is that in everyone’s life there are moments when we feel like we are that pink elephant…that we are embracing our greatness and embracing it to the fullest. You will have a moment when you really shine and it may feel uncomfortable for some people so they may ignore it [or] they may turn away from it. But it’s important to be fearless and shine as brightly as you can, or be your best self despite all the obstacles you may have.
What were you trying accomplish with this album?
What I really wanted to accomplish is writing stories about people that others could relate to however it fit in their lives. So they weren’t necessarily my stories, they were just my observation[s] of watching life and seeing what it [looked] like to me and trying to write it as a narrator would a story and allowing people to see it and make their own perceptions about what it is or what it means to them.
This is your first record with Stax. How is it different from working on your own on Little Lost Girls Blues or A Weird Kind of Wonderful?
One of the great differences between working independently with Little Lost Girls Blues versus working now with Stax and doing Pink Elephant is that there are far more people here to help make the wheel go and that’s a great thing because it helps to speed the process up. It helps to make everything run smoother. It’s a lot less guesswork because there are more people involved and it keeps me focused on doing art stuff versus having to think in terms of doing some marketing, or some other aspects of it that I don’t want to focus on anyways [laughs]. I just work on the music so it’s been a great thing because I think that what I’m trying to achieve, they understand, and it’s good working as a team, working side by side helping to achieve a common goal.
But do you feel like working with a team took away from the music?
Working with a team helped to free me up more to being more creative, actually. There are certain things that I don’t have to worry about and it allows me to open myself up to the creative process more. Whereas when I work on albums on my own where there would be a bump in the road and I’d be like I need to get this much money, and spend time in the studio figuring how to do it this way and even as far as all the way down to when I wanted to release the album, and having whatever money set aside to do whatever it is I was going to do to do that. I don’t have to think about it in those terms, because I have other people to help me think about those parts. Those are the parts of the creative process that help make the wheel go and I don’t have to think about those things and they just have a lot of creative ideas to help make me better so it works out.
You started your career after singing backup with Erykah Badu. How was that experience and how did it make, break or train you?
Well technically I was already doing my music before Erykah’s music came out. I actually had albums before her album came out. The process of working with Erykah was really great because it was like a school in it of itself. There was so much experience of learning the way the music business is. [It] allowed me to learn a lot and see a lot in that time frame and all those things helped me to grow as an artist myself. I think that I learned a lot of lessons from that. After a certain time I needed to leave and pursue my own personal dreams as an artist. It was one of those things were either you do it then or you don’t do it at all. It was a window of opportunity and if you don’t take that time to do it may never happen.
How was it working with soul artist Leon Sylvers III?
It was great working with Leon because he’s someone I admire and I truly am inspired by his work. He’s been known for his production work that he did in the past with artists like Gladys Knight, Shalimar, and The Whispers, and he used to work for Solar [Records] in the eighties. I always like bass lines and he has a lot of music that is bass driven with the sweet thing on top. I was just like if I could just get to him I think it would be great. So the A& R put us together and we got the opportunity to vibe and see if we had chemistry and we did. It was great chemistry and we just worked on the album and created these songs.
What inspires the material for your songs?
I’m just really mostly inspired by watching people live and how they do things and the fascination with how people resolve issues in their way, be it something that’s socially conscious or something as simple as a walk in the park with a lover. So my goal is to look at life and to write down and record what I see and how I see it. That’s the inspiration mostly.
You put out your first album in 1999. How do you think you’ve grown as an artist and what do you think influenced that growth and change?
I don’t know if I had as much rhyme or reason about doing it as I do now and at that time I think I left the rhyme or reason mostly to the producer to figure it out and I just stayed out of the way of that part. But as I grew…I wanted it to be more deliberate so I thought about how long a song should be [in the] beginning, middle, and end. Making sure that I was clear on that in the writing, making sure I had things that I felt like could grab people’s attention…all the way down to being even more specific in the production part and creating something that is more smooth. [I was] giving it a little more sheen so it can feel a little more palatable for people. So, I did a little more deliberate stuff, whereas before I was a little more off the cuff.
So we know you’re influenced by R&B, soul and funk. Are there any other influences that are less obvious that you would like people to know about?
Well, Country [and] I like rock. I try to have a good eclectic mix of everything. Some things are more obvious than others and some get lost in translation but that’s the goal. It fuses many things that I really enjoy together to create what it sounds like to me.
With people these days going with a much-used formula for musical success, do you feel any pressure to catch people’s attention?
I don’t feel any pressure to do anything that doesn’t feel natural to me. The difference is you know when it reads real to a person or not. So my goal is to do what feels home to me musically and to portray that in the body of the work and allow that to be the thing people connect to.
Some people may not be familiar with you. What would you like people to know about you, that journalists don’t usually mention?
That I can pinch people with my toes [laughs]. But no…the newest thing to talk about is that I’m really into writing and that’s one of my loves and at some point I want to write a book.
What would you write a book about?
I want to write a sci-fi book, so you can go anywhere with that. You’re limitless, so I want to try my hand at that.
A lot of artists start out with a specific message to their audience. What’s your message?
I think the biggest part of my message is for people to own their personal greatness. I think its important for everyone to feel their personal best because that’s the thing that will help you to achieve those things that you love the most and you desire to do. When you own who you really are…when it seems impossible and it seems like something you’re not supposed to do you continue on even if people tell you its not going to work. Or you allow yourself to be a shining example so that someone else can grow and become something better because of what your life says to them. I want to create that kind of thing with the music [with] the message being embracing yourself if you are the whole self then you can do more to help others.
