Following the release of his first two EPs, So Lost and What’s The Score, earlier this year, Ady Suleiman has risen rapidly from under the radar with his effortlessly fresh lyrics and soulful sound. He’s now taken to the UK with his first headline tour, playing Nottingham’s The Bodega on the 15th November. IMPACT Music stopped by for a chat about gaining confidence, getting mashed, and collaborating with the likes of Joey Bada$$.
Over the past year you’ve released two EPs, will you be treating us to a full album soon? Perhaps in the new year?
Yeah, that’s the plan. Fuck knows how I’m going to get it all done. But no, I’ve got quite a lot of songs, some of the very first songs I’ve written that I wrote when I was like 18. I’ve recorded a fair bit of them, it’s just it’s been a really weird process for me making the album.
How so?
I always thought you know, you disappear for months on end with your band and all the people you want and are just like ‘yo, we’re hiding out in a studio to make a fucking killer album that’s going to change the whole fucking music scene’. The reality is, people don’t have that much money anymore and studios are actually really expensive and players are really expensive, and you end up doing a lot of it in your bedroom. And it’s also just when you’ve got the spare time, because you’re doing so much other stuff to try and get things going. So it’s been – not difficult – but different to how I expected when I was dreaming of making my first album. I just hope the reception to the album is good and that it’s a good debut.
Would you take it on tour it if it did do well?
Fingers crossed, yeah. I haven’t really got any set plans at the moment because I guess it all depends on the reaction. If we don’t get any reaction there’s no point paying to go out on tour. I mean ideally, I would love to do a European tour. That’d be amazing. Something I want to tick off. If I could sell out a European tour next year, I’ll be fucking over the moon. Definitely.
Well you sold out tonight!
Yeah! I’ve played The Bodega twice before, once downstairs and the second time I played upstairs. But that was a good two or three years ago, so yeah this is my first time back and first time doing a headline show. I’m excited. I just want the place to be rammed. I’ve seen it rammed and it’s a nice vibe. Make sure you make some noise though, you’ll see I am actually quite shy on stage but when the crowd goes fucking nuts you feel great.
How about taking the album round the festival circuit next year? I know you’ve already ticked off Bestival, Latitude, and even Glastonbury in the past.
I would love to do fucking loads. I did Secret Garden Party this year as well. It was dope. I went the year before just to kind of get mashed up, that was my first time there and I loved the festival. Everyone was just fucking on one. It was wicked to play, but it’s always different. I used to go to festivals loads before I started playing at them and for me it was a proper escape from reality, get your mates down there and let’s get fucking hammered. You know what I mean, forget everything and then wake up on Monday and go back to your normal routine or whatever it is.
“Make sure you make some noise though, you’ll see I am actually quite shy on stage but when the crowd goes fucking nuts you feel great”
But when you’re playing, you’ve got to stay focussed?
Yeah, of course now when I play at them it’s still dope but sometimes I get annoyed when I just want to get fucked at a festival. So say Secret Garden Party yeah, I’m planning it all out and my mates are going but, if I’m playing I can’t get mashed. I’m going to be on Lemsip and ginger water and all that kind of shit instead. So I get kind of annoyed if I’m playing on the last day, on the Sunday, because that means I can’t go for it for the whole festival. Whereas if I get it the slot on the Friday or even the Thursday, then that’s fucking dope.
Let’s bring it back to tonight. You’ve played The Bodega a couple of times before, and you’re fairly local being from Grantham. Does it feel somewhat like a home gig to come back and play Nottingham?
Yeah, for sure. Grew up in Grantham yeah, so Nottingham was the closest city. There’s a lot more going on in Nottingham then there was there, so I always used to come here for gigs and to do my shopping at that. And so in terms of music, this is the place that sort of gave my music a home really.
But having said that, your first couple of gigs were actually in Liverpool where you went to university?
Yeah I was down in Liverpool when I really started my career, starting gigging. But as soon as I came back to Nottingham the reaction was just wicked; because I think the kind of music I make really fits into the scene here. When I was going around gigging in Liverpool and I was like ‘come on man, I just want people to be excited’. I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t going down as well in Liverpool, because I knew people liked my stuff. It’s just a completely different scene and culture there. So when I came back here, and Harleighblu – I used to go to school with her – she was playing a gig with Liam Bailey and Natalie Duncan and I think Nina Smith or someone, and I came along to watch and I was like ‘what the fuck, the Nottingham scene is fucking hot’. So I tried to get a gig down here, got one, and as soon as I got the gig I was like yo!
Did you always know you wanted to make music?
Yeah, pretty much – I mean when I was really young I wanted to be a football player, like fucking every other kid – but I think when I gave up football and got obsessed with music and Jimi Hendrix and the whole 60s vibe, it was just unreal. So when I discovered that I, you know, wanted to be a hippy, grow my hair out long, start smoking weed thinking I’m the fucking boss. But weirdly people started to know me for that, it weirdly became part of my personality.
