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- Hi Yinka, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?
Hi there, I’m great. Thanks for the interview, looking forward to answering some questions.
- You describe Sabatta as a “groovy asf rock magic carpet ride,” which pretty much tells us you’re not interested in staying inside one genre. When you’re writing a Sabatta song, does the groove come first, or do the riffs and ideas naturally dictate where the song goes?
Great question! I’ve tried to stay in a genre before but it doesn’t really work for me. I just like too much different stuff. Songs mainly come as riffs first, and almost immediately after I think of the groove – so really the riff and the grooves are almost simultaneous. Lyrically, ideas come before, during and after. A lot the time I’ll have a riff/groove ready and then words will come either as the result of something I’ve seen or experienced or I’ll listen to the music I have and see what It makes me think of.
- The idea of being an “Anomaly” is central to this new project, but you’ve said it isn’t about simply being different from everyone else as it’s about recognizing that everyone is different. When did that idea become something you wanted to explore through Sabatta?
I came up with the music and lyrics of the song anomaly walking across Westminster Bridge on Saturday a little while back. |When I started working on the music for EPs, a little later on, I came back to the song and realised it was a reflection of how I make music in general – from my background to my outlook. Honestly I love a lot of heavy guitar music and a lot of rap based music – and for me, honestly, there’s not a huge amount of difference – the energy is often very similar and in both cases artists have a lot to express lyrically but often the key to the working is the groove. Seeing these as fruits of the same tree seems to be anomalous to most people – so I’ve come to realise that what to me is normal is not normal for many. But with the stupendously quick and ubiquitous rise of AI, while I was recording the EP, I had the revelation that artistry – which AI mimics and ‘reproduces’ with prompts isn’t something me as an artists should really worry about because artistry and by extension humanity actually progresses based on flukes, oddities, mistakes and anomalies. Guitar distortion is a mistake. Rap was made cos people couldn’t afford instruments and started mixing records – these are things you can pre-plan. Not to get too deep, but according to science and religion – we, humanity are an anomaly – so far from being strange – being an anomaly is actually the norm.
- Anomaly Part 1 pulls from Queens of the Stone Age, Bad Brains, Hendrix, post-punk, hip-hop, punk, and the alternative scene. How do you decide which influences belong in a Sabatta song without losing that distinctive identity?
The bands listed are ones I like and also ones that people have compared my music to. When I’m making it I’m not necessarily thinking what to include or leave out and I try not to emulate anyone. What happens is I’ll have a vibe for a song or I’ll be listening to a band or bands and that will put me in a certain mood. That usually translates into something in the music – like a feel or groove. Or I’ll just come up with something and later realise , ‘Oh that’s kinda in the same vein as this style or band’ and that’s how it happens.
- The six tracks does a great job moving from the bass-heavy, four-on-the-floor groove of “Rick James” to the more spacious and scrappy feel of “Not Your Friend” and “Vibe.” Was creating that variety important to you when putting the EP together?
Thank you! I found as I was making the EP that the songs broadly fell into the two related but slightly different feels. What you describe as the more ‘scrappy feel’, reflects more of a jamming/live feel . Rick James is a tighter maybe more simple approach beat wise. I think how these come about is dependent on mood. I always like albums/eps that have a thread running through but also have different moods within that – like life. So, that’s what I try to make – music that imitates life to a degree.
- “Foreign Muck” tackles immigration and race in Britain through humor, absurdity, and a huge groove rather than taking a traditionally confrontational approach. What made that combination of humor and social commentary feel like the most honest way for you to address the subject?
Well that’s how I feel about it. Some of the views, well all of the negative views, to me are patently ridiculous. Part of me can’t take it seriously 0 but I know it is serious – mor than many but one of the issues I see in the media is that these views are being legitimised, which I disagree with. So part of my reaction is born out of the fact I don’t want to dignify bigotry with serious debate. But also that’s just how I am, I guess I’m a little sarcastic. And the song came literally from walking down the High street, with loads of shops that are either foreign owned or influenced and these are staples of British culture. All the shouting and screaming doesn’t get us anywhere – I prefer good old British satire.
