Singer-songwriter NEFE stays true to her voice on new EP
On the title track of NEFE’s EP, Mama, the singer- songwriter seems to take herself through a whole range of emotions.
The slow-burn of a ballad ends the five-song record, starting sad and fragile before the lyrics turn hopeful as the music swells behind her.
While it may seem hopelessly hackneyed to refer to a female singer as “confessional” these days, NEFE confirms that the song provides a pretty accurate emotional snapshot of where she was when she wrote it and how she soldiered through. Born Sarah Jean Felker, she had just moved from to Toronto from her hometown of Guelph, Ont., where she had enjoyed a reputation as a rising talent. She claimed the RBC Emerging Artist Music Mentorship Program Prize in 2014. She was profiled in the Toronto Star and even had a documentary made about her.
“I moved to the city and it was my first time living on my own,” says Felker. “I had no idea what I was doing, just chasing a dream. There was a period where I felt like I had put everything into my music and I didn’t have any money and I didn’t know how to pay rent. I was terrified I was going to lose my house. There were all these things going through my head, and I remember showing up to the session when we wrote Mama. I was a mess. I was really sad and crying.”
But instead of writing a downer, Felker and co-writer Steven Fernandez wrote a tune that moves from despair to pleading to defiance, all conveyed through the singer’s astonishingly powerful voice. Still, while it might be tempting to tag the title track as the EP’s centrepiece, there is not a weak song among the five. And while Felker performs under a stage name — which she adopted from Queen Nefertiti — each track seems equally personal to the singer.
“It was almost like these songs are like a diary for me,” she says. “They resonated with what I had
been going through, like leaving Guelph and going to Toronto and finding love and discovering myself. Those five songs were just the perfect songs that I could put out to describe my experiences in the truest form.”
Now signed to Universal Records, Felker is again enjoying rising-star status, receiving good reviews and currently touring with icon Bruce Cockburn. She opens for him at the Jack Singer Concert Hall in Calgary on Jan. 23 and the Edmonton Winspear Centre on Jan. 24.
Produced at Montreal’s Hotel 2 Tango Studios by Timbre Timbre’s Taylor Kirk, the five songs on Mama range from the soulful Let Me Know, to the reggae-fused Skin to the piano ballad We All Need Love.
Each song has also been used as the basis for five beautifully shot, interconnecting short films by Quebec director Dan LeMoyne, all of which often look very little like traditional music videos. They will eventually be compiled to make up a single film.
It all helps to emphasize Felker’s independent streak and unique voice, something she says she has no plans for compromising even when operating with a major record label.
“I have no problem saying I’m not comfortable with something,” she says. “I’m not afraid to not do something based on what my gut is saying. I was never afraid of that. My goal is to show people that you don’t have to fit in a box or be something that is cookie-cut and thrown in the oven. As an artist, you can be your own individual person and as long as you’re authentic and true people will gravitate toward that.”