Song Exploder - Ibeyi - Deathless

Episode Date: September 5, 2017

The band Ibeyi is made up of twin sisters Naomi Diaz, and Lisa-Kaindé Diaz. When they were only teenagers, they were signed to a record deal by Richard Russell, who had previously signed artists like Adele and Vampire Weekend to his label, XL. He also co-produces their records. In this episode, Naomi and Lisa-Kaindé take apart their 2017 song Deathless, featuring saxophonist Kamasi Washington. songexploder.net/ibeyi

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. This episode contains explicit language. The band Ibei is made up of twin sisters Naomi Diaz and Lisa Kayende Diaz. When they were only teenagers, they were signed to a record deal by Richard Russell, who had previously signed artists like Adele and Vampire Weekend to his label, XL Recordings. He also co-produces their records. In this episode, Naomi and Lisa Kayende take apart the 2017 Baye's song, Deathless.

My name is Naomi Diaz and I'm the percussionist and I produce. My name is Lisa Kainte and I play the piano and I sing and I write the songs. So this song starts about this racist encounter I had when I was 16 with a policeman. It was in Paris. I was in the subway going to my piano class. And I have a cup saying, what's your name? I had never been stopped by a cup before. So I'm like, hi.

I'm Lisa Kane-Diaz. And he's like, do you smoke? And I said, no. Do you use drugs? And I said, no. And every time he would like come closer to my face. And then he said, do you drink? And I said, no.

And which is true, I don't smoke. I don't drink and I don't use drugs. And then he came even closer and he said, are you fucking kidding me? He makes you take your shoes. off your socks. She was barefoot in the subway. And then what happened is he took my bag and threw everything that was in it on the floor.

And then he realized I was reading a big book and he saw a partition of Chopin because I was going to my music class. And then he froze. And I think he thought she might have a little bit of intelligence. So he stopped, gave me my empty bag in my hand and left. And when you see, You understand there's something wrong and what happened and you're shaken, but you don't understand why.

And it's only when I went back to my mother and I said to her what had happened. And she turned red and started almost crying. And I understood that, yeah, that was not something that was supposed to happen to me. It's been six years since this happened. So we decided that we were going to write a song about it. The production starts with just us jamming in the studio with our producer Richard Russell and just playing music and playing around

and trying to find something interesting. Richard is our producer. He's also the head of XRECD recordings or label. Naomi and Richard would spend hours just playing with every drum machine they have in the studio and I would be like, guys, let's stop now. Please.

Then I did some batas, who is like a drums from Cuba, that I play on stage. And normally it's in skin, but I played wood batters. Part of the bass sound is that we always mix drum machine and actually real drums mixing wood, which is what Nalmi uses and electronic sound. Our father was one of the greatest Latin jazz percussionist ever. Their father's Cuban musician Miguel Anga Diaz. He was playing with Bonavistice Social Club.

Playing Congass and Cajon. Who passed away in 2006. I don't remember this day, but everybody says that our story playing Cajon the day after my father died. So I was 11. I remember everything of that day, actually. and I remember what I was wearing and I remember what she was wearing. I don't remember that at all.

The reason why I remember it so well is because it was not like, you know, a kid that would try to play a cahon. She actually played, you know, like she did the rhythm and it actually had the sound she has today. Like it was, she hit really hard the cahon and we were all like, I think the time stopped for three seconds, you know, and we're like,

what is happening? It was actually pretty amazing. And so again, the rhythm of the drum machine and the rhythm of the batter totally mix. And then with that start, I went back to my house and I started writing Deathless. I do believe the beat influenced the lyrics and the way I deliver. normally I deliver a really long sentence with melodies and that time is do you smoke what's your name do you know so it's a lot more hard and that energy of the beat made me write something harder

Naomi is really amazing how what she does because she knew that giving me a bit would make me write her differently if you would have said to me write a song about that experience without a beat I would have written it at the piano with something totally different and the energy would have been totally different. Me writing it with this heartbeat that they did made it stronger in a way. It's super important the bass sound especially for that song because it's almost the only harmonic thing that happens in the first part of the song. So we really work on it and sometimes we spend

loads of time trying to find a good sound and we change like sorry that was really bad as an explanation. But we try like a list of billion sound of bass because it's about finding the right balance. It's really dramatic, really dark and it's going up. so it's like building tension what is going to happen after that so you're building tension

building tension and then you relax it with just something that is groovy so your body starts moving without thinking about it but your body already starts moving and stop being like tense the first thing we're hearing

the song is this that's a technique we learned with Richard so what he does is you sing something and he would take like a tiny piece of her and do a rhythm with it, then it becomes a unique sound because it's your voice cut and repeated. Texture is important. And what is important in that drone is that even if you don't hear it, it's there. The texture of an alarm or of a siren. And we as a matter of fact, try to take it off and we had to put it back because it was essential.