- The inspiration for “Foreign Muck” came from simply walking through a busy London High Street and noticing how international influences have become part of everyday British life. Do ordinary moments like that often become starting points for your songwriting?
I think the ordinary is often what becomes the extraordinary through art. Whether poetry, music or movies. That’s poetic license – the sun rising in the morning is the most normal thing there is – yet they way people describe it can make it into something epic. But also having moments from day to day life as part of song helps ground it and make it relatable. So the answer is definitely yes, here are a few songs on the EP where the impetus was seeing someone doing something in real life.
- Your background—being the son of Nigerian immigrants, born in Essex/East London, growing up in northern Scotland, and becoming an adult in southeast London—spans several very different cultural environments. How much does that journey shape the way you see British identity and, ultimately, the stories you tell through Sabatta?
Well, as you might assume – my varied background has everything to do with my outlook! LOL! I’m very ‘British’ in the sense that I have lived in places across Britain, I’m more national than regional. At the same time, although I was born and raised in the UK, I’m very Nigerian, in that my parents, who met in the UK, are from different ethnic backgrounds and regions in Nigeria. So in essence, I;’ve never been just one thing. There’s a freedom in that helps prevent prejudice, because it’s impossible to see your live as a monolith.
- There’s a strong tradition of singular British artists who refuse to fit neatly into one box, and the EP seems to position individuality as something worth protecting. Do you feel today’s music culture gives artists enough room to be genuinely weird, contradictory, and unpredictable?
This slightly takes me back to one of the earlier questions, where I answered by mentioning AI and the threat many see it poses to art. I was having a drink with a mate the other night and I said that in fact, cos true artistry is about mistakes and randomness and stuff just happening for no reason at all, that type of art won’t be affected. It’s always outliers that are making it and they will keep that. BUT to address your point about present music culture, this broadens out to pop culture in general – mimicry and imitation are always going to happen. Most people aren’t artistic but most people would love to be. Social Media, more than AI even, gives people the chance to be seen, get that glow and in any mass media it’s often the lowest common denominator that gets the most attention. So yes, right now, you will see a dearth of the weird and unpredictable. But that only makes it sweeter when you do see it. And the repetitive and predictable never moves the needle along. So, it’s inevitable that the idiosyncratic will raise its beautiful head because without it we don’t move forward.
- You describe the EP as covering politics, relationships, and everyday life, moving between the big questions and the mundane. Is there a particular subject you find yourself returning to again and again, even when you approach it from completely different angles?
Wow. That’s a tougher question than you’d think. I’d probably say relationships. Relationships are a very fertile area to reap ideas from for me. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t had arguments with girlfriends before and thought, ‘this’ll make a great song’. LOL. But to be honest, I try to limit this – because otherwise you can end up writing the same song a lot. I mean people do it everyday and are very successful but for me it can become redundant. With politics, it would be more accurate to say that social issues figure largely in my work because these things affect me directly, or I find myself relating; so those are subjects that I cannot avoid sometimes because they are existential. With everyday life stuff, some people avoid it, with me it just depends on if it inspires me, which it always does. I find it interesting – so I tend to let it in.
- Anomaly Part 1 is the first half of a two-part project. What can you reveal about where Part 2 takes the Sabatta sound and the idea of individuality, and what did making the first EP teach you that you’re carrying into the next one?
Well I can let you into a secret. EPs and 2 were written and recorded at the same time. The music has been written and recorded in the main over the last 2 years. I produced about 25 songs and have whittled this down to about 12/13 and then split those in two. So expect a continuation of what you have heard – which means you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get BUT you do know it’s gonna be groovy asf, I’m gonna be talking about some shit you understand, and although it won’t neatly fit in a box, you’ll still be able to relate – cos you’re an Anomaly, just like me!
