[music]

Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart.

Music - Adi-Oasis: Get It Got It

So many times,

I let it slide

Never made up my mind

Searching but I couldn’t find

Something about something new

Cold, frozen, icy blue

But if you heat up a little bit

Ooh, melt on me

Ooh, melt on me

Ooh.

I know you came here for something

I don’t like making assumptions, but I can tell

This ain’t the time to say nothing

Speak on it right now while you can

Cuz closed lips don’t get fed

Alison Stewart: That's Get It Got It a track off the new album titled Lotus Glow from French Caribbean Brooklyn-based musician, singer, and producer Adi Oasis. However, some of you know her as Adeline. She released an album under that name in 2021. This new album, Lotus Flower, is her debut studio album under the new moniker, Adi Oasis, which she took on last year. A review in Atwood magazine called the album a "stunningly seductive, intimate, assertive and unapologetic record fueled by the magic of soul, funk, and r&b." Adi Oasis joins us now for a listening party for album ahead of her concert at Brooklyn Made tomorrow night at 7:00 PM. Welcome back to the show, Adi.

Adi Oasis: Thank you.

Alison Stewart: Hi. Last time we spoke with you, you were starting a solo career with your first album, Adeline. Then in April 2022, you changed your name to Adi Oasis. This is the year anniversary of the change. Happy anniversary.

Adi Oasis: Wow. Is it? I didn't even know. Thank you.

Alison Stewart: How did the name change impact you creatively?

Adi Oasis: In all the best ways. This song that you played, and thank you for playing it, Get It Got It, it talks a lot about that. It talks about listening to your inner self and bypassing your inner fears to do something that you believe you should do. Changing my name was one of the things that I wanted to do for a long time. It's more about myself and my assertiveness and how I felt as an artist personally, with the new name.

Alison Stewart: The new album is titled Lotus Glow. In some cultures, the lotus flower signifies spiritual enlightenment, strength, and purity. What does a lotus mean to you?

Adi Oasis: Exactly these things. There's another element to it that I put in the album a lot, which is the mud, out of the mud grows the lotus and there is nothing wrong about mud. We need it. We need it. We need that. It could be good or bad. It could be good experiences, bad experiences. In my case, very often what I talk about in the album is my roots and where I come from, and doubts and fears. All of these things are part of what's necessary for the lotus to bloom.

Alison Stewart: You're a seasoned musician, but I'm curious about what felt new to you in making this record. Every experience is a new one.

Adi Oasis: Always. I think what was new, so many things. Musically, it would be that, on this record, it's 90% live instruments. That's a big evolution in my production and style. That's something that I wanted to achieve for a long time but it takes a while. In my case, it did. The other thing would be the lyrics on the album I'm talking about from a much more personal perspective than ever before.

Alison Stewart: What did it feel like to get personal with your lyrics?

Adi Oasis: It actually felt easy. I spend a lot of time when I'm making a new song, very often I'll be temporarily blocked by wondering what I should be talking about. This just flowed out of me so easily because I knew exactly what I wanted to talk about for each song.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Adi Oasis. The name of the new album is Lotus Glow. Let's listen to another song. This is Marigold. What is this about?

Adi Oasis: It's a little bit of a lot of a political statement, but it's a chant of freedom and confidence for people who feel marginalized, people who are not accepted in society for one reason or the other. People of color, gay, trans, anybody that's being told a little too often that they're not the norm.

Alison Stewart: Here's Marigold from Adi Oasis.

MUSIC - Adi-Oasis: Marigold

Not good enough

Not smart enough

Not bright enough

Not light enough

Just not enough

Not boy enough

(They tell me I′m)

Not girl enough

(They tell you you're)

Not straight enough

(We are)

Not white enough

(Just not)

Just not enough

Maybe

When you face it

Surely

It′s my bullshit

The story

We can make it

Alison Stewart: That's Marigold from the album Lotus Flower. My guest is Adi Oasis. Who's your collaborator there?

Adi Oasis: It's J. Hoard, who's an artist based in New York who's absolutely unbelievable. He's actually a special guest in New York tomorrow, so I'm so glad you chose that song because we'll be playing it for the first time with the star of the song. I'm so excited about that.

Alison Stewart: What do you look for in a collaborator, Adi?

Adi Oasis: I approach collaboration from the producer standpoint. That's an advantage, I think, for the other artists because my goal when they walk in is to make them sound as good as possible. I forget about what my place in a song should be as the other singer. 50% of it is the connection aspect that you can't really control. You never know if it's going to work. You just have to vibe well with the person and listen to each other. I've been very lucky that the people that have accepted to collaborate with me have just taken each song to another level that I wouldn't have reached on my own.

Alison Stewart: Keeping your producers hat on, what did you know you wanted this album to sound like? What did you know you wanted the sonic energy about the album?

Adi Oasis: I wanted it to sound musical. I wanted people to be able to focus on the instrumentation as much as the vocals. I wanted it to be reminiscing of old '70s funk and soul, but at the same time, feel not derivative, but new. I didn't want to try to sound like exactly it was before because I don't think I can achieve that. I still wanted it to sound rather modern.

Alison Stewart: For people who don't know your background, your dad is from Martinique and your mom is from the French countryside and you grew up in Paris, and as you described, it's not postcard Paris. You grew up in Paris like a city, the way people-- You live in Brooklyn, there's postcard New York and then there's real New York. On the album, you have a song named after your grandmother on your mother's side. Is that correct?

Adi Oasis: Yes, that's correct. Sidonie.

