Interview with Monique DeBose


Q: Please tell me more about yourself. Who has influenced you musically and who was responsible for you starting to sing?

Monique DeBose: I am someone in search of myself. In search of my life's purpose and in search of connection with people.
Musical influences: I love Ella Fitzgerald. She moves me. I remember being in high school and a friend got me my first Ella Fitzgerald CD- it was her and Andre Previn (a more recent album) and I literally sat at my parents piano next to the CD player and listened to the album, just one song of the album, for at least 3 hours. I couldn't get it. But once I did, I was in love. She was one of my first teachers. But I use to sing as a kid, I loved performing (I was really shy, but I still had a great love for it) I often thought of my life as a musical (I still do today). But growing up, music was a part of my life, if I was playing an instrument, listening to my big sisters radio stations with her or my dad's albums while he sat on the porch on the weekends and read the paper. I loved music. While I was in college, I met a group of students who started a vocal a capella group. I joined them, I think I had finally gotten over my fears at that point! I use to go to every saturday morning to La Pena Cultural Center in Berkeley, CA, and studied under Joey Blake (he had studied under Bobby Mcferrin in voicestra). That's where I really started singing out loud. We'd be there for like 3-4 hours, people doing different lines, voices and then we would take turns going into the center of the circle and improvise over the bed of voices we had created. I loved that.

Q: How much of yourself can be found in the lyrics to songs like Recognize, Ready For Love or Where Do I Stand?

Monique DeBose: I am in all the lyrics. They are my stories.
Recognize I think I wrote for myself and my mother.
Where do I stand- I had recently gotten out of a 2 year relationship, I thought this guy would be my husband, and I was still holding on. We'd broken up and he had gone with a friend to Paris for a little vacation, he told me he would call me when he got back- he didn't. I found out from a friend that he was back from his trip and I couldn't understand why he didn't do what he said he would do. It was a lonely time for me. I didn't know how to move, but knew I needed to. So that song is about that process.
And Ready For Love - it's funny, I wrote that song without knowing that I would experience those lyrics one day. I identified somewhat to my lyrics but really did once I got into this current relationship I am in.

Q: Was writing the songs actually some kind of therapy for you to get over some troubles in your life?

Monique DeBose: Yes. See the above answer. I express myself this way. I do also through poetry. I performed these songs once at a festival and one of the women who worked it told me after the show, 'that was...uh....great....you really need to just get it all out, huh?' she said it mostly insultingly (she had some other drama going on which I didn't know abou at the time) but she was right. It is therapy for me and I know it's therapy for others.

Q: Your debut album covers musical genres like soul, rock and pop. How would you describe your sound to someonme who hasn't heard of you before?

Monique DeBose: Jazzy pop, sensual soul. I really call it eclectic. I tell folks it's a concept album first and foremost, not a genre specific album. I'm down with the genre specific albums, and I would probably be doing even better (at selling them) if I kept the instrumentation/ arrangements of the songs to one genre/ sound. I am in the statges of doing that too, but first things first.

Q: Where do you see your niche in the music business?

Monique DeBose: Women. I am a singer/songwriter who writes about experiences of coming into myself. So many folks relate to that. So I don't limit myself really- I see women as being the first to relate but I know men do too.

Q: You've released Chose the experience on your own. How did you feel when you finally had a copy of your CD in your hands?

Monique DeBose: I felt proud and a little frightened. It is my baby and (although I am not yet a parent) I believe that when you put your kid out into the world, you hope that people treat it well. I can't control what folks think, I can only stand in the fact that I put in good work, I learned, I am sharing something precious with the world and that's it. after that, I have no control. I was also relieved. towards the end of this project, I just wanted it to be done. It's like running the marathon (I ran the LA marathon in 2000 and swore I would never run another marathon again!), it's fun in the beginning, you're all excited, then you get into the meat of the run, where you just go inside yourself and focus and that last leg of the race is ridiculous- you want to quit because your legs feel like they are giving in, your insides hurt, you can't see for that moment why you even started doing it in the first place. I just held on tight with the project and had a lot of support from family and friends to finish it. I wanted it to be done in June of 2004 but I ended up having a soft release of the album in late January 2005.

Q: How easy or difficult was it for you to tell the public that you've just released your debut album with handling everything by yourself?

Monique DeBose: It was definitely challenging. I am new at this business of PR, marketing (which are extremely important!) so I was learning as I was going. As I mentioned in the last answer, I just did a soft release of the project and it's now june. Being independent is great and filled with super responsibility. I keep reminding myself that although I've been living with this album for the last almost three years, it's brand new to most people in the world.

Q: How content are you with the reactions your album has got so far?

Monique DeBose: I'm fine. People think what they want. Some folks have loved it, told me they play it over and over again, some have their favorite songs which they feel were written for them, and some - not so into it. One of my best friends in the world told me he wasn't that into it - he prefers the acoustic sound (which I am working on currently). So after I survived that, I'm cool with whatever.

Q: Would it be an option for you to sign with a (major) label?

Monique DeBose: I would sign with an major independend or major if the terms were right. I do mean rights, money and all that...but I really mean, if I could do my albums the way I like to do them. That simple. If we were aligned in the right place in the beginning, then sure.

Q: What do you think of the music industry and the way major labels act today?

Monique DeBose: I am not into the whole superstar thing. Make music. Write your music. I definitely want my sound and my music to be out and reach as many people as it can, but I want to go home at night to my family. I feel like the music industry takes peoples lives when they don't really have to.

Q: Me and my readers are always eager for good music, can you recommend a few artists that has inspired you in recent times?

Monique DeBose: Amos Lee. He's good. Nice vibe. The Animators, independent duo. Cool. Jill Scott always inspires me. Rene Marie is a wonderful jazz vocalist. She's so cute too. She makes you want to listen because of her voice, but also her personality. I like so many styles of music. I will always love Sade. I had the pleasure of meeting Paul Denman in LA recently and that made me feel like a school girl - what Sade represents, musically, emotionally. I love it. Let me do a tune on the next Sweetback album. :)
I love Nancy Wilson. She has a song on the album with Canonball Adderly and Nate Adderly called The Old Country. So awesome (same experience as when I heard the Ella CD - listened to that one song over and over and over!)
Sovoso- a capella group out of the Bay Area, Northern California- amazing.
Sammy Davis Jr.- his texture and richness is phenomenal.
Chicago- their greatest hits album is in my car right now. I belt it out when driving.

For more infos visit moniquedebose.com and cdbaby.com and read my review of Choose The Experience Vol I.