RAW SOUL

Soul & hip-hop inspired songstress - Maya Azucena, speaks on her debut album entitled Maya Who?!

Interviewed by Ms.M

Text by Christian Robinson

By means of a signature voice that leaves an undeniable impression, Maya Azucena leaves her audience with a definitive answer to Maya Who?! - The title of her debut album. With a rich heritage of a mixed black and white American background and a name that reflects the influences of a South American/ Latin culture – Azucena is proving that she has a lot to bring to the music industry. Embodying the definition of the independent artist, Azucena transcends the customary idea of labeling one’s talent. “I definitely stopped trying to live within boundaries as an independent artist. I had to learn how to function in this industry;” states Maya. She continues to say, “I had to stop waiting for permission from a record label to exist. I realized that there is nothing between me and the people.” Maya Azucena has been likened to legends of soul music, such as, Chaka Khan and Roberta Flack; nonetheless, Azucena finds a way to make her music prominent. Nicknamed the soul/hip-hop “songbird”, Maya’s seamless voice and rhythmic beats manage to effortlessly make the connection of soul and hip-hop. She reveals an appreciation for people that are excited to just “be in love with something because they feel it, not because it belongs to a certain genre.” Although Azucena is aware that she is combining different genres she feels that when she performs “It is not a departure, it’s not schizophrenic. It’s me.” As a smile lightens her face, her enthusiasm becomes contagious. The authenticity of what she feels comes across as she describes her belief in the necessity of the individual being true to one’s self.

TOUR Mag: One thing I always say about good music is that it transcends all labels. If it’s good, people are going to feel it, doesn’t matter what you call it… people accept it as good music. You are one of the artists that might fall under the “alternative” category because you embody a mix of genres. What do you think about that?

Maya Azucena: Yea, I definitely stopped trying to live within boundaries. I have a lot of thoughts on how to function in the industry and as an independent artist; I’ve developed a lot of ideas. One of them is that I stopped waiting for permission—from a record label—to exist. Sometimes artists, they are kinda waiting for permission to exist. They walk around with a three song or four song demo hoping to be discovered instead of just being an artist. And what I realized is that there’s nothing between me and the people, nothing at all. I can go on a street corner, start singing and develop a few fans in an afternoon. And if you look at it like that, then it’s like, well, why am I waiting for permission to be an artist? And as a result, why do I need approval to go with an idea that I feel good about it? If I’m doing something that is not strictly in one niche, genre, ‘cause I cross the board when I perform. I’ll scat and I’ll rap one song apart. One song I flip into a rhyme, and the next song I’m scatting but it’s all really me. So it’s not actually a departure or it’s not schizophrenic, it’s me. So I’m appreciative of people that are excited to just be in love with something just because they feel it, not because it belongs in a certain genre. And I’m a person; I’m interested in being a real person that can speak to people through the arts. I’m interested in my music being a part of a form of activism that can touch people. And that that human element is there.

TOUR Mag: If you had to describe yourself in one word?

Maya Azucena: In one word? Hahaha. Fire. Or Energy. I think energy even. Because fire can sometimes be read as a violent thing, and I’m high energy.

TOUR Mag: I appreciate artists like that who are not afraid to show different sides of their personality, because I think it’s more realistic. I think it speaks more to our human experience because we’re not so consistently on this straight line everyday.

Maya Azucena: I’m not only talking about slow dancing, I’m not only talking about being in love. I talk about observations in life, I talk about…all of it’s me. See, at one point, I was afraid of expressing all these different ideas. At one point, I was like, “Oh, well I can’t sing about this because I’m supposed to be about this.” And like you said, it’s more human, it makes more sense. God is a big part of my life, he’s in my music but it’s not gospel music. Love is a big part of my life, so I talk about love and experiences and being in a relationship and that’s in my story. I grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn and I look at things through an aggressive perspective. I feel young black men in America and their plight and I talk about that, and that’s in my music as well. I’m glad that I have all of that material, that it’s present. And it’s interesting because I can get into a lot of different situations and I can always come up with something that works in this situation. Yea, and because I haven’t been afraid to create music that shows that side of me. So, the Brooklyn hip hop festival has a certain feel to it and I have material that speaks to that. And then, when I go and I play at the Blue Note, which is a more jazz oriented crowd, I still have material that works in that realm.