Alison Stewart: Sidonie. Tell me a little bit about Sidonie before we hear the song about her?

Adi Oasis: She is the number one person in my heart. It's that person whenever, even right now, I hear their name and I just tear up. I don't know. She represented everything that I'm not in a way where it just keeps me grounded in life and what life is truly about whenever I really focus too hard on my career or achievements. She lived in the same house her entire life. She had 11 kids. She lived until 97 years old, and every food she ate, she grew it. She had a farm, and the farm has been in my family since the 16th century as far as we can retrace.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Adi Oasis: In terms of how rooted to her identity and life and nature this woman was, it doesn't get deeper than that. She taught me so much because of it.

Alison Stewart: Here's Sidonie from Adi Oasis.

MUSIC - Adi-Oasis: Sidonie

Memories of a place

The grass, the wind

I can picture her face

Hear sound of her name

Tell me Sidonie

Tell me qui je suis

Tell me Sidonie

Dis-moi qui je suis

Alison Stewart: That's Sidonie from Lotus Glow from Adi Oasis. The new album is Lotus Glow. Let's talk about another track that features someone else in your family. Red to Velvet for [crosstalk]

Adi Oasis: Red to Violet.

Alison Stewart: Red to Violet. I'm sorry, Red to Violet. On this track, there's someone speaking at the end in French and Creole.

Adi Oasis: Yes, that's my auntie, Patty Francet, [laughs] and we were in Martinique when I recorded her.

Alison Stewart: Why did you want to include this recording of her on this song?

Adi Oasis: This song is an homage to my other grandmother who passed away two weeks before we shot the video. I was at her funeral. It's not sad. It is sad, but she lived similar to my other grandmother. She lived up to 99 years old, had ten children. These ladies--

Alison Stewart: Wow.

[laughter]

Adi Oasis: Longevity and genes.

Alison Stewart: You are from strong stock on both sides.

Adi Oasis: I am. In terms of fertility and longevity, we are around to stay. Sorry, everybody else, but yes. She's the first black woman I've known, and so is this auntie, actually, who's speaking. My mother's white. I'm of mixed background, and I had these older black ladies that were just the boss in the house and that I learned so much from.

In this recording, at the end, because Red to Violet is an homage to women of color and women in general, where I'm stating that it's time for us to be heard and put in positions of decision-making positions and positions of power, in general. That would, I believe, be a good thing for society to include all of us when it comes to making important decisions for the country, Katanji Brown Jackson being my main inspiration for this song.

I thought about who are the Katanjis in my life. During my visit in Martinique, I asked my aunt to describe what a strong woman is in her eyes and describe why my grandmother was such a strong woman. That's what she talks about. Let's listen to Red to Violet from Adi Oasis.

MUSIC - Adi-Oasis: Red To Violet

À mon tour

Like red to violet

Move

I'll take the pilot seat

You ain't never given me nothing

Move

I'm just trynna say something

Magicians on mission

We cookin

We make yo shit better

We hold it

We keep it together

You know now it's our turn.

Alison Stewart: That's Red To Violet off the album Lotus Glow. It's been interesting because we've been talking about these women and people who have been really instrumental in your life and really been guiding lights in your life. When you think about writing a song about someone like that, is it intentional of, "I'm going to sit down and write a song about this person who inspires me," or are you the person who gets the notes app out on the phone and taps something out because it hits them while they're walking around the city?

Adi Oasis: It's both. Both happen. What always happens is the melody comes first. It's the music first, then the melody, and somehow, I just mouth. A lot of us do that mouth really weird sounds as I'm freestyling a melody. Sometimes the subject or the words just come to me based on the emotion that's sitting behind the music. For Sidonie, that's what happened, for instance, I just heard her name in my head and it just became a song about her. Very often, it just is lent to me in the moment, depending on how comfortable I am.

Alison Stewart: When was the moment you knew you wanted to write a song about Serena Williams?

Adi Oasis: [laughs] I've always wanted to write a song about Serena. I just have this-- I don't know. I'm not a fan of a lot of people, but she just really touches me in so many ways and she is such a hero of mine. The person that I wrote this song with, Homer Steinwise, is a huge tennis fan. When we first met at the studio, he was coming back from a tennis match. I think that it became a necessity that it had to be about tennis, and therefore, about her.

Alison Stewart: Homer Steinwise is the drummer for The Arcs, we should mention.

Adi Oasis: He is, yes.

Alison Stewart: Let's take a listen to Serena.

MUSIC - Adi-Oasis: Serena

Always known ′bout the magic

Keep an eye on the game this time

Pick ups got to be chromatic

When you're casting spells from the baseline

Gonna hit high watching her fly

Gonna hit high like Serena

Gonna hit high watching her fly

Gonna hit high like Serena

Alison Stewart: Adi as you mentioned, you are going to be at Brooklyn Made tomorrow. Can you let folks know what to expect at the big show?

Adi Oasis: Yes. It's 4:20 in Brooklyn, at Brooklyn Made. Jovian is the opening act. He's amazing. Do not miss him. J. Hoard, who we heard earlier, is going to come and sing Marigold for the first time. I also have backup singers for the first time. This is going to be a big, big show. I'm very excited. Yes. We'll play most of the album live.

Alison Stewart: The name of the album is Lotus Glow. My guest has been Adi Oasis. She and a whole bunch of friends will be at Brooklyn Made tomorrow night. Adi, thank you so much for being with us and sharing your album with us.

Adi Oasis: Thank you for having me. It's an honor.

 

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