Discovering singer songwriter Ntjam Rosie

Welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World, where I interview musicians about how their music helps make the world more harmonious.

It was a real pleasure to speak to such an informed musician about her work - Ntjam Rosie is a Cameroonian-Dutch artist who really seems to have discovered her purpose and her sound. Her self-titled album is actually her ninth studio recording and it was fascinating to hear her thoughts on why now.

Thanks to Rosie for allowing me to play extracts from her self-titled album alongside our conversation.

Thank you for listening to Harmonious World. Please rate, review and share: click on the link and subscribe to support the show.

Don't forget the Quincy Jones quote that sums up why I do this: "Imagine what a harmonious world it would be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing."

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Da welcome to the latest episode of Harmonious World.

unknown 0:39

Look at me.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

My name is Hilary Seabrook. For this episode of Harmonious World, I'm joined by Nijam Rosie. Who has a new self-titled album out. It's her ninth studio album. And she said it's not about arrival, it's about returning to what matters most. What you're listening to now is Lost in Translation. And I hope you enjoy listening to my conversation with Rosie. So I'm delighted to be joined for this episode of Harmonious World by Nietzsche and Rosie. Hello. Hi. Hi. So you have a new self-titled album out, which has just come out a few weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Okay, so let's talk about your music. This is not your first album, it's your ninth album, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yes, indeed, it's my ninth studio album. Yeah, I've been uh doing this for quite a while. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Yeah, absolutely. And you're based in the Netherlands now, is that right?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah, I'm based in the Netherlands in Rotterdam to be precise. So um, yeah, and I I came here to study um at the conservatory and I stayed here.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

Oh, very good. Excellent. And you're a guitarist and singer and songwriter.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Yeah, I'm I'm more a singer-songwriter, and then I play a little bit guitar. Right.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

And do you do your writing on the guitar?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yeah, for sure, yeah. Umly I started on keys as I think a lot of songwriters that do not maybe play an instrument. You have to like you need something to really write a song. Um, and then later I kind of um yeah, I don't know. Uh with the guitar, it it was more of an intuitive thing. Because with keys and then the theory that you get taught and the piano lessons, you start to see really what you what's in your head, and it becomes a bit formulaic to me. And then that's where the guitar came in that I needed something to just just play, not to think about it too much.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Right. Okay, that's fantastic. And you're originally from Cameroon.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Yeah, I was born there, and uh at the age of nine, nine, we moved to the Netherlands.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Right, and now you're in Rotterdam. Excellent, right? So let's talk about this album specifically. When did you write the tunes?

SPEAKER_01 3:14

I wrote the tunes around with 26 now. Yeah, I think I started in 2023, something like that, 22. You know how it goes with songwriting. You have a hook here and a lyric there, and yeah, yeah, yeah, and then and then it evolves.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Yes, and when it evolves, do you find that you uh you find the musicians that will work best for that this project and then work with them on building them up, or do you do all of the arrangements and then get the musicians in?

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Um, especially with this, uh every album of mine is a different kind of um getting into the production thing phase. But with this one, I really wanted to tap into um my guitar a little bit more and with where I stand on the guitar in terms of how much can I play, how well can I play what I have in my head, and is it better if I play it after I've written it or somebody else? So at first I just wanted to write by myself, play it by myself, and then later in the studio, I would see like okay, this is my band, I because because I have a band, and and how do I see it for life? Right, you know, so that also makes it um um it makes a difference if I decide like some songs are just really for me, they mean a lot to me. Like Lost in Translation is this kind of it's theatrical, it's it's music theater kind of, but then on on an album, you know, yeah, uh but then sonically. Um that that's a thing I really want to be able to play live. It's my little story, and I don't mind if it's not perfect, even when it's live, especially when it's live. And then other songs that are really tight, like better, like more poppy. Yeah, it's better to have my guitar player played because he's like more in tune with the stress that can come when you have no time, when it's cold, when you have to play outside, you know, all these technical things that come with playing an instrument, too. I I cannot deal with all of that. So all of that I take in.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Right. And also, yeah, and also I guess you're having to think about do I want to be singing and playing at the same time? Because that obviously takes a whole different, you know, splitting your brain.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Yeah, concentration, yeah, focus for sure. You really have to think about it, and um, that's something when you're writing songs, you should not be busy with, but when you know you're going on tour with uh with the work, with the music you've made, you have to think about that because uh when you have a TV gig that's like so much going on, yeah. Then you have to play and sing at the same time. I'm an artist that it gives me a lot of stress, so then I I I'm I'm not focused. So for sure, and also I look at other artists, like for example, Adele, she would play in the beginning of her career, she would play more often and sing. I don't know if people remember that, but she would do that, yeah. Because she's a singer-songwriter like that. But the more her career evolved in like more stressful kind of big things, it it would go to the back because you don't have to like prove that you write the songs, you know, that you can play. It's also there's a little bit of ego in that too. I must admit, you know, that you know, just uh maybe it's also because I'm a female, I don't know what it is. You you wanna like let people know, like, hey, I can play, and I wrote the songs because a lot of people, yeah, don't know that.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

