Evita Koné

HELVETIAROCKT: MUSICIANS IN CONVERSATION SEASON 3 EVITA KONÉ Helvetiarockt is a Swiss national association raising awareness about gender inequality in the music industry while supporting promoting and connecting professional female inter non-binary and trans artists. Through its grassroots projects such as producing, DJing, band workshops and songwriting camps, it offers platforms for young people of all levels to discover music and be part of an empowering community find out more on our website helvetiarockt.ch, sign up for the newsletter and follow us on social media. Musicians in Conversation is sponsored by SUISA The Cooperative Society of Music authors and Publishers in Switzerland SUISA is celebrating its 100 year anniversary in 2023. Hi everyone my name is Natalia and I'm a presenter content creator and DJ in this episode I talk with Evita Koné who is a singer rapper songwriter and teacher we discuss how to find your unique voice and sound as an artist the importance of collectives and communities to your growth and the reason why she is compelled to perform. Also stay tuned to hear Evita teaching me how to Freestyle with a fun back-to-back. Evita shares with us two songs and answers and audience questions and don't forget if you have a question simply send a direct message to Helvetiarockt on Instagram in the meantime here's my conversation with Evita hi this is Evita Koné and you’re listening to Helvetiarockt musicians in conversation hi Evita thank you so much for joining me today on musicians in conversation. Hey Nat thank you so much for having me it's my absolute pleasure. For those of you who want to know Evita and I know each other fairly well yes yes absolutely we work together I have the absolute honor of being on stage with you and DJing for you when you sing occasionally. Yes Nat that the pleasure is mine So I'm going to start with the question I ask everyone and that is how did you get started on your musical journey I grew up in a very music loving household there was always music playing and I couldn't help but be influenced by what I heard as a kid I grew up traveling a lot because my dad used to work for the UN so I lived in eight countries before I was 12. wow and I was lucky enough to have very open-minded parents when it came to culture be it art or film or music that came from the places that we lived so we lived in different countries in Europe we lived in Kenya, Botswana my mom is Chadian and we lived in Haiti before going to the US before coming back to Switzerland so I was really lucky enough to already there be exposed to really diverse art and culture and it shaped how I experience art and music but when it comes to I guess my musical Journey with me making music I always loved singing as a child I got into it through musical theater I went to a theater summer camp in the UK when I was 12. and was in a musical and absolutely loved it and then when I came back to school in Geneva I was in the Middle School Musical that year we did High School Musical I played Sharpay yeah that was me so that's the main part I mean I mean what Gabrielle yes it's really who doesn't love a good villain like exactly so yeah that really made me feel I think at that point really connected to music and it gave me a lot of confidence to continue already performance but are but especially singing when I was 13 I had a girl group in in Middle School oh I love it what were you called it was the worst name ever we were obviously 13 year olds thinking that we had done something when we came up with this name our girl group was called fantasy oh but fantasea spelled s e a like fantasea fantasea because even mermaids yeah because it was my it was like my friend Samantha my name is my name is Evelyn yeah and I had another friend Annie so we were like this is everything this is the moment but then at the same time everyone was like oh this is my group Coke River or whatever Sprite Fountain so people clowned us pretty badly but because of the Fanta yeah like right right exactly but you know what that is the beginning I think for so many people's journey in music and I'm sure a lot of people can recognize your story in themselves you know being amongst friends and maybe emulating some of the girl groups at the time and making your own I mean who were you listening to back then it was all like the like Destiny's Child and especially kind of early 2000s r’n’b we used to do songs by Danity Kane I don't know if you remember anything okay weren't they making the band yes but that was that was really pretty early days that was a good time in music though I think as well and especially for girl groups and for r’n’b yes absolutely there are million girl groups for you to indulge in yes and do you carry that like how would you describe your sound now with the girl group in middle school that was very early days and then when I started getting into making my own music that was when I was around 15 16 when I really dove head first into like Neo-Soul music I also have like a jazz background just based on my culture my dad loves jazz music and I always grew up listening to it everything that's like soul, r’n’b, jazz, blues has been like part of my foundation and then I really saw myself in like New York hip hop from the 90s and I was really inspired by like A Tribe Called Quest and just this like very Jazzy hip-hoppy sound so that's kind of when I yeah when I started making my own musical identity when I started producing lyrics and songs and melodies myself that's really my foundation yeah I would describe myself as a singer-rapper, rapper-singer I can never choose which one to go first because it really depends on the day, it depends on the song and it depends on my mood which one will take precedence which one am I feeling I know it's a little binary maybe to look at it that way singer-rapper as if they don't intermingle already as if they're not already part of the Venn