Theory Of Nakedivity – The Listening Session
So I ended 2018 with the most scariest experience of my adult life. At least next to having my first child. 8 December I had a listening session for my sophomore album Theory Of Nakedivity. The idea of a listening session came about as we brainstormed as a band on how to launch this album in 2019. The more we listened to our own music the more we realized that our vibe is not mainstream. I needed to explain the thought process behind this work of art and not just shove it down listeners’ throats. The British Council through Extra Kuchera then opened their doors and invited me into their library. What a beautiful place. A date was set and the work began.
I personally had never attended a physical listening session and my only experience with listening sessions was online. How to do it? Who do I invite? How do I explain that this is not an album launch? And most of all since this is an intimate setting how will I take being ‘vulnerable’ and open to critique?
The historic time came on a sunny Saturday afternoon and together with a group of about 20 guests we took a time capsule through my world. We travelled through my personal experiences that led to me writing my music. My personal experiences as we recorded the music with every band member’s input and most of all from my guests’ faces as I traveled to the future and felt how this album will touch the world. Their interpretation versus mine and their expectation versus mine. This album was recorded in a year where I have grown as an artist and even headlined the HIFA green stage in May. So pushing another boundary of expression and having strangers agree to come and witness an individual they didn’t know much about was the most humbling moment since the standing ovation at HIFA 2018. God has been good to me and my band. My team, headed by my producer and band director Sir Fletcher, is the most talented group of individuals I know. My agency Mawazo Brandevelopment plus my main sponsor Trigrams Properties are heaven sent.
As guests arrived I took a few minutes to do a live figure drawing of Fadzoh (model and mbira player in the band) as she sat and read a book in the library. This was to showcase the purity of a sketch and its expression of a real life scene in relation to the music they were about to hear. (I wish I could do a nude drawing but that’s for another session I guess) The album is called Theory Of Nakedivity because it is an insight into the vulnerability of an honest man in a society that expects an alpha male to be insensitive to his feelings and keep emotions bottled in. ‘Man Up’ the world says. When I’m naked Im pure, I’m honest and I’m real.
What if we all walked naked in this world? What if we had to tell the truth? What if God was to ask us why we are hiding? Would we look Him straight in His face and say, ‘Because we are naked.’ This album is the story of a man being honest about his feelings and experiences without the fear of being judged. This is more than HipHop. It’s more than Soul. This is my story and you are invited into my life. This is Mellow Creme at his most vulnerable.
Join my next posts as I break down every single song and what inspired its formation. Please feel free to download and share the music. It’s free because love is free.
