Milele FM, Kenya 2014

I'm so glad, sure. Check mic one two, check mic one two. You let me pronounce the name right, eh? Anushka. Anushka. It's from where? It's from, well, it's actually Russian and former Eastern Bloc, but I'm half Swedish and half American. Ah, okay. All right, here we go. Hii ni segment kama kawaida ya wanawake na biashara, and very interesting ni kuna mgeni mmoja different sana. Clearly atatuambia where she's from and everything. So, what's your full names and where are you from? My full names are Anushka Alfred Perlman, and I'm half Swedish.

I was born in Sweden, but I grew up in America and I have an American father. Wow. Okay, now she gave me the first single, the first song that she had come to launch, and I have to listen to it, listen to it, and she was singing in Swahili. So let's get to know more about her, what she intends to do in her career. So what it is that you do in your profession? Well, I've been a performing songwriter for about 18 years and an international recording artist with a few released albums and international airplay.

But I came to Kenya because I wanted to visit my mother, who has a house in Malindi and who has a foundation that helps to pay school fees for orphans, and the foundation is called Milele Children Foundation. And when I was here, I sort of fell in love with Kenya, with the children, and I also met a producer named Teddy B, and we recorded one song together. And I just got so inspired by the culture that I was seeing around, so I thought I have to go back and start doing music there.

I felt that was just the next step in my artistic development and my spiritual development. Wow. You said you have a foundation that you're working with called Milele Foundation. Milele Children Foundation. Milele Children Foundation. Quite, what did I say, quite a coincidence because our station is called Milele FM. Oh, well then you are the right people to help spread the word.

It's actually my mother's foundation, and Milele, she chose the word too because she believes education is forever, and by giving these very bright, talented orphans a chance to go to school, that they'll become empowered members of the community and help the country grow. True. Now, music-wise, let's talk music. When did you start doing music, and how is it so far? Can you say, like, it can pay your bills, or it's getting there, or what's the current situation? Well, okay.

First of all, I started because my grandmother, my Swedish grandmother, gave me a beat-up guitar when I was little, when I was about 12 years old, and I taught myself. But then later on, about 15 years later, after already doing a lot of music and theater also as well, I finally was able to get admitted to Berklee College of Music and get a scholarship and student loans, and I was able to actually become professionally educated as a musician. And since then I have been working professionally as a musician, and that would be now about 18 years.

Does it pay the bills? That's the question of the day for every creative spirit. No, sometimes, but, you know, it's very volatile. And the problem was what happened was also with the advent of the internet. With the, you know, the whole system of getting a record deal and having that kind of sponsorship behind you, it just disappeared, and everybody was angling for position in the music industry. And I think it became very important for the more monopolized stations to just be very hyper-commercial to keep it alive on their end.

And so there wasn't a lot of room left for artists like me, who are a little bit more individual. And so I had to struggle and do—I'm an independent artist. We saw the rise of independent artists, women just doing their own thing, doing their own promotion, producing their own albums. So I save money and I do my own thing. I don't have a label behind me, and I've been working like that for 18 years. That means I have to do other things. I have to teach, work as a reporter.

Sometimes I do a commercial for TV as an actress when I get those gigs because they pay well. So it's been a lot of taking what I could do along the side, but always towards one vision. I kind of heard what you say, that you do also other things on the side. So is music like your first love, or is it like your passion for what you do? It is actually my life, and everything else around it is just the little details.

All right, now let's quickly go to, you know, encouraging women, because this part of the segment of the show is called Wanawake na Biashara, meaning women in business. Now, how would you advise a lady who's ready to become an artist and probably... Right now in Kenya, it's very hard to just start music and get paid. Like, you know, you need some longevity in the industry. You need someone to, like, give you a hand. How would you give someone advice, or a lady who's, you know, willing to venture into the music business or into the art business?

I think, and this is not just for women, but for anyone in general, it is very important to maintain your independence and not to give up your power too soon until you really understand how things work and until you really know what product you want to have represented. Because the risk is there will always be people coming to offer you deals, because this happened to me. Sony offered me a deal. I've had movie deals, but they just want to get everything, maybe because they think you're naive.