diagram right how I would describe myself now is a singer rapper or rapper singer Soul Neo Soul R’n’B artist How would you help somebody who's sort of beginning their journey in music and maybe singing or rapping to define their sound or to find their sound you mentioned that you had quite a strong foundation in music with the Jazz with the r’n’b what if somebody doesn't necessarily have that what journey should they take to discover who they are that's a really good question I think you can only benefit from trying to open your mind and expand your mind I think one of the most detrimental things that someone can do in any creative process or journey is to already feel that they have to fit into a category before having had the chance to explore so all I can do the best advice I can give is I mean it's maybe easier said than done but kind of train yourself to be open-minded listen to as many different things as possible I mean the internet is that's also something was huge for me in my musical development was I will never forget I was 11 years old when I got my first iPod so I was just I mean for me it was totally a like a watershed moment like because then I went through all my parents CDs and went and I asked my friends for CDs and I was listening to things that I would have never heard on the radio and it just it made me feel like I could understand other people better when I understood their taste in music like and I understand why they like it and then maybe then see how I fit in so if I can give one of my most like prized and precious pieces of advice and method you know just train yourself to be open-minded don't pressure yourself to perform and to produce at a level that is exactly like what you're hearing try things out and eventually throw things at the wall and see what sticks yes such great advice absolutely just picking up from what you said about like having music from different people and being able to understand them I'm not sure if many listeners know this but when we prepare for these interviews I ask you guys to share with me your influences we don't have time to talk about them on the podcast but we do have them on the website so when people listen to this episode you can go to the website at helvetiarockt.ch and you can see the influences I ask you only for five songs and it's so difficult but it helps me before I even speak to you to sort of understand who you are and I love that when you have that kind of understanding of somebody's personality just based on the music that they're into or they love or that they have a connection with you have got your music group Captains of the Imagination how did that start before captains of the imagination I was part of a jazz hip-hop group called Cauliflower and I joined the group with Dr. Cool and then Captains of the Imagination actually happened kind of in parallel but then outlived Cauliflower so that group doesn't exist anymore but it's fine we're all good it's all over oh yeah Anyway Captains of the Imagination is a group that started without me actually so it started with Imagine who you know Imagine the he's a rapper from Geneva so it started with him and another rapper called Capitan and they had a producer called SEZ and a DJ called DJ Tiny Tim but over time they started inviting Dr. Cool on songs and on to concerts oh hey wouldn't be cool if you did 16 bars here or if you did this one song that we worked together on I was living in New York at the time and I would come back and forth to Geneva they'd be like oh wouldn't it why don't you invite Evita to some stuff yeah yeah sure so then I would just sort of hop on every now and again do an outro to a song at a concert or they say oh I'll just do I'll do 16 bars here I'll do 16 bars there whatever and then eventually we actually started getting more and more shows we actually booked we were the opening act for a Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde so that was huge for us and I think that also made us want to solidify the group so we're like okay so now actually the group is Imagine Dr. Cool and Evita you are the only women in the group yes and I want to know how you would advise or even just kind of recommend people to start a group like that but even giving advice for people who are women or FINTA who want to be in spaces but might feel a bit outside of that kind of CIS heterosexual male kind of energy do you know what I mean those are really good question and I really don't know how to answer that because I honestly feel that it has a lot to do with that I was very lucky actually with the CIS het-men that I was around at the time when I was starting that they were very caring and conscientious of me being like a younger girl in the group but over time to be fair it did become very isolating over time like it got it started to get old being the only girl around started to get very old and how did that make you feel oh yeah it's like just isolated yeah a bit isolated and a bit lonely in the way that I mean they're great I mean I love I love the people that I've been working with all these years but there are certain things that we can't relate to with each other and there are certain things that after a while I'm like well I actually want to talk about this or I want to talk about that but no one gets it so it's not resonating so it's not satisfying to express this around you guys so my answer to that was to try as much as possible to find people who were like-minded to me in ways that maybe the guys weren't and it's been super inspiring and fruitful and like you know I don't have the I don't have a straight answer for that because it's honestly something that I'm still working yeah yeah but that's why I asked because it's actually something that is we don't often get to hear that side of things you know because we see people in spaces it's not anything new like having a group men and then the women you know we've got like another girl