OneDa interview: “I want abundance”
A unique voice with big ambitions, meet OneDa
For years, Manchester’s music scene was dominated by the giants of the past – Joy Division and New Order, Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, The Smiths and James. Even its own musicians would talk of the cultural shadow the city’s history cast on them and the restrictions it could sometimes put on them.
But Manchester, as any photo of the city centre taken in the last five years will show you, is changing, and changing fast. There’s the physical aspect, of course, the skyscrapers that make it resemble Toronto or Seattle. But it’s also undergoing a personal revolution as well.
“The amount of culture here is ridiculous,” the MC – and, as of the weekend, AIM award winner – OneDa tells us, speaking to Juno Daily from her girlfriend’s house in the city one autumnal morning. “A lot of people are moving here.”
For OneDa, there’s a more hands on reason to love the city too. “It’s a great place to be if you want to do something,” she says, “because you’ll find other people to help and support you.”
While her just-released debut album Formula OneDa certainly bears the benefit of community – there are guest spots from Renee Stormz, Prido, Princethekid, Ace Clvrk and Superlative & Miss Stylie – but under no illusion, it’s very much OneDa’s vision.
Asked what she was looking to achieve with the album, she says the aim was fairly simple. “I just wanted to get across what I’m about, the different elements that have gone into my sound. There’s drum & bass, hip-hop, a few bits of Afrobeat, even a bit of ambient piano in there.”
From the bass bumping hip-hop of ‘Raised’, the Desi-infused ‘Pull Up’, to the more high octane drum & bass anthems like ‘Superwoman’ , ‘Leader’ and ‘Set It Off’, it’s a journey through a spectrum of varied sounds that has one thing in common, namely OneDa’s unique voice. It’s instantly recognisable and highly distinctive, with elements of both Manchester and her West African roots.
The era of MCs and rappers imitating their American counterparts has now seemingly gone forever. “Why would I put on an American accent?” she points, “It would only diminish me because the whole thing is about me being who I am.”
Ironically, it’s only been since jungle and grime freed up the UK’s rap community from imitating the US, giving it its own unique identity, that Stateside has begun opening up to their rhymes. “I feel that drum & bass has had a real resurgence over the last year or two, not only here but in America too,” she says, pointing out that Flowdan has just won a Grammy and proud that her tracks are also gaining traction on the other side of the Atlantic as well as here. “I want to be an international artist,” she spells out plainly.
OneDa clearly has big plans, not content to merely be the toast of an underground scene but to spread her talents and messages to the widest possible audience. She’s recently taken to the road with Heavenly labelmates Kneecap but also Baxter Dury. “That was perfect for me,” she says of the latter, “because it wasn’t what you’d think of as my audience at all.”
Likening the development of her career as like constructing a house, she’s happy to have laid down the foundations with Formula OneDa, but reckons she has a lot of building left to do. What’s the ultimate target?
“I want abundance,” she says. “I know what I deserve out of life. That doesn’t mean I’m not happy now, because I am. I don’t mean in monetary terms either. I’m talking about an abundance of options and choices.”
Ben Willmott