They'll say, Oh, she just wants to get known, so she'll give up her copyrights or all her publishing rights. And I always said, No, thank you, and that's why I never signed. Because I think you must never, ever think you're not strong and empowered. That's the feeling we make as women. We think maybe, Oh, the guys know more. They've got more credibility. They've been doing it longer. It's their industry. I was the only woman doing what I was doing when I started out. I was always surrounded by guys telling me how I should be doing things.

And sometimes I was listening to them, and it proved me it didn't work for me in the end, because usually they had their own agenda. So when you're going to work with someone, try to be clear about why they want to work with you. If you know that, then you can say, Yes, this will work for me and my vision, and I can accommodate their demands. So everybody comes out in a win-win situation.

Otherwise, there's going to be misunderstandings, and for a woman, it will really hurt our self-esteem if we don't succeed, because we get very depressed very easily because we're not as supported still. We don't help each other as a network enough, you know. William, okay, now your first single is called Ndoto, Dreams. Let's talk about the inspiration behind it and also the motivation to do it also in verses in Swahili. What was the main, you know, push or the motivation behind it? I actually think it's quite sweet.

The main motivation was that there's another, in Malindi, not only do I help my mother with her foundation, Milele Children, but there's a local orphanage, and some of the children whose school fees the foundation pays live in that orphanage. So I go to the orphanage whenever I'm there, and I spend my free time with them doing theater or just doing music, trying to just stimulate them and give them whatever I can give that they want from me.

And what I noticed was every time I would come in the car from Nairobi with a new track, they'd be like, Oh, nishka, play your song, play your song. And so I'd put, you know, in the car there's a stereo, because there's no stereo in the orphanage, so we just crank up the volume in the car, and then they start dancing around the car, but they couldn't sing all the words. So when I first wrote one song, Shine, which had a few Swahili words, the time I drove, they were so excited to be able to sing along. And that's what motivated me.

I thought, okay, if I'm going to try to be now working and based out of East Africa, or Kenya, say, I need to be able to offer them that kind of joy. Like, it's cool that they will sing with me and feel so happy. And then it went on when I noticed my neighbors, where I'm living in Nairobi, or just anyone, when they would hear there was some Swahili, it seemed to make them so happy. So it felt very rewarding for me. So now that's my motivation. Okay, okay.

Your first single, you're hoping—when are you planning to launch it, and the video, is the video out? Well, we have a big video launch coming now on Tuesday, June 10th, at Tribeca Club, which is at—nation—what's it called? CBD. It's just in CBD. Okay. Can I say that again? Okay. So we have a big launch coming out now on Tuesday at Trebeca, which is a club in CBD. And the launch will—we will probably launch the video around nine or ten, but you're advised to come, yeah, around 8:30 to 9 probably, so you don't miss it. All right.

So as we finish, I'd like to hear like a few verses of probably maybe the song or maybe you talk, Swahili, because I think me, as the person who's interviewing you, I'm a bit, you know, I think it would be better coming from you, so a bit of a line in Swahili or maybe. Okay. I actually have a line that I have prepared for you, and this is what I feel. Hold on, let me see if I can say this. Ni mteza muziki, kwa muda mrefu, lakini sijapata upendo kama ile nimepata hapa. Did you—no, can I say that again? Okay, wait, wait, let me try that. I love this one.

Okay. Ni mteza muziki, kwa muda mrefu, lakini sijapata upendo kama ile nimepata hapa. Very nice, very nice. There you go. So let's just sign out. Probably maybe you want to leave a drop and just say, Hi, this is Aneska. You're listening to Milele FM. This is Milele Breakfast. Keep it locked or something like that. Keep it locked? Yeah, keep it locked. Not high, low. Locked. You can say, Milele, wewe ni wetu. Locked. Milele FM, wewe ni wetu. You can just say, Milele FM is the name of the station. Yes. And the tagline. All right, so let's go.

Hi, this is Aneska, and you are tuned in to the amazing station.Millele FM, wewe ni wetu. Stay there. I like that.