TOUR Mag: What’s your nationality? What’s your background?

Maya Azucena: Mixed black and white American. So my Dad has Scottish English roots and my mom is African-American with Jamaican and Cherokee in her line but the Latina name and the Latina influence came from my Dad. He spent his childhood in Mexico and in Brazil and went to school and he speaks fluent Spanish and Portuguese. So the Latin culture was a part of his upbringing and so as a result it was a part of my upbringing. So it was not in bloodline but it was culturally in my life. So Maya Azucena is my given name. It was an inspiration that was in our life.

TOUR Mag: Earlier we talked about the different categorizations you might take on. How do you see your music?

Maya Azucena: I call it raw soul. Raw soul. To me, it’s like live based soul with hip hop and funk in it. So it has a dance-able, high energy aspect to it, but basically, it’s soul. It’s like going to see Donny Hathaway, or Stevie Wonder. Think about him, he’s one of my big inspirations as a songwriter, or Earth Wind and Fire. Earth Wind and Fire would be straight rock with rock guitars and then, these amazing jazz harmonies over top of it and but it was pop at the same time, right? Then you take a Stevie Wonder who will go from straight classical music to funk drums. But that is soul as we know it. But when we say Earth Wind and Fire and Stevie Wonder, you say that’s soul. But they had all this energy and elements and different styles in their music.

TOUR Mag: Are their any artists out now that you appreciate?

Maya Azucena: I have a lot of artists. I have a lot of peers that are out in the world that I really admire and respect. I’ve been a fan of artists like Duele. I’m a fan of Jill Scott, definitely. I’m a fan of Raheem Devaughn. I think he’s based in DC, but I first heard about him when I was in Atlanta . He’s dope. I’m a fan of Floetry. Like John Legend is a friend from around New York , and I really respect his project a lot. He’s been an inspiration. I know everybody in his band, for example, you know? You know hip hop artists, friends of mine, tons and tons—just so many artists that I’m just loving that are my peers. Then, you go across the board and I love Coldplay. I love Radiohead. I love U2. I like drama. I love Dr. Dre. I like his production ‘cause there always has drama in it. I like Jadakiss. I like underground hip hop artists, like the A-Alikes.

TOUR Mag: So as far as having a band and everything, how does that come about? Are these people that you knew before? How did you go about acquiring you band?

Maya Azucena: My life and my career has sort of been like The Wizard of Oz. I’m like I’m off to see the Wizard, going down the Yellow Brick road. And there will be this really special, unique person on the side of the road, and they’re like “Whoa, you want to come with me? Let’s go!” And then we go. And then you see some totally unique, really amazing person and you’re like “You want to come with us? Alright, let’s go!” And I’m serious. I have these amazing, powerful people in my life—a lot of them aren’t even related to each other, but we just connected along the way and it was a match. And that requires patience. To find the right people in your life, it’s something kinda special, and magical about it. So the people in my band: I’ve been working with the guitarist the longest. My guitarist, Christian Ver Halen, is my main co-songwriter. So he and I have written a lot of material together. And he’s hung in with me for a long time dude. Then my drummer probably came along next and he’s been with me just hanging tough, produced some tracks on my first album, also co-writes with me. My bass player and keyboardist, just amazing people. Just the general question: how do you create a band? I think if you’re a singer, and even if you’re an MC, it’s great to hook up with a live musician like a keyboardist or a guitarist, because then you can go and perform your stuff in front of other people. And in the beginning, I used to perform with just my guitarist and we’d go out just to try out our new material, and people would come up and say “Do you need a bass player? Do you need a drummer?” And we would get to meet more people because we were going out.

