When Germantown native Bilal Oliver released 1st Born Second in 2001, the future looked golden. He had a fanciful falsetto voice, swerving, soulful melodies and Interscope's major-label backing.
Things changed with 2006's Love for Sale. The album was free, open-ended, frenetic — far adrift from the neo-soul wave he came in on. "I was fighting the whole time I was making that record, with the label, as I was writing lyrics in the studio," says Bilal, who lives in Harlem these days but returned to Philly for a show last week. "I had the session cats telling me my songs were weird and that nobody's going to like this. I had to literally stop tape and throw those guys out of the studio." He's laughing as he remembers. Interscope had signed Oliver for a certain sound and, in his estimation, didn't expect or want him to grow into the free-jazzy guitar-slinger he had, in actuality, always been.
For Full Article click link: Bilal :: Cover Story :: Article :: Philadelphia City Paper
No comments:
Post a Comment