“Sting’s music used to buzz in the living room when I came home. That always made me very calm as a child. Now that I’m telling you, I hear his voice in my head. It’s almost like you’re going on vacation when he sings. I found that so fascinating as a child: that someone can make you completely leave your body with a song. It goes extremely deep – how does he do that? His lyrics are not very direct; it’s more like a fever dream you’re listening to. It feels very poetic.”
When singer and songwriter Naomi Sharon Webster (28) from Rotterdam explains why Sting inspires her, she does so with a description that equally applies to songs on her own debut album, released last week. Obsidian. A fascinating and vulnerable, layered and subliminal record. And the first album by a female artist on Canadian superstar Drake’s OVO Sound label.
In the opening song ‘Definition of Love‘ sound twittering birds, nature sounds and echoing rhythms. She sings with her warm, characteristic, very colorful voice about walls that she wants to tear down, about hope and about longing for and clinging to love. She recorded it in Canada when she was “really going through it” a year and a half ago after a difficult breakup.
When songwriter Liz Rodrigues, who wrote hits for Céline Dion and Eminem, presented her with a draft of the song in the studio, Naomi Sharon responded negatively – love was not the first subject she wanted to sing about at that time. Rodrigues asked her to think about whether it would work if the text calling someone “the definition of love” were about herself. “That came in. That what you sing about someone else can also be about you. Almost like a mantra you say to yourself.”
The word ‘mantra’ does not seem to have been chosen at random. Obsidian has a coherent, at times downright meditative electronic sound, in which repetitive sentences, musical themes and details create an intimate atmosphere. Almost every sound, syllable and effect aims to communicate a deeply felt emotion.
“It has to sound intimate,” says Naomi Sharon. “I want it to almost sound like I’m sitting next to you. I really choose my microphone based on that. I always look for a kind of velvet sound. That warm and wet makes it intimate.”
Drake’s label
The Rotterdam native describes the first weeks in Canada as a “difficult time”. She was in deep trouble privately – at a time when her career received an unprecedented boost by becoming the first female artist on Drake’s record label. Because Drake is the success artist of his generation; a globally popular megastar with billions of single and album streams to his name. Last week he released the single ‘First Person Shooter‘ topped the US charts. He now has as many US number 1 hits to his name as Michael Jackson.
“It’s a bit too crazy for words actually,” says Naomi Sharon. The rapper suddenly started following her on Instagram. “I’m not going to pretend that I reacted very coolly. I was kind of in shock.” During that period, she received more attention from “better known artists and people,” she says. “But hello. I knew Drake was looking for female artists, I had seen that in an interview. But then you don’t immediately think: that’s me, he’s going to call me.”
During a Facetime conversation, Drake proposed her a record deal. Sharon says he was impressed by her music, which “had a timeless quality” and reminded him of artists he enjoyed listening to in his younger years, such as Stevie Wonder, Sting and Sadé. Drake and his musical ally Noah ’40’ Shebib urged her to look for ways to make her music more accessible to a larger modern nightlife audience.
Naomi Sharon worked closely in Toronto with Beau Nox and Alex Lustig, two producers from the Netherlands and Belgium, both of whom also work on music with Drake. During her first days in Toronto, she hardly wanted to leave her apartment.
Conflict
It was Beau Nox who rescued her from her misery and took her to the studio. “That was nice, he paid a little attention to me. I was very angry and sad but I didn’t want to make an album about heartbreak alone. That’s why it was so nice that Beau was there, and Alex, and Liz. That if you cannot put something on paper, there are people who can formulate it well. I used to write everything myself. But I also enjoyed letting go and seeing what others make of it.”
Songs often start with the singer humming sounds and melodies. “I record it and then think: what am I trying to say here? What does the melody evoke in me that I can connect language to?”
She calls a breakthrough in the creation process the moment that Beau Nox started humming the notes of what the song ‘Myrrh‘ would become. “I thought it was so beautiful. They touched me very much. The song became part of my healing process, in which I found hope and love. You hear conflict in it. You cheated on me! I put my heart in the closet and close the door. But towards the chorus, you also hear longing again. This may be over, but I so deserve to receive complete love from someone – or from myself. I find that interesting: when you hear the pain, but also that it was beautiful. The realization that everything comes and goes.”