on the hook you know but yeah it's not anything new but then at the same time it's like what is going on yeah in that space for the women in that space and also there might actually be some people who are put off by it you know they might love hip-hop or they might love that the music but especially if they're uncertain of themselves they might be put off by pushing through because it's not a safe space for them actually yeah absolutely also I found myself in those situations and then realized that I was missing something and all that made me want to do was dive deep into other collectives you know other collectives where they're more women more people of color as well because that's also another thing is in Geneva in the hip-hop scene that I'm a part of and the rap scene that I'm a part of there weren't that many people of color in it but anyway all that to say for me the remedy is just trying to find people who you can see yourself in you don't necessarily have to push through uh being misunderstood it's not always the best use of your time it can be if you have the motivation to be like you know what I really want these people to understand where I'm coming from but they don't have to and you can also build yourself up by finding people who are like-minded too it's easier said than done because it's like well how do I do that where am I going to find them I can just say from my experience I felt that I sort of put that out in the world or I made myself very sensitive to what I was missing so as soon as there was a glimmer of that I felt open and spontaneous enough to sort of go for that and make sure that I made it a part of my life do you know what I mean absolutely yeah I mean if I could if I could shout out I mean already I love working with you so I make it yeah so I'm like well if when I can work with Nat I make myself available to make that happen because it's important for me to to I love it too yeah because I love working with you so so things like that reflect on what you feel you're missing in the people you surround yourself with be very clear about those things so when maybe an opportunity arises that can fill that gap you're ready to take it and you don't let it pass you by so that way it doesn't leave you in frustration. If you are involved in music as a hobby profession or both sign up for free on the Helvetiarockt music directory. It's a platform for women, non-binary, trans and intersex people in the Swiss music industry. For singers, instrumentalists, bookers, managers, sound engineers, photographers and many more of all levels. It's about visibility, it's about community, it's about empowerment. We invite all of you to participate in the project. For further information go to musicdirectory.ch let's take this opportunity to listen to your first track that you've provided us with it's called moment can you talk about moment how did how did this song come about so moment is a song from my debut ep the EP is called break and the song moment sort of it for me it pays homage to my Idols my influences like D'Angelo and Lauren Hill this Erykah Badu this very like Neo Soul Vibe I wanted to make something that sounded sweet and felt sweet to sing so moment is a song that I like to describe is the feeling of falling in love with your eyes open it's about embracing honesty and being present in the moment not to project not to hold grudges to just accept yourself and the person that you're sharing the moment with fully and honestly yeah wonderful here is moment You mentioned before that you are a singer-rapper rapper-singer yes how did you start rapping and how does one start to rap and also I'm going to let you answer that but I just want to also underline the fact that you don't just rap, you Freestyle girl I think that's the next level in the art form so how do you get to that point okay I listened to a lot of rap a lot of hip-hop my whole life and eventually I just understood that I was picking up on patterns I also loved poetry and I loved literature when I started I mean I still do but that was a big part of my life when I started rapping so I don't know I just was surrounded by or very sensitive to words when I was when I started rapping yeah how does it start I can't really tell you I just had a deep need to explore words yeah and explore explore rhymes so I just started writing things and finding ways to make them rhyme or I had an idea in my head and I wanted to express it and I thought wouldn't it be cool if I could make it rhyme that's for me the basic basic sometimes you just start with a rhyme and then the idea comes after so you might just start with like I don't know something well here's the thing I'm actually queuing out I'm leading up to I want us to do a little freestyle oh yes but I want you to I want you to help me as well yes so it says tell me how all right it's a freestyle so okay because I've seen you do I'm like how did you do that they're okay they're different things that you can do to start getting into it I like to do like gibberish first okay so like if you're just starting to get into improvising improvising percussion of your mouth you know so for example there might be a beat and just to get yourself used to making these connections you could go like (rhymes gibberish) just getting yourself used to making these connections and they don't have to have any they don't have to have any meaning at all and even freestyle they don't have to have meaning at first at all it's just getting you used to doing so like associations it's not that you're trying to say something important or with like you said with meaning not all the time but when you're when you're just starting out no I think that's how I feel you you go down to the basics of this is a percussive art form that is based on association verbal percussive association verbal percussive association do you want to do like a back and forth yes okay so this is what should I give you a