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Rahsaan Patterson Interview

Rahsaan Patterson Interview By Porschia Baker Currently touring in support of his fourth release Wine & Spirits, Rahsaan Patterson presents an honestly open door of himself. If you want to know where he has been, then just listen. With twelve storied songs, Wine & Spirits carries soul through melodies, genres and brightly lit tunnels colored with emotions thick enough to feel hearts touch. “Pitch Black” is a favorite for its raw simplicity and expression of life’s troubles. Vocalizing himself for 23 years Rahsaan has managed to retain strength and burst energy continuously through his music. Wine & Spirits, in its entirety, is no different except for the fact that Rahsaan gives you the music you weren’t expecting. It just feels good! Nu-Soul: Can you define yourself musically? Can you label yourself? Rahsaan Patterson: No. I just make music. I like the adventure of exploring different musical territories. I guess, it’s soul because that’s where it comes from and hopefully, that’s where always reaches other people. So in that sense, I’m possibly classified as a soul [artist]. As you can tell, with this new album, there’s the rock element and ambient element. It’s definitely not one specific genre. Nu Soul: Did you say you do have a problem being classified as a soul artist? Rahsaan Patterson: No, I don’t because that’s where it comes from, but I prefer to just be an artist? Nu-Soul: Do you create music for the sake of being able to or do you actually enjoy making music? Rahsaan Patterson: I enjoy it. It saved my life, really, and it’s fun. It’s another dimension that I’m able to reside in. Nu-Soul: What happens when you’re singing? What do you feel? Rahsaan Patterson: I go somewhere and it’s a cosmic place. I love traveling there. Nu-Soul: Are you aware of it? Rahsaan Patterson: Yeah. The music takes me there and the energy, from the crowd. Once I hit that space there’s no turning back really. Nu-Soul: Since you’ve been singing have you always experienced that cosmic place or is it most recently? Rahsaan Patterson: No, I think it started, when I first started to tour, like with my first album. That’s when it really first started to happen. Nu-Soul: Why do you sing? Rahsaan Patterson: Well, it’s always been something natural. When I was younger, before I started professionally, I used to sing and I didn’t know it. I would have outbursts and it had to come out. Being a kid, we’d be at the dinner table and I would just start singing, I guess. I wouldn’t know it [and] I’d get in trouble, for singing at the table or for having an outburst, but it comes naturally. Nu-Soul: Would it happen, when you were a baby? Rahsaan Patterson: I do remember, when I was small, that I would cry and get in trouble. I would sustain notes, when I was crying, because of the sound. I would give a cry, but I would hold it for a long time because I was hearing a note. It would annoy my parents. Nu-Soul: What would your parents do? Rahsaan Patterson: Tell me to shut up. Nu-Soul: When did you actually begin Wine & Spirits? Rahsaan Patterson: Well, a couple of the songs were written in 2004, but September of last year is when I started. Nu-Soul: How did you come up with the title, for this album? Rahsaan Patterson: It’s every connotation that comes to your head, when you hear it or when you read it. Every possible one. Nu-Soul: In the song “No Danger,” you sing “bring back the love/ let it save us.” What kind of love are you speaking of: spiritual love, intimate or self love? Rahsaan Patterson: All of them as in human race, as in an intimate relationship and for self. Nu-Soul: Do you think that love can solve problems in general? Rahsaan Patterson: It can, if people allow it to. Nu-Soul: Do you let it heal you? Rahsaan Patterson: Yes. Nu-Soul: That could be really difficult. Rahsaan Patterson: I know. I had to learn to really love myself and I had to learn to let people love me. It’s a process. I’m much better than I used to be. Nu-Soul: There are reoccurring themes, love, darkness, and light, throughout your album? What does that reflect about you? Rahsaan Patterson: It reflects where I’ve been. It reflects the path, the journey that I’ve been on. It reflects my mind, the things I think about, inner turmoil and it exposes intimately what my relationship is with the creator and how difficult it was, for a period, to even want to believe because the world is the way that it is. It’s just devastating, but in music I have always found God there. I was pretty uninspired for a time and basically needed to reconnect with that child that had hopes. Nu-Soul: How did you reconnect? What brought you back to music? Rahsaan Patterson: Going through the dark. Being shown again that even in the dark my path is lit. Nu-Soul: You grew up in church, did you sing then? Rahsaan Patterson: Yeah, I sang in church. My whole family did. We all sang in church, and I moved out here when I was 10 years old. I did a TV show called “Kids Incorporated.” I started singing, maybe, when I was five. My grandmother used to make me sing and the choir was my cousins. Everybody sang. It wasn’t a big deal. It was like okay, this is what we do. Nu-Soul: Was your family supportive, when you made a career of it? Rahsaan Patterson: They were extremely supportive. My mother graduated from Performing Arts High School of New York and traveled the West Coast, as a member of a conservatory and she did theatre. It was inevitable, I guess, that one of her children would do something like that. I never really acquired to do it. It just happened. Nu-Soul: Do you like that it happened? Rahsaan Patterson: Well, part of what I had been through the last three years, when I was going through all of those transitions, I was trying to see if I liked the fact that it happened. I was never able to get to an age where I had to decide what I wanted to do with my life because this is what I’ve always done. I didn’t really have an option. So, that kind of bothered me for a minute. Can I do something else? Nu-Soul: If you did something else, what would it be? Rahsaan Patterson: I don’t know, but it would have to be in the arts. Maybe work in a museum or something. Nu-Soul: Any particular kind? Rahsaan Patterson: No. Nu-Soul: On the back cover of your album, you have a quote from the Gospel of Thomas “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.” What have you been saved from? Rahsaan Patterson: Self destruction. Nu-Soul: Is SugaRush Beat Company your first time being in a band? Rahsaan Patterson: Not really because when I was on “Kids Incorporated,” we released two albums. I enjoy being in an ensemble. Nu-Soul: During your solo career, did you ever want to be back in a band? Do you consider SugaRush a band? Rahsaan Patterson: Yeah. I think it probably 1992 or ’93, when David Bowie was in a band called Tin Machine. When I discovered them, I know at some point in my solo career that I would like to get into a band. Nu-Soul: How did you get involved in SugaRush? Rahsaan Patterson: I had gone to Australia to do shows and met the other male member. He and I collaborated on some songs and eventually accumulated quite a few songs. He had four other songs, with a female singing them. The original girl, who had wrote them wasn’t going to be apart of the group. He found a Danish singer name Ida Corr. She sang songs; we all met and decided to do a group. Nu-Soul: Is the album out already? Rahsaan Patterson: No, it’s coming out in March [2008]. Nu-Soul: Will there be a tour too? Rahsaan Patterson: Over there. Eventually, we’d like to release [it in the states], but we’re going to start over there first. Nu-Soul: As far as working in group what are you most looking forward to? Rahsaan Patterson: Just seeing where it can go because the music is very exciting. It’s very up tempo, like a circus. Nu-Soul: What has kept you going during your continuous career? Rahsaan Patterson: I have no idea. Maybe, not knowing what I’m going to do next. I really like making albums. I love it. I love the process of putting it together. It’s like painting. When you go to the museum and you see a great piece of work. Obviously, you see the colors, you know the colors and you can make out what you think it is. Over time it starts to change and come more into focus, depending on where you are. As the painter, it’s just a beautiful process. www.not-of-this-world.com/ www.myspace.com/rahspace Purchase Rahsaan's music at Itunes Purchase Rahsaan's music at Amazon

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