INTERVIEW: Shanae launches new project with appearance at tonight's Ones To Watch SOUND WEST Festival ahead of new single 'Illusions'
Sydney based artist Shanae, formerly known as Madam3Empress, creates deliciously smooth and warm R&B music, with her debut single ‘Come On Over’ released in 2020.
Heavily influenced by the sounds of her parent’s home country South Africa, her music trades on gospel, neo-soul, R&B, hip-hop as well as Cape Townian jazz. Two more singles, ‘Locking Eyes’ and ‘Some Kind of Way’ were released in 2021 seeing her global combined streams pass 1 million.
With her remarkable voice and magnetic presence alongside her ability to create hypnotic, immersive music, Shanae’s talent is obvious and has not gone unnoticed. As a result she is performing at Live Nation’s global showcase series Ones To Watch today at The Albion Hotel Parramatta as part of the SOUND WEST Music + Tech Festival.
An ongoing live event allowing up and coming artists to perform in front of music lovers and key industry professionals, Ones To Watch showcases have already been held in Adelaide and the Gold Coast and is also due to make an appearance at BIGSOUND festival in September.
Following her appearance at Ones To Watch, Shanae will release her new single ‘Illusions’ on September 15.
To find out more about Shanae’s performance at the festival and this new chapter in her music career we recently caught up with her to find out more.
Hi Shanae it's lovely to chat to you how are things?
Things are exciting again, you know? I feel like after COVID and the world just falling apart we're back. We're getting our feet back.
You are performing tonight at the Ones To Watch showcase at SOUND WEST. Talk to me about this huge, very exciting event.
I'm very excited. It's crazy. I am just wow, I can't believe it. It's been a string of things. I supported PJ Morton on two shows, that was huge for me and was just such a encouragement. And then to get to get this Ones To Watch Live Nation showcase is just so nice and I'm so grateful and humble that first of all, people are watching me because you have to be watching me to be one to watch. That in itself is just really, really lovely and I'm so glad that it's coming this way, and by that I mean it's a live show. You've got different artists who have different strengths, but mine definitely is my live show. I love live music and I want to keep it around forever and ever. The fact that it's a showcase, and that it's going to draw attention from people that I don't even know about, I'm very humbled and so appreciative. It's a huge, huge thing
That's so lovely to hear that you're creating this music for you and for the people but it's quite hard to imagine the actual individuals and the crowd until something like this happens.
Exactly. It's so crazy. I make the music for me. I see a lot of artists who post ‘Should I drop this song? Should I do this?’ That's not me. It's not what I want, how I want. So the fact that people buy into that is so lovely and it's so nice. And for it to be recognised by a touring companies such as Live Nation, who tour my favourite artists in the world, it's big deal. I’m maybe a little bit nervous, maybe I'm just like, ‘whoa, it's a little bit surreal.’
Let's talk about ‘Illusion’. I got chills, and then I had to go back and listen to the lyrics because I was just so taken away with your voice and the melody. Talk me through this track.
I'm so excited. I've had this song for two years now and we've sat on it. I was thinking about when I first played it for my team when I first played it for my family and getting their reaction. I remember when I first wrote it, and I was like, ‘I can't wait to release it’. And now people can have that experience. It's been a year since my last release, but this song is just so raw and revealing and powerful as opposed to the stuff that I've released before. It's a slower song, probably the slowest song I've released to date. It's deep and it’s left no stone unturned, I will say that!
I love this track. You end the song ‘with is this my truth?’ We hear that plenty these days, it's become almost an annoying catchphrase. But I love the way you break that apart ‘Illusions’.
Yeah, absolutely. The whole song I'm talking about ‘how do you know if you're in love?’ First of all, how do I know if what I'm feeling is love? And then how do I know if I'm in love? The ‘pick it up and mould’ line comes from as humans, we only really think that something is real if it's tangible. If we can grab it, see it and touch it. But when it comes to feelings, you can't do any of those things. Yes, you can hug someone or hug your favourite bottle of wine, but in terms of physically getting that reciprocated, it's not real. So when you're breaking down feelings which are intangible, it's like, ‘if I feel it and if I know it to be true, then is it true?’ Honestly, listening back to it, the song doesn't answer anything. It just poses lots of questions. I hope that when people listen to it, they really think about what's their truth. It doesn't have to be love it can be anything, but if you know it to be true, then that's your truth. It shouldn't matter if other people feel it - if you feel it and if you know in your heart, mind, body and soul that it's there then that should ring true. You don't need the validation of other things. ‘Illusions’ doesn't answer anything but I hope people are on the journey of where I was when I wrote it!