beat one of your own beats yes that's true as Evita’s DJ okay one of my Beats do you want to do “what's up” that's quite as slow yeah let's do awesome yeah let's do “what's up” all right and this is what we're gonna do you and me is we'll do four bars each and this is how I also learned to freestyle, I was given a certain amount of bars to sort of fill the space but what am I going to talk about no we're not talking about it we just flibbery-dibbering yes okay great yeah that's what we're doing okay okay okay and we'll do it in bars let's do four bars each okay okay I'll start okay let's let the intro ride a little bit let's get into it yeah from London um so Scooby-Dooby-Doo flooby-doo and do it's good and then a bluebird yes yes for example you could just get yourself used to filling the space I've given you I've given you a structure I've given you four bars to express to explore right now what I could then give you the challenge is like I said all of freestyle and I think all of writing is word association so make yourself open to just saying the spontaneity of saying whatever comes to mind so next round, we’re going to bring the beat back how can I do this as like a pedagogical thing so then so the next round yeah I'm gonna let you think of four words that rhyme bus yeah cuss yeah no I don't want to do that anymore okay um last yeah fast yeah cast yeah and flabbergast flabbergast okay I'm gonna write mine down too I'm just gonna think of four words that rhyme and then basically what we're going to do is we're going to find a way to fit those four words that rhyme okay in our four bars thank you, she's got a pen and paper we're being so well taken care of you so much right but gosh okay I'm gonna come up with some words charger oh harder power power hour like time right let's give ourselves a little intro let's give ourselves yeah just to like get into it you know I'll hype you up you know okay all right but you're gonna start or I'm gonna stop I'll start yeah yeah yeah uh musicians in conversation yeah uh Nat from London um uh I'm running out of battery I think I need my charger it's gonna make my day a little harder but if I can get all that power to make me feel like I am the woman of the hour I better go faster because I don't wanna be lost yes in the cast this time yeah I don't know what I'm saying this rhyme and I don't want to be in time yes Lavagirl said everlasted I don't know what I'm gonna say next step, Evita is my teacher and I'm gonna do it right I don't know what we're doing tonight! Nat from London, live and direct. I’m getting all sweaty. practice practice so first of all I would just like to congratulate you you've just you've just improvised on the spot off the top of the head yes four words out of the maybe like 40 or 50 that you've just said out loud, were the only things that you had in your mind so oh you're so right so think about that you just wrote down four words but then you were able to fill up something like eight bars and then you added new words you were like teachers you know so do you see what I'm saying it's a lot simpler than you think we've talked about like singing and rapping but there's another dimension to what you do which is performance yes and you know as we said you know I'm on stage with you I see you and I'm just watching you as if I'm in the audience like sometimes you just blow my mind because of your performance so it's not just the talent of the singing and rapping how do you get to that stage because it's not not everyone gets it do you know what I mean like the connection with the audience how do you get to that stage of like giving an amazing performance okay so this is something that's really really near and dear to my heart I love the craft of performance I think this goes back to you know I have roots in musical theater and theater in general like I did a lot of theater growing up so much of performance is spontaneity and honesty that's what that's what's at the Forefront of my mind when I perform is like I know the songs uh it's up to me to create an honest and unique moment every time I'm on stage because every stage is different I'm trying to show you why I do music so I've done a lot to put myself in that position I have to remember why and the reason why is because I have this music I have this I have something that I'm so desperate for people to understand I'm I've put myself in this position because I have a desperate desperate urgent dire need for people to understand me and that's that's because that's where I'm coming from I'm coming from a place of this is my party and I'm showing you why you accepted the invitation. Right now is the time for the audience question yes and this question comes from at @Nik3000 that's n dot I dot k dot 3000 and the question is what is your view on the Swiss music scene That’s an interesting question the Swiss music scene I think by virtue of it being a country that has four official languages can be kind of segregated based on language so there sometimes isn't very much crossover at all between the different regions of the country like the francophone part and the German speaking part and the Italian speaking part sometimes there might like I was so happy to meet different artists from other parts of Switzerland that spoke you know maybe from like the Italian part of Switzerland when we did the Swiss Live Talents yeah because I was like you this is amazing I never get to meet you guys I never get to there's not much crossover at all and for such a small country I find it so strange but yeah I think in German they call it Rostigraben I think is this sort of separation between the cantons that speak different languages or the regions that speak different languages so yeah it's weirdly segregated for such a small place that has an abundance of talent yeah an abundance of talent and inspiration and creativity it's weirdly slept on and there's not much exchange between us it's