I hate starting off on a cliche, but Ultra Nate is a true diva. If ever one were to use the word 'diva' to describe a strong female singer, Ultra Nate, in person and voice, embodies every single aspect of the definition. Not nessessarily the big lunged mama you normally hear from this genre, it's her unique voice, delivery and a cache' of impeccably written songs that separate her from Martha Wash pack. Now back after a lengthy hiatus, she's coming correct with a new Mood II Swing-produced single on Strictly Rhythm called "Free," arguably 'the song' of the Winter Music Conference this year. In addition to the single, which has quickly been licensed to AM:PM in the UK, she's in the writing process for her third album tentatively titled Situation Critical. After seeing many of her great songs, such as "It's Over Now," "Rejoicing" and "How Long" as well as two amazing albums Blue Notes in the Basement (1991) and One Woman's Insanity (1994), flounder at the hands of major label Warner Brothers, it's great to have her back on the scene on the independant level singing her lungs out. But singing is only a small part of the woman...
DMA: You came from the same production camp, The Basement Boys, that Crystal Waters did. Did you ever feel as if you came in second to her, seeing that she had pop success and yours was more of a devout club following?
ULTRA: I was the first project they had worked on. It just turned out that Crystal's album came out before mine. Because my project was the first thing that they had worked on, all of us, as artist and producers treated the recording of Blue Notes in the Basement as trial and error -- learning by making mistakes. I think that reflected in the recording, but I guess that's what gave the record that 'ambiance' (laughs). If it was polished, it wouldn't have been the same thing.
DMA: Recording for a corporate major label like Warner Brothers, how did you feel they treated dance music artists?
ULTRA: Oh God...Well, I started off on Warner UK and it's much different, because the dance music industry is much different there -- we actually got a fair shot there. Warner US didn't quite have it together on the dance perspective. They really didn't know what to do with me. Nobody over there knew what to do with a dance act. They were too busy trying to turn me into something else, and too many people had their fingers in the pot as far as the creativity, so that kind of made things a bit fuzzy.
DMA: What do you feel that they were trying to mold you into?
ULTRA: I guess it depended on what day of the week it was. Some days they wanted me to be a little more R+B/hip hoppy sounding, and other days they wanted me to be Janet Jackson. It just depended on who was hot at the moment.
DMA: If I recall, the radio version of "How Long" was a downtempo R+B song...
ULTRA: That would be a faction of the label people trying to make a more R+B sounding record. And "Show Me" was the idea of the label for me to be doing a more poppy sounding record. They had their hooks in us trying to get to something, but what was most important to us was that we kept our integrity so that we wouldn't alienate the fan base in the dance scene.
DMA: I suppose they accomplished that by doing remixes...Did you feel uncomfortable singing these commercial dance and R+B oriented songs?
ULTRA: I was, because to me, being a dance artist, you could use influences from other styles of music, anyway. Dance is probably the only genre of music that gives you that much flexibility. I pretty much did my own thing. If I like a track, then I'm down for doing it, as long as it's the best that it can possibly be.