Songs don't have to answer anything. A lot of the time we get the lyrics wrong anyway, when we sing them in the dancefloor, so it’s fine!
It’s funny, I sang at an event earlier this year and most of the artists were rappers, and I had one of the rappers come up to me, he’s great, he's a good friend of mine, he's popping up right now he goes, and said ‘your song, that's the stuff that I listen to on repeat when I'm alone’. I was like ‘That's good!’ To hear that coming from a rapper was nice.
It’s like ‘I'm a secret song!’
It’s so true. You're all gonna sing to the ones that you want to to jump up or down to at the clubs with all your friends, but what's the songs that you're going to listen to when you're by yourself? It's those songs that are going to get you in your feels, so I'm writing songs to listen alone.
We spoke last year on the release of your single ‘Some Type Of Way’ and you spoke about coming to terms with vulnerability, and seeing it as a statement of strength, as opposed to weakness. ‘Illusions’ seems to be cut from the same thread thematically. Talk to me a little bit about that about the way you celebrate vulnerability within the music you create.
’Some Type Of Way’ unintentionally, I think at the time we didn't realise that we would be on this trajectory, definitely has flowed hand in hand with that foundation that was laid. If anything, I'm going more deeper into my feelings. I've always been the type of woman to need to pretend to have her shit together. I've always been that person and it's still something I struggle with. I'm the eldest of three, I have two sisters, so I've always got to be front forward, I always know what I want. For a really long time, I looked at not knowing what you want, or not being certain as a massive weakness. I remember writing this ‘I don't know anything’ literally! And I'm just need to embrace it. Honestly music is a big therapy thing for me, it's just get it out and go through all of it. So, when I wrote it, it was me just admitting that I don't know what I'm feeling, and I don't even know how to identify that, and it’s okay to be really confused. It was a huge song for me, because it's very vulnerable. Usually [the expression] some type of way is like, ‘cool, I feel some type of way’ but It's still kind of projecting that onto somebody else. But this song is all about how do I know? I'm really talking about myself. In terms of vulnerability, the more songs I'm writing, it’s like, can I get more vulnerable? And it does. But I guess this song is more of a massive introspection as opposed to deflecting onto somebody else.
What I think is really beautiful about that is you had ‘Illusions’ years ago, we've had a year between releases, but the strength in your voice is like next level. Do you think that has also to do with the fact that you're so confident in the subject matter?
Honestly, the past year, I feel like I’ve had five years growth. I think we forget apart from as an artist I was a 23 year old human turning 24. Your early 20s are ridiculous, you are finding out who you are, what you value, how you function. A lot of the times people just think, ‘oh, you're an artist’, and it's like, ‘no, I'm actually just a human trying to figure out what's happening with who I am’. Just going through the last year of so many things, not just on a macro scale where we all went through Covid, but just in my personal life. I've just had so many tests and trials and tribulations that I can reflect and be like, ‘Wow, that was a crazy time’. I am so sure of myself as opposed to when I wrote it, and that’s where that conviction comes from, and also being able to converse about it and not being ashamed about it. Because I know, in hindsight, that's something that is beautiful, and that's something that I had to go through.
Also, in COVID, I decided to practice singing everyday do warm ups and stuff so I can get back to three octaves. No one really does that anymore because you don't really have to, you could just jump in the studio and put on auto tune and all of that. But I really wanted to perfect it, this is my voice, what is going to be my moneymaker, I might as well tune it up and make it great. I really know how to control my vocals and how to get different textures out to make you feel something. That also plays a part into just knowing who I am as well.
What’s coming up next for you, I believe there is a mixtape on the way?
Fingers crossed! I've had this for five or six years in my brain and maybe three, four years just trying to get it together and all the pieces are floating around and we're at the stage of just getting it all in and fixing it all. When I release this next single, I truly feel people will get a taste of who I am and what I'm putting out and it feels very me and I'm really proud of it. Not saying that I was not proud of anything else but this is me. I wrote this song no other writers on it, it's in its purest form. And when people see the mixtape and the body of work that I'm going to drop I'm so excited because I just think they're gonna be like ‘wow, I didn't think she was that smart!’ They’re actually gonna say that, because I'm low key a nerd and I'm so excited for people to just listen and understand and I'm really excited.
‘Illusions’ will be out on September 15. You can listen to Shanae here.
To keep up with all things Shanae you can follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
For more information on Ones To Watch click here.