TOUR Mag: I think that’s definitely something that’s undervalued is the performing aspect in music because especially with mainstream hip hop, they think of the recording aspect and they forget how important it is to have a good performance. How many actual fans you can gain from putting on a good performance somewhere is ridiculous. There’s so many people I never heard of before and saw them put on a good show—

Maya Azucena: –and you were down….You were down for life!

TOUR Mag: Exactly.

Maya Azucena: And let me tell you something. The pioneers and the icons in hip hop were dope performers. Biggie and Tupac were charismatic, ridiculous stage performers. And I feel like we’ve gotten so lazy going forward because we’re spoiled. We feel like we should be able to put out a hot video with some hot chicks in it and that’s gonna blow us up and that’s the end of the story. And you don’t realize that there’s back work. It’s like a politician campaigning. You want to win people over in your journey so they continue to support you, so that they vote for you when your next CD comes out. And the way to do that is to be able to rock a crowd. At the Brooklyn Hip Hop festival, what was so exciting was when CL Smooth got onstage, and he’s the first person to get everybody’s hands up. It was crazy. I was waiting. I was like this is the Brooklyn hip hop festival. I can’t believe people’s hands aren’t in the air.

TOUR Mag: What would you say has been your hardest obstacle to get to where you are today in your career?

Maya Azucena: Looking at it now, because I’m finally starting to see results in the way that I want to. It’s starting to move more quickly. The hardest thing, looking back, is sticking with it through the hard times. The hardest thing is really holding out through the dry spell.

TOUR Mag: And how did you get through?

Maya Azucena: Faith. I believe this is what I’m supposed to do. I trust and believe with all my heart that this is my calling, that this is what God has called me to do. There are times when I would sit down and just be like “you know what? I’m supposed to be here. I know I’m supposed to be here and this is what you called me to do. And your resources are limitless.” This is me talking to God. His resources are limitless so what kind of fear should I have now, knowing that I serve God whose resources are endless. So, it’s like I have to kick myself in the butt like “Yo, just believe that he is going to walk you through this.” I look at it like if you were a farmer, and you were planting your seeds, and you spent your last dollar on seeds, and you’re down in the dirt on your knees and you’re sowing your seeds, and when you’re done, you look out and all you see is a field of dirt. And you’re like “This is what I get. A field of dirt! I gave my last penny. I sweat. My back hurts. I got nothing to eat and it’s cold outside on top of that. And all I have to speak for it is a field of dirt!” But if you know the way it works, you realize that you planted those seeds, they’re in the Earth and then, in the harvest season is when you start to see it come up in the Spring and it grows. You just have to know that you did the right thing, that by virtue of the fact you planted seeds that it will grow into something. And every year a farmer got to wait. They plant them, they spend their last dollar on them seeds, and they do all that labor and they got to wait. But when the cycle is through, they have a crop and that’s what we’re doing—we’ve had to be patient through that dry spell.

TOUR Mag: What would you say was your greatest accomplishment to date?

Maya Azucena: To still be standing. I mean, I could come up with all these cool answers, cool things that I’ve done with my band and things like that…so many performances and things that I have done were so special to me and it’s hard to say just one great thing. But stick it out, man. And still be here doing your thing without any help, without a budget, without a label, without a booking agent, without a manager. And to be doing that, and doing it full time and thank God, paying for my rent.

TOUR Mag: Tell me about your latest project “Maya, Who?” What was the whole concept of that album? What was the process like putting that together?

Maya Azucena: It was intense. “Maya, Who?” is my debut CD, which has been available actually for a couple of years now because it’s independent and it hasn’t been formally distributed. It’s like I always tell people, “The minute you get it is the day it’s been released,” because it wasn’t like there was this one dramatic push with a huge budget…and what was happening was I was doing shows without a CD for awhile. I was even touring without a CD. And it was getting ridiculous that I didn’t have any product to give people at shows so I really buckled down and focused on pulling off a project and it’s based a lot on the live performance and then, it’s edited and we did overdubs and it has a lot of cool material in there. I mean, that was a short version of the process. The need dictated us getting a project done. I get a lot of good feedback and good press on the project. It doesn’t sound like what people consider to be radio. And there wasn’t as much of the hip hop element in the recording as there is in my show so that’s the thing I would complain about like I wanted there to be more of the raw edge on my CD that would reflect my live show more. So going forward I have a lot of new material as well that has created a better marriage between my hip hop side and my soul side.

