Role Model's life changed when Mac Miller discovered his EP
WATCH | Role Model's full interview with Tom Power:
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
an hour ago
- CTV News
Honkytonk Kenya: Africa's home of country music
The party is in Kenya, but the vibe is distinctly Americana: a sea of cowboy hats and boots with a soundtrack of whisky-soaked tales about heartbreak and good ol' boys. Kenya has become the unlikely home of a growing country music scene, possibly the biggest in Africa, as testified by the thousands line-dancing in a field in the capital Nairobi at the weekend for International Cowboys and Cowgirls Day. The festival crowd went wild for the king of the local country scene, 'Sir Elvis' Otieno, as his deep baritone belted out classics like 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' mixed with newer hits like 'Down to the Honkytonk'. Sir Elvis's parents named him after another musical monarch who died a few months before he was born in 1977, and then raised him on a diet of country legends like Jim Reeves and Alan Jackson. 'When I started out it was a very tiny genre' in Kenya, he told AFP at the festival. 'It's a dream come true to see a crowd like this today.' There are links, he said, to local traditions, particularly the story-telling music of the Kikuyu tribe known as Mugithi. 'Kikuyu folk music has the same kind of language, they draw from each other quite a bit,' said Sir Elvis. 'It's really crazy -- so many thousands of miles apart, but the messaging is the same.' 'Life, love, hate, forgiveness' Anne Anene, 26, still remembers the song that turned her into a country music fan: Dolly Parton's 'Do I Ever Cross Your Mind?'. 'Her songs always speak to me because they always have deep messages, and they usually tell a story of what I go through,' said Anene, a customer service representative for a health insurance firm. 'I've always hoped to go to Texas or Nashville one day,' she added. 'I'd like to visit the ranches, I like horse riding, I like the ranch kind of life -- the quiet, the calm.' The clothes are also a big part of the appeal. The festival was organised by Reja Manyeki, who runs a clothing and events company called Cowboys and Cowgirls. It was still pretty niche when he opened in 2018 but 'now people love country music. It touches all corners (of society). 'We do cowboy-themed events, birthdays, weddings, end-of-year parties... Now everyone comes, even schools.' Big farming and Christian communities also make Kenya fertile ground for country and gospel music. First to perform at the festival was Samson Maombe, who has picked up millions of streams for his Swahili-language takes on Christian country tunes. But for 'King George' Gustavo, lead MC of the festival, it is the tales of everyday life that keep him hooked and ensures he listens to Alan Jackson 'every single day'. 'The lyrics speak to life, love, hate, forgiveness, cheating, drinking...' he said. 'You identify with that, and then obviously there's a bit of dancing.' Anene, the Dolly Parton fan, says country music is also an escape. 'In this world full of confusion, full of drama, country music is the only thing that makes sense to me. It has made me find peace.'
CBC
2 hours ago
- CBC
After winning the Polaris Music Prize, Debby Friday bet on herself
When Debby Friday first joined Q 's Tom Power for an interview in 2023, her debut album, Good Luck, didn't just shake up the music scene, it shot her straight into the spotlight. That album ended up winning the Polaris Music Prize, which brought Friday a lot more attention and tons of new fans. But when she sat down to write her latest record, The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life, she made a conscious decision to do things differently. Instead of leaning into the experimental sound she had become known for, she wanted to make a more pop-influenced record. "I have made experimental work pretty much the majority of my career," she says. "That's like my bread and butter. But what I wanted to do was figure out a way to kind of, I would say, bridge the gap between experimental and then also accessible…. I was like, 'What would a Debby Friday pop song sound like?'" WATCH | Debby Friday's full interview with Tom Power: Besides making her music sound catchy, Friday found that the biggest challenge of writing a pop song was that it required her to tap into her vulnerable side. "I think a lot of people, when they meet me through my music, they see the hard side, the rougher side, the side that's more like this powerful — can I say bitch? — this powerful bitch," she tells Power. "But that side, I think, came up more as a self-defense mechanism that I developed earlier on in my life." After winning the Polaris Music Prize, Friday made the decision to be self-managed so she could have complete control over her creative vision. She wrote the song Bet On Me about taking that leap. "Something that is really important to me is just being true to myself and being true to my vision," she says. " I have a very strong vision. I know exactly what I want to get out of this career. And a big part of that is this honesty — honesty and clarity in self-expression, and that's not always going to look like what other people's ideas are." WATCH | Official video for Bet On Me:
CBC
4 days ago
- CBC
Mo Amer unpacks the pressure of being a Palestinian American comedian
Social Sharing Mo Amer should feel on top of the world right now. His semi-autobiographical TV series Mo is one of Netflix's most celebrated comedy dramas, and he's currently on a massive stand-up tour, with one stop in Toronto next week. But in an interview with Q 's Tom Power, Amer says his success is tempered by a pretty significant internal conflict. As a Palestinian American comedian with a major platform, he's had to think deeply about how to address the ongoing war in Gaza, particularly as he wrapped up writing Season 2 of Mo in late 2023. "I thought it would be a happy time — this is the worst time," Amer tells Power. "I'm the only Palestinian in the game. Everybody's coming at me left and right: 'What are you going to say? What are you going to do?' … [I'm] walking such an insane tightrope to fulfill this kind of show." WATCH | Mo Amer's full interview with Tom Power: For the latest season of Mo, Amer opted out of talking about the events on Oct. 7 by setting the finale to end on Oct. 6, 2023. "It's pressure from everything," he says. "From either side. It's not just the Palestinian side. It's easy for me to be Palestinian because I'm Palestinian. It's easy to tell a Palestinian story because I'm Palestinian. Now, you have to factor in, [does] the show exist in a post-October 7th world? And every time I explored that, it was like a death blow to the whole show…. So I refused. I said no." [I'm] walking such an insane tightrope. - Mo Amer Though Amer has gone to great lengths to make his work feel sincere, grounded and never inflammatory, he says walking that tightrope still feels "extremely dangerous" at times. "I'm Palestinian making a TV show in Hollywood," he tells Power. "What I did is very, very difficult to do. It's a story not just about Palestinians, but also it's an immigration story, it's Latinos, it's Houston, it's all these layers that you have to unpackage. You got to be careful how you put that story together." WATCH | Official trailer for Season 2 of Mo: But despite the increased pressure and scrutiny he's facing, Amer says it's all been worth it. After his stand-up shows, he's had emotional conversations with people of all different ages and backgrounds, some of whom are refugees who fled Gaza. "I'm talking to doctors that were on the ground in Gaza," he says. "I've met kids — amputee children — I've held them in my own arms. They've come to see my show and tell me they watched the show in Gaza. That is as rewarding as it gets…. So those are the kind of conversations I'm having. Everybody's like, 'Oh, you must be having a blast touring!' Don't get me wrong, being on stage is the best rest I get. Being on the actual stage is the best time that I have. Everything after that is just a ton of pain in the heart."
