ON THE RISE
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — South African artist Gr8ful’s name displays how he feels and his two-single project, “Perspectives,” talks about how he got to where he can feel that way.
“Perspectives” is two songs, “Pop Off” and Carry On” with two completely different sounds that relates to the artist’s journey and development into the singer he is now.
“The message behind ‘Carry On’ is basically having faith, believing that any difficulty only breeds change and through that change you’ll eventually feel the ease and be able to reap the pleasure of life,” Gr8ful said. “‘Carry On’ carries that message, where as ‘Pop Off’ is more of a let loose, allow yourself to be in order to find yourself kind of song. I’m saying take the time that you need in order to be the best version of yourself.”
Gr8ful said the video for “Carry On” carries a message as well starting off with the artist jumping out of bed early to an alarm and joining a friend to work in a food truck. He seems to question where he’s going in life, saying “I’m greatful, but I didn’t sign up for this shit.” Then the scenes change rapidly to as the young man becomes more successful.
“With ‘Carry On’ we used Scarface as the genre we were trying to show, going from being in the food truck to a massive amount of success,” Gr8ful said. “The question is how do you handle that success.”
Gr8ful said music has always been a part of his life, from primary school when he started playing the violin. As he got older he tried other instruments like the drums, the piano and the guitar.
As he got older, his brother encouraged him to start writing his own music.
He counts his musical influences in the old-school giants of hip hop, Tupac, Biggy and LL Cool J. Today he listens to the likes of Kendrick Lamar, J Cole and Lil Wayne.
He started taking his speaker to the park around the age of 13 and 14, practicing raps with friends to get more comfortable with free-styling.
“I’d go on to playing beats on my speaker, like normal beats and then I started rapping over them,” Gr8ful said. “It was just me and my cousins and I started rapping about what they were wearing and eventually I started being able to be very fluid with my words and being able to say whatever I want. It wasn’t really like nursery rhymes type stuff anymore it was more like I'm able to rap about actual stuff.”
Gr8ful said “Carry On” and “Pop Off” were released in November, but he wrote them about a year ago. Those two songs show him in transition from that kid in the park to the musician he is now.
“‘Carry On’ and ‘Pop Off’ were very different to how I approach my creating of music,” he said. “It was the first time I actually sat in the studio and the producer was making the beat in front of me. While he was making the beat I was writing my lyrics. It was the first time it had gone like that. Usually I would get a beat and I would go home and write my lyrics to the beat and come back and record. This was completely different, it changed my perspective on music and my stance.”
Gr8ful plans to release more music in the new year showing how that transition has continued and the artist he’s become.
“I say that ‘Perspectives’ was the biggest project that I’ve released at the moment, but it’s not going to be the biggest project I’m ever going to release,” Gr8ful said. “That’s definitely cooking up now and it is for next year. We have something that's much bigger coming. This is only the start and it’s part of a much bigger picture. It’s setting the tone for what is to come. You have to have a perspective for what’s to come.”
Be sure to stay connected with GR8FUL on all platforms for new music, videos, and social media posts.
Websites:
Spotify
Apple Music
YouTube
Gr8ful.co.za (Coming soon)
Socials:
Instagram
Facebook
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Pop and soul singer Sharon Watkins is preparing to share her very first album in 2023. Working alongside producer Sam Miller (known for his work with The Hoosiers and One Direction), she is following up with her newest release, The One That Got Away, which arrives on 18 November 2022. The track is a tender acoustic ballad that tells the story of leaving behind a harmful relationship, finding strength, and welcoming a fresh start. With gentle piano arrangements and Sharon’s unmistakable soulful voice, the song captures an intensely emotional journey.
Her earlier singles, Proud and Stranded, have already connected with listeners in a big way, reaching more than 250,000 views on YouTube and 150,000 streams on Spotify. With this momentum building, Music News sat down with Sharon to talk about her music and what comes next.
Hi Sharon How are you?
Doing really well thanks! So excited about all the momentum we’ve had with our first 3 singles, honestly, it has been insane to have had BBC radio interviews, rotations, global press coverage and to have won an international song contest in such a short space of time!!