TOUR Mag: Do you have a name for that yet?

Maya Azucena: I’m not sure. I was going to name it “Warriors.” Now, “Warriors,” is too popular as a name…because they have the videogames and the movies all that. Maybe name it “Junkyard Jewel” which is one of my favorite songs.

TOUR Mag: Will that be the single for the new project?

Maya Azucena: We’ll see. Once we find the label home for the new project, a lot of the decisions will be made, after I know what my team is.

TOUR Mag: What would your ideal label be?

Maya Azucena: Not too sound vague but it’s like a label name is not like oh, Universal or Sony or whatever. It’s not the name that matters to me. It’s who’s working the record because from month to month, the teams change. One day, the GM of a label is there and the next day they’re gone. So really the ideal label would be the label where it’s people that really believe in me and are willing to work with me what’s been built already up to the next level. I see some very cool things on the horizon I’ve very excited about so we’ll see how they develop. I’ll get in touch with you to let you know what the next step is.

TOUR Mag: What do you think about the progression that mainstream music has taken over the years?

Maya Azucena: Well, in some respects, I don’t want to even say there’s an evolution of music. It’s a revolution of music because music goes in a circle. It’s very cyclical. It goes through similar trends no matter when you look at it. They’ll be something that becomes really popular. It rises up from the underground. It’s something that the young people are really into. Then, it gets to the surface and it comes very syrupy and controlled by the corporations. So basically, that happened with rock and roll and it’s happening with hip hop. Now, hip hop is pop and it deals with a lot of the pressures of being owned by corporations. Hip hop, to me, is a culture. It’s not just a genre. To me, hip hop is an attitude. It’s a voice of the people. But hip hop as an industry names it is not necessarily about the people at all. It’s about the fad of it.

TOUR Mag: If you had to use two words to describe hip hop, what would they be?

Maya Azucena: See, to me, there are two sides to hip hop. There’s hip hop that’s changing the world right now. There’s hip hop in Africa and South America that’s changing the world for them right now. And then, there’s hip hop, as in the three artists that we hear twenty-five times an hour on Hot 97 so two words for which kind of hip hop?

TOUR Mag: The hip hop that you love.

Maya Azucena: I think it’s peoples’ voice.

TOUR Mag: Do you have a favorite word or phrase?

Maya Azucena: No because you know why? Because I talk too much. I got too many sayings. I got a lot of cool sayings. I always have some kind of cool saying, or some little cool thing that I’ve come up with. You’re going to ask me to pick one? That’s impossible. Oh my goodness. I came up with a new one but if it sounds obnoxious, don’t use it. “Not everyone is as cool as you THINK you are.”

TOUR Mag: How did you come up with that?

Maya Azucena: Actually, I was saying that to myself the other day because I was looking at somebody and was dissing them in my mind. And I was like, “Maya, not everyone is as cool as you THINK you are,” because you’re looking at somebody, they’re probably looking at you the same way. Like “Look at what she got on. I can’t believe she wore that out the house. And her colors don’t even match,” so I was thinking that’d be cute on a t-shirt….

TOUR Mag: Are there any words that you dislike?

Maya Azucena: I really hate the word: c-u-n-t. That word—I hate that word. That word would make me like—I just, I hate that word! It gets a rise out of me.

TOUR Mag: Is there anything else you want to add?

Maya Azucena: Well, you know what? Let’s keep an open line of communication so I can keep you posted. There’s some cool stuff on the horizon that I’m afraid to talk about just yet because it might be too good to be true. People can stay in touch with me through my website: www.mayawho.com.Thanks for the support!

Be sure to check her out online, mayaazucena.com / myspace.com/mayaazucena

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