No, no, and a lot of because there are singers who who don't write their own stuff, and um, and that's fine. That's that's absolutely fine. But I think when you do write it, I can absolutely understand you want to be kind of going, by the way, I did actually write all this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Yeah, yeah. So I've I've always had a little bit of that because it's quite intricate what I do. I can do a two-chord song, a one-chord song, even when it's super funky. Then it's not really about the chords always. Yeah, you know, so I like the spectrum, and I can go like a song in seven, and then we go to 11, and then we have 100 chords and crazy melody, whatever, as deep as it can go. Um, but that means that because you're like in such a contrast musically, people don't always, yeah, they cannot all you cannot expect people to assume that it it is you that has written this all this stuff.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

So and I've always had that also in school. Like, but did you really compose? It's for my teachers, even. And then you come in the jazz field where uh it it's like oh yeah, you sing, just you just sing and look beautiful, and we will do the rest. But yeah, I've always had like um a big a bit of a problem with that because I'm one of those singers that just I like to be a musician too. Uh well uh next to my singing, of course.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Yeah. But but as a singer, you're still a musician, you know, it's not and I think that's one of the things that that but you know, especially in jazz and especially I'm I'm a say instrumentalist. Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

That's a better way to say it to put it.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

Yeah, yes, yeah, absolutely. So it's interesting you talk about Lost in Translation because actually I play I'm playing a clip of that at the start of the podcast when I was doing the introduction because it was the song that spoke to me the most.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Ah, that's nice.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

It's really interesting. Actually, at this point in the podcast, I'd then like to play a piece. Now, I can't pronounce it. The the translation is every day. How do you pronounce it?

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Okay. So I'm gonna play a piece of musosa and then we'll talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Great.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Silima sili.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Where did that song come from?

SPEAKER_01 10:40

Mosese is um in Bulu. And Bulu is the language of the people of my mother. Well, I grew up with them. I obviously also have a father, but I didn't grow up with uh him, and he's from another tribe, Bamilike tribe. I yeah, I did not grow up with them, so that's not what I speak. I speak Bulu, and I am a Bulu woman. So um I do my best to keep the language alive within me, within my music. It's difficult, but um, yeah, it takes me a long, long, long time to get the grammar as far as you know, and all that stuff, right? Phonetic, phonetically, the phonetics, um, the meanings. Um and for me, uh a lot of my lyrics are about love, about you know, like soul music, oh yeah, uh, and also about faith. And this one is about uh faith, is um actually, if you sum it up, is uh in Matthew 7 where Jesus says the the beatitudes, if you know the Bible a little bit, and then um this is about you know how to treat others and all of that. That I I love that bit of the Bible, how to treat each other, and then um at the end of one of those chapters is like, but every day already has its own struggles, like just take it day by day. I love that part when I'm stressed. I go back to pieces like that in the Bible to just remind myself to like every day has its own struggle, it's okay to take it day by day. So it's like a long prayer to me. And even if people cannot um understand it like literally, I hope they feel the the the rest, the the ease. Yeah, like okay, I can calm down a bit, calm down a bit, yeah, slow down a little bit. It will be okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

And actually, I think sometimes we need that, don't we? Because you wake up in the morning sometimes and you think, right, I've got to get this done, I've got to do this, I've got to see this person, I've got to speak to this person, I've got to send this email, I've got to do whatever. And then something can happen which completely sidelines all of that. Yeah, you have to just accept that that's the way that day is gonna go.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Yeah, and I find I just find it like from a higher power, you know, if the higher power tells us to do that, slow down, then we really have to maybe listen. Maybe maybe there's some truth and some wisdom in that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Yeah, definitely. Why do you think it's taken you till your ninth album to do a self-titled one?

