Nana: I have the distinct pleasure of speaking with Juno Award winning, Soul/R&B artist Divine Brown. Divine, how are you doing today?

Divine Brown: I’m really good, outside of being a little under the weather, I’m good.

Nana: That’s good, um, how would you describe your voice?

Divine Brown: Wow, ahh…powerful, virtuosic meaning that it’s pretty versatile and it’s honest. If a voice could be honest, I think my voice is honest and raw.

Nana: Interesting…how would you describe your music?

Divine Brown: My music is soulful, there are some jazzy elements to it, again, it’s raw, and it’s honest. I love mixing it up with the r&b, the soul, and the pop, with old school and new school flavours, but the old school is definitely a huge part of who I am.

Nana: At what age, would you say that you discovered your passion?

Divine Brown: I always knew I wanted to be an entertainer, so, it’s difficult, cause I always say at birth. I just always knew. In the 70s as a baby, artists would come on the tv and I would just be bouncing. I had the stories of my mom taking me to Jamaica into a little bar or tuck shop, and as soon as I would see a juke box I would start begging her for change and play whatever song over and over. When she’d run out of money, I’d go to the owner (laughs).

Nana: (laughs) very resourceful little girl (laughs)!

Divine Brown: Yeah. I mean, I just knew what I wanted to do.

Nana: What moves you to write songs and is there a particular song that you feel most proud of?

Divine Brown: My life experiences and the song that I’m most proud of is like saying, ‘pick your favourite child’ if you have one. So I have a lot of songs that I really loved writing, it’s hard, I have so many favourites.

Nana: Okay…do you have a top 5 maybe or a top 3 perhaps? 

Divine Brown: Well I really liked Sunglasses, I like the process of writing that because it was so random the way that the inspiration hit. That song by Corey Hart was in my head for, like, two weeks and then I asked my Capoeira instructor what sunglasses was in Portuguese and then I just kind of developed the song from what he said. Sometimes it can be so random. Lay It On the Line, I was talking about a real experience that I have been through, you know such a good friend of mine I saw picking the wrong girl over and over and over again, wishing that he would just take a chance on me. Of course Old School Love too, I love it because it was a very organic inspiration that happened. If just kind of came to me and just kind of flowed in the studio and I just took a bunch of ideas in my head and amalgamated them into this song.

Nana: Right…do you know of any challenges faced with being in a group as opposed to a solo artist?

Divine Brown: Groups have to work together and everybody has to know their roll. Everybody needs to adhere to their part in the group and you absolutely cannot have an ego in an environment like that because it will ruin the magic and beauty of what is being created.

Nana: What challenges do you face as a solo artist?

Divine Brown: Oh, there’s so many! Where do I start? I’d love to be more recognized outside of Canada and that’s been a huge challenge but I’m still truckin’ forward, I love what I do which alleviates some of the hardships and the challenges that come with being a solo artist. Um, a challenge being a female solo artist, especially with a produce and songwriter sensibility that I have is having my ideas being heard. Producers who will trust my vision and bring it to fruition are very rare. 

Nana: Interestingly put. Who influences you vocally?

Divine Brown: I have a lot of influences. It’s really interesting because a young male vocalist, approached me and told me he was heavily influenced by me. And I said ‘huh,’ he said that someone told him that if he listened to a lot of female artists it would give him more of an interesting sound. The thing about that is that I listen to a lot of male vocalists. Now, don’t get me wrong, I listen to a ton of female vocalists but, I was influenced a great deal by the male vocalists that I listen to. On the female side, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin, Denise Williams, Minnie Riperton, and then on the male side people like Al Green, D’Angelo, Cee-Lo Green, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Will Downing, Howard Hewitt, Glen Jones…these are people from way out…(starts singing) do you know him?

Nana: No, I’m not familiar.

Divine Brown: How about Howard Hewitt? (starts singing)

Nana: No, but I wish I did, that sounds like something I’d definitely get down with!

Divine Brown: (keeps singing and smiles).

Nana: What is your overall vocal regime?

Divine Brown: I (laughs), I’m lazy so I’ll use the first two sets of my performances to warm up and then I’ll murder it in the last set.

Nana: Really?

Divine Brown: (laughs) Yes!

Nana: I’m very surprised to learn that.

Divine Brown: (laughs), listen, I try to steam often…I really had to force myself to do so. I find that hot yoga, bikram more specifically, is fantastic for my voice because it expands my lung capacity and helps me with being able to hold notes for a very long time. I find that bikram has been essential to helping develop that.

Nana: When would you say that you are vocally at your best? Morning, afternoon, or evening?

Divine Brown: Evening. Like late afternoon/evening. Like I said, I’m lazy, so I use talking all day to warm up (laughs) and by the time it’s show time, I’m raring to go.

Nana: Does that really help?

Divine Brown: No (hahaha)!

Nana: (Laughs), is there any difference for you between recording in the studio…

Divine Brown: …and singing live?

Nana: Hmm hm.

Divine Brown: Big time. I love singing live, I don’t love singing in the studio because I’m not comfortable. Over the years, I have become more comfortable and I don’t know what it is whether it be experience or confidence that changed. I mean, there are certain things that I can only do live that was more difficult for me to do in the studio. Like runs for instance, I love messing with runs live, much harder to do in the studio, I have to really think about it…I don’t know why that is but it’s becoming easier.

Nana: Wow, that’s really interesting…what is your aim when you perform? What do you want your fans to take away from your performance?

