On one of the first warm days of the year, Naomi Khimji-Feld stands by the window of her friend David Joris alias Diggi's one-room apartment and sings. She fills the tiny room with the great warmth of heart from gospel and soul, while the bustling city traffic of Cologne rushes past at the busy street intersection at her feet. Shortly thereafter, Diggi sends the beat of West African countries after it. "Jazzable" is what it sounds like, what he plays on his guitar. A little later, a casual break comes, as if they are heading to a South Sea island now. And at least instrumentally, the 31-year-old music producer has made a big show in his little apartment: A Greek bouzouki is lined up with a violin, a bass with several electric guitars and string instruments for fado, western, or jazz.
Diggi naturally masters them all. He studied music and media at the Robert Schumann University of Applied Sciences in Düsseldorf, worked as a producer for such diverse people as musical performer Kevin Köhler, the Cologne band Hanak, and went on a world tour with Iranian superstar Shadmer Aghili. Above all, he is inspired by Black Music – and thus something like the "partner in crime," as he smilingly calls it, for Naomi, who has long earned her living as a professional singer. But only recently has she sung what belongs only to her – songs that are written just for her. They tell stories from her life. And about the cultural roots of her music.
"We want to make Black art visible with our label," says the 28-year-old simply, but after just a few sentences, it becomes clear that there isn't one Black music. "The only thing that Black people have in common is being Black." Afrobeats and R'n'B are as diverse as the cultures they come from – from Ghana, Angola, or the United States. Their beginnings are in Nigeria, where Fela Kuti created a mix of jazz, funk, rock, and Yoruba folklore in the late 1960s. Hypnotic and danceable.
"Our music is about our lives and our roots. About pain, happiness, themes that concern us," says Naomi, who sang in the church choir as a child, then danced in a hip-hop group as a teenager and began her career as a singer in gospel, where she learned everything that is so important in her R’n’B music today – vocal control, breathing techniques, and singing harmonies and choirs.
It was clear to both that their music should be in German: "That is the language we are familiar with. In which we can express ourselves best," says Naomi. To some extent, artists like Patrice or of course Joy Denalane have paved the way for German soul. "But now it's about making the scene more well-known," says Diggi, who mixes R'n'B grooves with Naomi's powerful ballads, jazzy Bossa with soulful funk dancefloor music – unfortunately, major labels are not really open to such a mix. "That’s also why we’re doing our own thing here," says Diggi.
Naomi's father is German. Her mother came from Mozambique to the Rhineland at the age of twelve. She dedicated her first own song "Dein Licht" to her, which also tells of discrimination and prejudices. David's mother is Greek, his father comes from the Indonesian island of Ambon. "From him, I got the island calmness," he says and laughs. But also the great love for music that he heard as a little boy in his father's disco. His earliest childhood memories? Walls full of records. In addition, the performance of a band from Ghana, which gifted the little one a djembe, a cup drum from West Africa.
Next to Diggi's tiny production table with laptop and recording device, a Greek icon soothingly raises its hands. A few steps further, Balinese gods are intertwined on a filigree wall carving right next to a simple futon. One could call this simple apartment with its few pieces of furniture and many musical instruments a culture clash. The sound that emerges here is it anyway.
It shows the two head to head, closely connected - through the music. At the center: the headphones they share. Quite naturally. "We had already prepared everything, discussed the structure of our collaboration, found a manager, drafted contracts," Naomi recounts. But what was missing until the very end was a name for their new label that fits Afrobeats - and them. Now it's called as their hair looks: nappy. Curly. Idiosyncratic. And free.