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Yeah, it's interesting because sometimes it's the first one for some artists. Um yeah, for me, the first albums um, like my first album was Atuba. Atuba is my uh grandmother that passed away by now. Um I just I was definitely not ready to make an album. I was studying at the conservatory, I think I was in my second year, and I was just like just only hearing how bad I was at singing, how bad I was at everything, and I also agreed, you know, mind you. Um, and then I had the chance to make an album. So definitely not in an chamrosy yet. I was just trying, experimenting, and the same with the second album that got me a little bit out there, my chamros, my uh album L. Every album, I love collaborating with people. Every album has a lot of that, even this self-titled album. But it's a different approach when you're just over 40. Career, like mid-career. I'm a mother, I'm a stepmother. Like I have a lot of life within me, and um it's a different kind of decision making, I guess, uh now. So I I and also to relative, how do you say that in English? Um I'm at a point in my life where I know like I don't need to show people what I can, I don't need to show off really no uh it's a the dun 22-year-old and Tom Rosie wanted to show off. I wanted to show every bit of what I can do, and I can do a lot, like I'm super confident by now without being cocky. Um, but I also don't want to I just wanted I like simple, I like it all, and and I know it's a lot. It's just a lot, it's not for everybody, I'm not for everybody, and it's fine. And I just wanted to play around with that concept, you know, to go into an album like relax like that and see I don't really of course the business uh person in me cares if people like it or not because like I don't want to be standing there in front of two people with a piece of a band and touring is expensive and all of that, but just from an intrinsic place, it it was really about the music. I love music so much, it even gets me emotional sometimes, you know how much I just love playing and making music, and it has always been my dream to be that girl on the guitar. That's that's that's my baby girl dream, so that's what I wanted to to take off from.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Yeah, oh that's fantastic. And so having uh released this album, are you touring it? Are you checking it out on the road?

SPEAKER_01 16:27

I started to tour, I started touring Saturday, on Saturday, last Saturday, 16th of May. And uh yeah, once I'm on stage, I remember like, oh yeah, the stage is really a second home. I'm really a songwriter, a collaborator, even a little bit of a producer. And then I get on stage. It's just like oh yeah, I need to keep singing and performing to just stay sane, you know, to share this stuff that you make at home by yourself, and then you get into these rooms with the musicians and you record it. But the life aspect to me is really everything. I've been in music theater for a couple of years. Um, so now I was like hungry to do my own little go or on a tour with my band, you know, a bit older. Uh, there's still a lot of theater kid in me. I love the like in theater, it's like after every show you get notes, and then you know, it's a lot of touring and it's hard work, and and I just love that about life. You every show it's never the same, even if the same, even if even if it's the same songs, the musicians don't feel the same every day, you know. You bring you bring life with you, the venue is different, the audience, and I just really love that about um touring now with this record and not mixing it all up with my older music, and yeah, it's a lot of lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

Fantastic. Well, I hope I get to see you soon. So that'd be good. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_01 18:14

Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Like I've been here before. I don't wanna go backward.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

Thank you for joining me for that episode of Harmonious World, and I hope you enjoyed listening to my conversation with Miss Jan Rosie. What you're listening to now is better from her self-titled album. Do check out the links in the show notes to find out more about Rosie, find out more about the reviews that I've been doing. And I do want to take the moment to just thank all my supporters. I've got some amazing supporters of Harmonious World and my reviews. So I want to say big thank you to Matt, to Richard, Kieran, Daryl, and Alex, Duncan Julie. There's lots of great people out there who tell me how much they enjoyed listening to these conversations. So thank you for joining me once more for Harmonious World and I hope you have a great week.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

I'm in the race, trying to come, freedom should be raised. Try a mirror, I spend guilty fashion, asking, suffering for seclusion, that has been my salvation.