Divine Brown: Oh my goodness, I just want them to walk away feeling like they had a better day than when they walked in to see me sing…that, for me, is the biggest thing. I wanna touch people, I’m not doing my job if people aren’t reacting, I gotta dig deeper and that’s kind of my

Ithing, I gotta dig deeper until I get a reaction from people. I mean, Montreal has one of the best crowds. I mean, you guys are so appreciative of good music.

Nana: Well, alright then. You have such a confident stage presence, is there anywhere you channel that confidence from?

Divine Brown: Wow, um maybe it’s experience that has built that confidence up, also, I think that God implanted something in me at an early age. I’ve taken some chances as a kid and I feel that I need to take some chances now as an adult that you have to have a lot of confidence to do.

Nana: Do you think that what you eat affects your voice?

Divine Brown: Yes. I can’t eat poutine before a performance, boo! But, you know, I try to stay away from poutine anyway because it goes straight to my hips, I have enough hips to feed a nation. Cheeses and carbs are bad because I wanna sleep, so I try to keep it lean meat and vegetables before a performance.

Nana: How have your vocal practices changed since you first began recording till now?

Divine Brown: I think because my voice has developed more and become richer over the years, I’m able to do more with it and now I can do what I have envisioned to do with my voice pretty effortlessly.

Nana: What is a typical rehearsal like for you?

Divine Brown: A lot of fun and silliness…(laughs), in the midst of getting work done.

Nana: Describe a challenge you constantly face in your practices.

Divine Brown: Well, when I’m doing vocal exercises, my voice changes from day to day. It’s frustrating cause some days I can hit super high like whistle-tone register and some days I can’t. Some days I’m like, ‘oh yeah, I can do it’ (starts singing), and then I get on stage and it’s not happening. So it just depends.

Nana: Okay…do you feel a connection between your physical and vocal workouts?

Divine Brown: Big time, the two are synonymous with each other because being and staying active is what helps me to maintain vocal strength.

Nana: How regularly do you workout vocally?

Divine Brown: I don’t really have a routine. Most vocalists would tell you that they don’t really have a routine.

Nana: What do you like about your voice? 

TVM: Honey Jam is this great showcase of female talent and I was just wondering, what the rationale or reason behind as to why you  focus primarily on females.

Ebonnie: It was born to combat the negative portrayals of women in music industry. At the beginning, it was really an R&B thing and very heavy on hip-hop. We wanted to give women who would be scared because they didn’t know they had skill or didn’t feel comfortable a safe place to experiment. So we created that welcoming space. We feature women DJing, women rapping, women break-dancing, women doing things that were not expected at the time.

TVM: In terms of Honey Jam, for our readers who may not be as familiar with the showcase, could you just do a brief run-down of the criteria in terms of auditioning?

Ebonnie: You basically just have to be female and be good. We have 12 judges and they will rate the artist, 10 being the highest. Then, we shortlist based on who got an average of 8, and then we separate them from the live auditions because this is a nationwide search. If you can’t make the live auditions, you can submit online. We separately go through the YouTube videos that are submitted online and then make a choice from that of 10 to 15 or so artists. We usually have an established artist come at the launch and give them an idea of their own personal journey to the industry, people like Divine Brown, Jully Black, Keshia Chanté, Suzie McNeil, etc. We have an all-day workshop at the Harris Institute and all this is free. So they learn about publishing, management, funding, media training, song writing… We give them one-on-one vocalist training with Elaine Overholt and then, there’s the show. So there are four events – the auditions, the launch, the workshop and the show.

TVM: Where do you predict you will be, or where would you like to be, with Honey Jam in the next 5 to 10 years?

Ebonnie: I would like for us to have secured, sustained funding. I don’t want us to be begging every year. I want sustained funding and I want it to be a bigger event, maybe a two-day festival. [I want to] have it grow, provide more opportunities for the artist, be able to fly in people from the industry to come and hear the artist. I mean, the whole point of Honey Jam is providing this platform and opportunities to these artists. It’s a multi-cultural, multi-genre developmental initiative that’s providing this platform and education for artists. So whatever we can do to enhance what were already doing, make it bigger and better, that’s what I want to see.

TVM: That’s so awesome! What inspires you most in your line of work?

Ebonnie: Doing Honey Jam has been a struggle and very difficult to get going because we are not a big festival with 20 thousand people and in this economy, it’s hard to get cash. They tend to support bigger events that have television commercials and stuff, which we don’t have. I enjoy having some integrity, but it’s been very difficult. I’m a perfectionist; things have to be done a certain way. I can’t switch it off. I’m not a slacker. I had a full time job running a mentor program and running Honey Jam, and back then we were also doing a CD and a magazine and dance agency. It was so much stuff and it was killing me. In 1999, I said I was retiring. MuchMusic came and did the whole ‘farewell to Honey Jam thing’. So I’m sitting down watching it and this artist came on camera and said “Ebonnie, if you’re watching this, please don’t leave Honey Jam! There’s nothing like it! For unknown artists, what are we going do?” It just really pulled on my heartstrings. I hadn’t really thought about that. Where is someone who’s completely unknown going to get a concert where there are hundreds of people? Where are they going to get this platform? So all these other people came up to me and said “Ebonnie, if you need help, I’m here to help you.” So I [stayed]. I had lots of people to help me. By the way, Nelly Furtado is now a financial sponsor of the show through her company Nel-Star