Remember my friend Novel (Ashley Deveaux) from the Bahamas?
He’s entered a competition with his production team Archetype Infinity to work with Ryan Leslie in New York. Seems pretty important to him and he’s a talented guy – so I thought I’d do what I could to help him out.
All you have to do is text: X64ZX3 to +49 177 178 1208 and the jobs done. I’m sure he’d really appreciate it.
Ashley Deveaux aka Novel
“Make Me Say” by Sketch feat. Novel
A couple of months back, I received an email from a young guy who’s producing and performing music in the Bahamas. For a while I couldn’t really figure out what he did (he describes himself as a ‘vocal producer’), but he’s one of a new wave of young Bahamians making smooth R&B and succeeding in getting local music played on local radio in his hometown of Nassau.
Bizarrely, his girlfriend lives in Wolverhampton (they met while studying in Jamaica) and he was over visiting, so we met up for a coffee and a chat, and I showed him around some of the nicer bits of Birmingham city centre.
Really interesting guy, particularly given that he’s possibly the first to incorporate traditional Bahamian sounds into contemporary R&B – and had a number one hit in the process (a song called ‘My Candidate’).
Novel’s a rapper and a singer as well as a vocal producer, though the majority of his recorded output since dropping out of medical school to pursue a music industry career has involved the vocals of others. He wrote and co-produced the track you can listen to above, and also provided the rap. His friend Sketch (Christopher Carey) is the singer.
So… not my usual musical territory, but a really talented and interesting guy, completely sold on the possibilities of digital social media for independent music. You should visit his website here.
I floated the idea of a possible Un-Convention Nassau, and he seemed to think that might be quite a good idea. Something to explore – and certainly something I’d be up for…
I'm the Director of MTF Labs, a Senior Researcher at the Industry Commons Foundation, advisor to ArtEO and founder of New Music Strategies.
I'm an author of books about technology, culture, music and radio. I'm also an award-winning broadcaster and filmmaker, a public speaker and lecturer, record producer and festival director. I am closely following developments in emerging technologies and the cultures and ethics surrounding them, and my projects typically focus on issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability.
Most of my work involves surrounding myself with incredibly smart and talented people who would have no other reason to ever be in the same room as each other. That's when amazing things happen.
I tend to talk a lot about music (often jazz-adjacent and particularly on vinyl, but also playlists and mixtapes). I'm enthusiastic about food and cooking, the intersection of art and science, new technologies, vintage technologies, education, social progress, silence, innovation, narrative, data commons, culture, sound art and the spoken word. This blog will continue to reflect those diverse and shifting enthusiasms. I may also digress.
I'm from Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand, I have Scottish ancestry, I've spent a decade in the south of Birmingham UK, and another in a forest in the north of Sweden.
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