It’s been four years since AlunaGeorge brought a crisp new cool to pop music with You Know You Like It and since then, Aluna Francis and George Reid have collaborated with Disclosure, Skrillex, Diplo, Baauer and Rae Sremmurd. Now the list extends to Jamaica’s current finest, Popcaan, who guests on I’m In Control, their bouncy, empowering new track that lets the intended listener know, “You gotta go deeper than deep to get me off.” It’s the first taster from their forthcoming spring album, I Remember, which Aluna tells us is a freer, rangier affair. We caught up with the quiet, considered singer to talk about her “in control” influences, the band’s cross-cultural appeal and the reason she likes to leave gender out of her lyrics.
How come you chose to work with Popcaan?
We looked up what was going on in Jamaica and he came up. It was perfect to bring out that I’m half-Jamaican and it’s got that dancehall flavour. We’re going to do a festival in Jamaica in a couple of weeks, so we’re hopefully going to perform with him.
I like when you force the guy to take his top off when you’re playing chess in the video. Very in control!
The video treatment was very general, and I popped that into the storyline. I had a chat with the director and said, “We need to get across some of the actual lyrics.” And that was the scene I insisted on. Poor boy was like, “Do what!?”
Do you like to be in control?
It’s fun to be in control. Sometimes you forget that you can be. I think a lot of the time, women being in control gets a bad rep: “bossy women” and things like that. But if you know what you want, it’s always going to be better, in every aspect.
Which other female artists gave you that message growing up?
Missy Elliott, Gwen Stefani, PJ Harvey, Nina Simone.
Tell us about the new music.
Me and George have developed our skillset since the last album. We’re definitely more flexible. We’ve always experimented, but on this album we’ll be freer to put those tracks on the album. With the first album, everything had to go together sonically and there were songs left off the album. It might seem that we’ve expanded our musical tastes, but it’s actually more of a genuine reflection of who we are.
Has touring changed you vocally?
I still feel like I should have a singing teacher to be honest, because I hear these horror stories about Jess Glynne, Adele and Sam Smith. I did classical training early on and some other rock singing training. I keep those warm ups, but I feel like I haven’t upgraded that since the very beginning of singing. I definitely need a top-up. After three shows I definitely feel like my voice isn’t happy. I’m aware that I need to improve my training.
Now that it’s more familiar, it’s easy to forget how unique your voice sounded when you were first releasing music.
With the songs that we chose on the first album there’s a particular sweetness and that’s not the only way I sing, so it might sound like my voice has changed on this one, but it’s probably that I’ve been freer. People are now listening to that slower tempo that we were making. We’re certainly less obscure and strange to the public than we were. That’s really nice, because it was fine being labelled as quirky-future-this or blah-blah-blah, but it’s a struggle to educate people about what you’re making. We don’t have do that anymore: people get the down-tempo, strange beats that we do.
But I like that you don’t feel this pressure to belt the vocals out, like a lot of pop singers.
I knew from early on that I wasn’t going to be able to do that, so the music that I gravitate towards suits my voice and doesn’t require that vocal to shout all over it.
Who are your favourite vocalists?
Etta James, Jeff Buckley, Thom Yorke.
Where are your biggest fanbases?
Control has gone global. Radio stations in Nigeria are playing it, people in India are Tweeting us, France have put it on playlists at their radio stations. It’s quite a universal subject matter and there’s an openness to the melody and the sound of it. We’re big in America, maybe because of the hip-hop foundation of our beats. The reason we’re doing well globally might be because people have subconsciously realised that as a band we’re quite cross-cultural. So when you look at our band, you don’t feel like you need to belong to a certain culture for it to apply to you. I try to be as inclusive as I can to all types of people through my lyrics. I try and leave gender out of my lyrics – I always have done. I’ve never wanted my songs to be divisive. I want them to be inclusive.
What kind of topics are you tackling lyrically on the new album?
Some of them are cathartic songs for me, where I’ve come across real challenges personally and maybe failed at the time to meet that challenge. In hindsight I’ve been racking my brains, thinking, “What should I have done? How should I have been?” That’s been really fun to do. Also, there are a couple of more personal stories about my past relationships. And then broader – I wouldn’t say political, but socially interesting – subjects, which I find really hard to sing about, because the last thing I want to do is start preaching politics and shoving my opinions on people. But I want to make people think about things and about their future.
What kind of social issues are you discussing?
There’s a song that I did with ZHU that was about when people are fighting for a cause. Think, “Who are the people at the top of the triangle who are benefitting from that?” And think if you asked them to join you on the front line, would they come down? I don’t think so. You’ve got to wonder why. It’s not that they’re not built to fight. You get trained. I do think I have things to say. That’s what keeps me moving toward the next song. I’m a musician and singer, not a political speaker or activist, so the only way I can communicate is through those lyrics and those songs. There’ll always be the next song to help me communicate those thoughts.
Credits
Text Stuart Brumfitt