“Gave up football and got obsessed with music and Jimi Hendrix and the whole 60s vibe”
So after getting into music that way, you just ran with it?
Well, no. I think everyone does this – this is just my theory – but I think everyone has a dream in the back of their mind that they want to do and I think a lot of people probably don’t have the confidence to pursue it, or are too scared to pursue it because they don’t think that it’s realistic. And I was definitely like that. When I was a kid, even though I was so obsessed with the 60s era and wanted to be a fucking recording artist, I was playing guitar and singing a bit, but I would never think of it as a reality. I didn’t have the confidence. If people asked me ‘what do you want to be when you grow up’, I wouldn’t be like ‘yeah, I want to be a recording artist’. I just wasn’t that confident.
So when did that all change for you?
I stayed in school until I was 18, and then I went to university and stuff. And it was only really there where I found the confidence. It was studying performing arts and being amongst other people that wanted to do the same thing as me; really the first time, from being in Grantham, from being in the village, that I could compare myself against other people. Before that I was the only one doing or making souly/RnB/bluesy kind of stuff, and there was no fucking scene in Grantham. I wasn’t aware of what was going on in Nottingham. People would be like ‘yeah, you’re really good mate, you should do this as a career’ and I always thought ‘nah, I’ll never be good enough’. But you know, I kind of half-believed that there was something there.
A half-belief that was enough to encourage you to continue studying music at university though.
Well, when I applied to this university I was shitting my pants. I was like ‘fucking hell, what am I doing here? Everyone here is going to fucking be *makes trumpet noise* on the jazz and doing these scales and shit’. I was pretty nervous but after the first year, I kind of realised what my strengths were and what my weaknesses were as well. Everyone in the class was equally as talented and I had fun. I got what I was good at; like yeah your voice is unique, you’re an artist, you’re not technically the best but I felt like I had a unique perspective. So, I was like ‘fuck it man I can do this shit!’ And I started going out and gigging. That’s when I really started believing and I was like ‘fuck it lets see how far we can get’, and so far it’s going alright.
Absolutely. I actually first came across your music from listening to a bit of Joey Bada$$ and seeing that he featured on your latest single, What’s the Score. How did the collaboration between you two come about?
That was fucking pretty nuts that he jumped on it to be honest. I was in LA working on some stuff with The Social Experiment, you know Chance the Rapper and all those things. So, just doing some stuff over there and Joey used to work in the same studio. I never bumped into him but, I was working on some of my original material and he would come into the studio afterwards and I think the engineer must’ve still been playing my tracks and he said to the engineer, apparently, ‘who the fuck is this guy, he’s fucking sick, I love it’. And I went in the next day and the engineer was like ‘yo, dude. Joey fucking wants your track on his MacBook, can I give it to him?’ And I’m like ‘fuck that man, it’s not finished!’ And he was like ‘no, he loves your stuff’. And I don’t know, I’m in America for the first time and these guys exaggerate, this ain’t real. So I didn’t really take it too seriously, but I was scrolling through Twitter and I saw him tweeting the lyrics of that song I was writing in the studio, and I was like ‘what the fuck, no this fucking sick!’ So then I tried to get in contact with him in LA before he flew out to New York, but you know he’s a pretty busy guy and I had a lot of stuff booked in as well so we didn’t actually get to link up over there but when I came back to England and I was recording ‘What’s The Score’ I wanted a rapper on it, and my instinct was just to get Joey on it. So yeah, he did it and it’s really dope.
“Let’s get fucking hammered!”
Are you looking to have any other featuring artists, on the album or any other upcoming tracks?
I don’t know, maybe. It’s weird. Before Joey I didn’t actually want to feature anyone. It was really weird I was like ‘yeah, I don’t want to fucking have anyone on my record. This is my record.’ But since what Joey’s done, and he’s definitely taken the song into a different place, I think it’s a wicked idea. And also it’s nice because you also tap into an audience, like you, which is kind of important. People always tell me that but I’m a bit stubborn. But yeah, I’d love to do more stuff. I’d love to get Chance the Rapper to jump on a record, and Little Simz as well – I’d love to do something with her.
Who else have you been listening to at the moment?
Anderson Paak, have you heard of him? You’d love him. Anderson Paak is going to be fucking massive. There’s this tune with NxWorries called Suede, this is like my walk on song when I come on stage. Yeah, I literally only discovered him about a week or two ago. He’s like Dr Dre’s next project. He’s fucking ridiculous, give him a listen.
For sure. Thanks a lot, it was lovely to chat to you.
You too, see you later. Have a dance tonight!
Emma Doyle
Image: Amy Rainbow