so strange what can happen because I know that I mean just having by doing this podcast I'm getting to speak to people from different regions and there's things that people are trying to do in terms of exchange but what in your view can be done I think there's often a thing of maybe risk that people don't want to take when it comes to but this is a French artist why would I put them in a German-speaking location right in terms of like booking yeah I think I think that has a lot to do with it so maybe creating events that are specifically focused on the this kind of exchange I would propose having events and spaces where specifically maybe the goal is to have this mix of different artists representing different parts of the country yeah yeah why not you never know unless you try you never it's like I see it like one of those things of you know with makeup they would never have foundation and dark colours because they're like well no one's gonna buy it but then now every like all the all the dark colors are always out of stock yeah so who is Booboo the fool when it comes to that thank you. exactly exactly what to you is the importance of communities and collectives so for me I feel like I owe so much of my progress as an artist to the collectives I've been a part of Worldwide Connects was really formative for me because that's where I got to see for the first time a group of people who had similar tastes as me and who were also quite skilled so it gave me an example to follow now I'm part of a collective called Herd Culture Kid which was started it was actually a pandemic project oh and the focus of this Collective is that we are all third culture kids so if you don't know this term or this phenomenon it's people who have grown up in different countries that are even different the cultures of their parents so you have the culture of your parent the culture of the environment that you're in but as well as your own culture that is a mix of the two and even more so because your own culture might not be represented at home. It is a growing Phenomenon with multiculturalism so we are a collective of rappers based in Geneva who all have this in common so in the collective we have Dr Cool myself, Paps, Kamu root words and imagine so yeah so that's what I collected that I'm in now and also I just want to give if I can on the other side a big shout out to my girl Karami she's just an artist I appreciate immense and thanks to her and the art that she does she has a really beautiful way of bringing like-minded kind yes uh conscientious aware people together in projects and the representation of just having so many women people of color working on big projects it's just been really significant for me and I'm sure for all of us who are part of her projects I'm not going to talk too much about her projects but because you know we interviewed I interviewed her for season one so guys if you're listening go back to season one I think it was episode 10 actually yes you get to hear Karami from her with her own words yes but she's super inspiring artist I have somebody who's touched so many people's lives around in the community actually exactly just by existing and creating exactly exactly I just I really appreciate and admire her art and how generous it is in terms of it gives so many people opportunities to connect build and then also produce as I said a lot of it is you know black afro descendant diasporic people making this art and creating visibility in Switzerland so anyway I just wanted a big a big shout out to her big shout out to my girl KT Gorique as well I've just felt the fruits of just being around them and it's influencing me a lot and giving me a lot of inspiration and hope and strength so big up to those girls big up big up classic rapper Evita giving all the shout outs Let us wrap up we've I could talk to you for hours as you know as you know I'm just thinking God I've got to edit this oh my gosh babe it's so wonderful to have you with us before you go though we've got a second song from you yes can you introduce your second song for us it is called shoot your shot it's a song I wrote about really leaving self-consciousness lack of confidence inhibition behind it doesn't really matter what other people are doing if you just do your own thing you'll surprise yourself of how well you can do so just do it here it is shoot your shot ever so much what I'm serving on the stage that you just want to taste so why you lick the plate and say I gotta stay within my own lane if you don't like the picture because maybe my Divine is not for you to Define why are you so surprised don't act like she don't bring it every single time paint on hair nice even with a fresh face even on a bad day I'm feeling Aura so bright if you found it by my raise no stay step out the way imma come out Dark Times yeah they did my life I do my best to reject it but right now I'm feeling myself feeling myself that's more than enough more than enough oh easy to feel like you're far away lots of space and we just can't catch a break so funny how you find the way when the jealousies obey and you hear the play perform I'm smelling the Roses I'm strolling living like I'm near with the code in slow mo because I see a significant difference in my spirit and in my general appearance when I let them do their thing and I'm drinking water and I'm minding my business so hydrate create Elevate meditate motivate cultivate calibrate navigate If you want to join the Helvetiarockt community or find out more check out the website, sign up for the newsletter and follow us on social media. If you'd like to support Helvetiarockt you can also become a member or donate and if you like what you heard today please share it with your friends. Helvetiarockt Musicians in Conversation is a concept by Natalia Anderson in collaboration with Helvetiarockt. It's presented and produced by Natalia Anderson music is by Jackie Brutsche and The Jackets.