Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Jimmy ready to take it to the next level
Singer steps outside the music business norms, writes YAZEED KAMALDIEN
CAPE TOWN singer Jimmy Nevis is releasing new music independently as he is splitting with his record label. Nevis, who opens the Kirstenbosch Summer Sunset Concert series tomorrow, said he wants to “do things differently and on a bigger scale”.
“Being a musician is a business,” said the articulate 24-year-old.
“I have a great manager and public relations team. I will still have all the operating teams but I will take a lot more risks. I will have more freedom,” he said.
Nevis has worked with two record labels since 2012 when he launched his career-making singles Elephant Shoes and Heartboxing. Two albums later, he is now ready to release new music by early next year.
“There’s definitely new music. When it does eventually get released it’s going to be very different. I was exposed to a lot of new things this year and it’s really shaped my music.”
“The new music is a bit more spiritual. It’s not a gospel album. There are things about me being a Christian and struggling with the day-to-day things in life.
“I’m making mistakes but I also love God. And I want God to be with me. It’s a journey we can all relate to.”
Nevis has always been religious as his father is a priest. He merges the secular and religious worlds without seeing the two as separate entities.
“I can talk about God at 2am in a club,” he said.
“I think I have been called to do secular music. But I’m not going to ignore God. I’m a secular artist and I love God. That can exist in the same space.”
He also loves other musicians “because we all share these crazy stories about record labels”.
“It’s comforting to know that everybody has been through something. I have been through different deals on the table.
“I’m taking a bit more time to focus on where exactly I want to go next. Because once you start that ball, that’s the ball you’re rolling for the next year and a half. I want to make something that I’m proud of.”
Rolling that ball means performing the new songs at various live gigs, interviews with the media and pushing album sales.
Touring to other cities has brought Nevis closer to home. A particular outcome of that was when he wrote and recorded 7764, a song dedicated to Athlone, where he grew up.
“I see what it’s done for my own community. I’ve performed this song in Durban, Johannesburg, Mauritius and it’s great seeing people sing about the place where I’m from.
“Coming from a coloured community, maybe more of a culture than a race, the way I grew up is very unique. I always thought there were so many people who could related to my story.
“But when I started travelling I saw there weren’t that many people who could relate.
“I can educate people about my race and culture without the previous connotations or stereotypes.
“When I travel people still greet me in the most stereotypical way. I don’t know if they know anything else about where I’m from.
“Some people say, ‘ A weh, ma se kind’. People say the craziest things to me. They say, ‘Next time you come to Joburg we’re gonna make you a snoek’. I don’t think people always know how to come to you.
“They see something and have their own ideas. So it’s nice that I get to share my story.”
Nevis is also involved in community development via the Blue Collar Foundation he started to “create opportunities and bridging the gaps to access to education”.
The foundation awards bursaries to young people for further education “to inspire them to think beyond the means of their socioeconomic conditions”.
He says he often thinks back to his sociology and journalism studies at the University of Cape Town, and how he recorded his first album in his cupboard at home. He then delivered it along with a biography “written in the third person” to all the city’s radio stations.
“It happened so quickly. I wrote this song and sent it out to radio stations and it was played. And all of that happened in two weeks.
“I don’t even think that was confidence. That must have just been God. It was so out of body. I don’t even know what I was doing.”