I asked him about a sound that I couldn't figure out. What is this track? So, in the studio there's this little machine that is amazing. It's yellow with a tiny microphone that gets out of it. And you can record your voices and then you can speed it so it becomes... Or you can lower it and make it slower and becomes like... We use it a lot for texture and that's Richard's laugh. Pitched down.

The person that plays saxophone on this song is Kamasi, Washington. We met him because we did a lot of festivals this summer and we were always in the same stage and he was always after us. So at the end we were like a big family or his musicians and us like, we were just hanging out because we were always together. We knew hearing deathless at one point became like... Kamasi, Kamasi. Yeah.

Inevitable for the three of us that we need a karmazi. Tamasi in this song. And we knew he would feel the song. We knew he would not disappoint. Like it was, there were no way it would not work. Yeah, we sent him the track and he said yes of course and then he did it. It was pretty, really natural. That was the last thing that actually made the song. When we Kamasi send this, it was like, we have the song. So the idea of the song was based on a personal story. and I thought the song was going to be about that, about my personal experience.

And then, through really quickly changed and became not only about my personal experience, but also about the world, which I could have said, I am deathless, I am... But I think the fact that suddenly it was like we and it was the whole world and it was for everybody made it even more powerful for us to sing.

normally when we need a choir like in other songs when there's choirs it's just Nelmy and I and we just layer our voices a lot whatever happens and we love using that technique but for that particular song it was really important to have

other people's voice to have other people singing it with us so for the first time we got to work with the choir and to direct a choir and the choir was quite incredible but because, you know, they are professionals, they know how to sing really well, they know how to harmonize, so they come into the studio and they sing perfectly, but I was like, no, no, you don't have to sing it perfectly. You have to sing it like you're there. You have to believe in it, but they don't

know you, they don't know your story, they don't know the song, and then you have to explain the song to them and then you have to show them and you have to like make them understand what you want to say and I think the more you try to be perfect in your vocals the more you lose that you know visceral energy so we had to work to make them sing it like they believed it we made them close their eyes and we made them scream sometimes and really feel it when I was a child I wanted to sing super well and then for the first time I discovered Nina Simone and then I realized all God, it's not just about the voice. It's about what you say and the way you say.

And it's about believing in every single words that get out of your mouth. Or it won't show in the album. To see all of those human beings singing We Are Deathless was actually really powerful. We wanted to write this little anthem for everybody. And we wanted to write this song that would be against this feeling of being. powerless and small. And we wanted a song that would make you feel big and feel

full of energy and life and the fire that makes you want to do something. We are dead place! You know, Nina Simone said, you know what's freedom? No fear. And I think that's what deathless means too. It's a way to give hope to people. There's awful things happening in the world.

There's loads of people getting killed. and then you're like, who's going to protect me? Those people are supposed to protect all of us, and why are they attacking me? And there's nothing worse than that, saying to yourself, it hurts me, but I cannot do anything about it. And so Deathless is a way to say, you can, we can.

We can do something about it. This is not the end of us. And now, here's Deathless by Ebay in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.net slash Ebei to learn more about the band. You can also play around with the stems for Deathless. yourself through a project I've developed with Google called Inside Music. It lets you step inside a song and hear the stems all around you. You can turn the different tracks on and off. And if you have a VR headset, you can even experience a song that way. It's really cool. Check it out at

g.co slash inside music. In addition to eBay, there are songs by Phoenix, Perfume Genius, Natalia Lafurti, clipping, and more. Again, it's g.com slash inside music, and I'll have a link to that on the Song Exploder site too. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about

the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. This album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me.

So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nosrat, James Scott, Samin Nossrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live.

Thanks. Song Exploder is produced by me, along with Christian Coons, and is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary cutting-edge podcasts, made possible by the Knight Foundation and listeners like you. Learn more at Radiotopia.fm. Follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Song Exploder. You can show off your love for the podcast with a t-shirt

if you go to SongExploder.net slash merch, where you can leave a rating or a review on iTunes. and you can find all the past and future episodes of the show at songexploder.net or wherever you download podcasts. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening. Radiotopia.