Tell us about your latest release ‘The One That Got Away’?
Well, it starts out as a real wintery piano ballad, portraying that moment when you suddenly realise that someone you're with is messing you around. Then, with the help of big strings and orchestral percussion, it develops into a powerful "I'm over you" song…. It is really a defiant two-fingers up at the ex that never appreciated you until it was too late. It moves from the turmoil of still having feelings for that person, cutting lose and moving on to triumphant recovery, knowing that you made the right decision.
The music video is visually stunning and the dance is beautiful, talk to us about the filming of this video and the creative decision to use dance to express the meaning of the track.
Thank you, that means a lot! We’re really pleased with the way the video came out. Me and my brother, Sammy J Stopford, who has been my partner in crime on this whole album project, knew very early on that we wanted a contemporary dance that portrayed the turmoil in this song. I also knew I wanted the video to express the mental turmoil you go through after finishing a relationship and the underwater medium just seamed such an ideal metaphor for that. We put out a request for dancers and choreographers on Instragram not thinking we would get much interest. One of our lessons on this project is that you can’t pore the right energy into a project if you don’t love the music and so this was the main pre-requisite for dancers…. “please only contact us if the song inspires you!”…. we couldn’t believe the response!! We ended up watching so many amazing dance videos from such talented people. Our album is about adult life lessons and so we knew we wanted a believable couple, that had a great connection and were old enough to have gone through an adult relationship and breakup. We chose Florivaldo Mossi (Michael Jackson in West End Show “Thriller”) & Ashley Cavell (Star of many shows, including ABBA Fever) as they are both incredible dancers but also fit the storyline so well. I couldn’t believe it when Choreographer, Stewart Arnold (choreographer & dancer to Kate Bush) agreed to work on the project!!
The writing in the song is very personal. Was it emotional pouring these emotions into lyrics?
Honestly, it is like an exorcism. Songwriting is how I process and deal with life’s ups-and-downs and so I would be lost without that outlet. It forces me to really dig deep on my emotions towards things. You can’t write songs about superficial stuff, otherwise it just sounds cliché.
What do you hope people take away from ‘The One That Got Away’?
I feel like it’s the song you need a friend to play you when you have broken up from someone and are feeling injured and unsure. You need someone to tell you that you missed a bullet and one day that ex will look around and realise that they lost something very special. I have had people reach out already and tell me how relatable the message is and that it has helped them… this is the biggest compliment of all!!
Talk to us about your influences as an artist.
I grew up in Manchester surrounded by an incredible 90’s music scene, in a house where my dad played everything from The Beatles to Zappa. I then spent 8 years living in the states, picking up some great American influences like Carole King. I have now made Nottingham my home, which is where I recorded the album and I have honestly really been enjoying the return in popularity of singer-songwriters like Lewis Capaldi and Tom Odell …. So all-in-all a pretty varied range of influcences… making for an eclectic pop album that I hope you all like.
Going back briefly on the video, you collaborated with some great people on the video such as Stewart Arnold who worked closely with Kate Bush and Florivaldo Mossi, noted for being Michael Jackson in Thriller Live. Tell us about your experience working with them.
It's been the stuff of dreams really. I am a massive Kate Bush fan and to work with Stewart was like a dream come true. He and I had some long conversations about our vision for this video and the turmoil I wanted to portray. His ability to translate that into dance is something amazing to watch. I had the honour of watching him choregraph the dancers on the morning of the shoot and it was like watching a master at work, the artistic ideas that he brought to this project were incredible. Flori Mossi and Ashley Cavell are both experienced dancers but seeing the way they clicked together, and their interaction and interpretation of the song just blew me away.
What can we expect from you next?
Well, we have 3 more singles coming ahead of the album launch in 2023, so make sure you follow me on Spotify to keep up with those (Sharon Watkins) and we’re also going to be doing a series of “Live Lounge” performances of our tracks ahead of the album release so follow me on socials @sharonwatkinsofficial to keep an eye out for those.
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