With the release of her fifth album Grime, Silk & Thunder, club veteran Ultra Nate presents a mature sound respectful of her roots while pushing forward with new sounds. Ultra is not your ordinary dance diva – she writes, produces and even DJs with her Baltimore-based Sugar crew. Already spawning two club smashes "Love's the Only Drug" and "Automatic," Grime Silk and Thunder will be one of the soundtracks of Summer 2007.
DJ Ron Slomowicz: I love the new album Grime, Silk & Thunder, what was on your
mind when you started working on it?
Ultra Nate: Pandemonium. It was pretty tumultuous at that point, as
I had just left Strictly Rhythm after having a really great success
with them. Strictly had signed the label over to Warner Brothers and I
knew that was going to be an absolute disaster, so I saw the writing
in the sky and asked to be released from the label. I decided at that
moment to go out on a limb once again and start my own label using my
own money, so that at whatever point I put out my next record I would
have ownership of my masters unlike before. It was a really big
moment of decision and taking on more responsibility on the business
side of things and trying to balance that with being creative. So
that was pretty much where I was when I started making this record and
that is the reason for the title being Grime, Silk & Thunder. It's
really about those various elements in your life that are always
happening when you're going through rough spots, when things are
coasting along and groovy or when everything is just like hardcore.
It's just madness, that's what it's all about.
RS: Or "One woman's insanity?" I thought Grime, Silk and
Thunder was describing you and your voice.
Ultra Nate: A lot of people seem to think that, but that's not where
it initially came from- all of those things encompasses me as an
individual.
RS: Let's start with the song you chose to cover. How did you
choose to redo the Pointer Sisters' song "Automatic?"
Ultra Nate: That was the last song on the album to come in and it
really happened quite spontaneously. I was just riding around in my
car with my satellite radio on, and I listen to The Big 80s very
often. The song came on and I thought the song was so fly that it
really deserves another moment in the sun. I felt like it was a song
that I could put my perspective on and it would still compliment the
original. I didn't want to dilute it or to make it into some cheesy
pop kind of obvious attempt at a cover to try and get a hit record. I
don't think there's any artistry in that. I think when you choose a
song to cover it really needs to be something that makes it for you as
an artist.
RS: With "Scandal" and "It's Over Now," those are your two
earlier records, what was the thought to bring them back?
Ultra Nate: This album is so pivotal in my career because of the
circumstances that it was born out of and being a in a very different
place, I wanted to have a couple of my old tracks on the record
because it's kind of a full circle. It's a kind of moment where I've
been doing this for a number of years and this is the fifth record
that I've put out. There's a big evolution happening in the music
industry itself on the business level and on the creative level -
we're in a period of massive change and I think sometimes looking back
to the past of where you come from helps you to adjust, evolve and
move forward with where things are going in the future.
Those two particular songs are really favorites of a lot of my fans and I've got all these eMail where people tell me that "Scandal" and "It's Over Now" were their songs. They deserve another moment in the sun. Its also for people who never heard those records because they found out about me because of the success of tracks like "Free" or "If You Could Read My Mind" and they never got to hear like the soulful underground stuff that I started with.
RS: Well, with that underground sort of edge and all things new
and looking to the future, you've always had an ear to work with up
and coming producers. How do you find the producers that you work
with?
Ultra Nate: My manager Bill Coleman is really instrumental with
having his hand in the pot of different places of who's doing what,
feeding out songs to different producers and making new opportunities
with new people. I think it's really important when you've been doing
it for so long because it takes you out of your comfort zone and it
forces another level of perspective of your creativity to come to the
fore.
RS: Working with the producers, what is your songwriting style?
Do you usually write to a track or do you send vocals over?
Ultra Nate: I pretty much work both ways. I can chill by myself for
a while and brainstorm on some ideas and do what I call a
free-thinking writing session where I'm not worried about structure or
specific content - I just write from a constant stream of thought and
then go back later and pull bits and pieces from that and then create
structure out of it. Or I may have a track that someone gives me and
write something from it that's inspired by what the track is doing.
RS: Give me an example of a song on the album that you wrote to
someone else's track.
Ultra Nate: With "Love's the Only Drug," the producer and I talked
about a direction the song that I wanted to come up with and then he
went and created a song out of the ideas that I gave him and he gave
me the track. I wrote what I was inspired to write from the track
that he came up with, which was "Love is the Only Drug."
RS: When I first got that song I swore it was a Grace Jones cover.
Ultra Nate: Thank you. That's a great compliment, I'm a big Grace Jones fan.
RS: Were you sort of playing a character or channeling her when
you wrote that song?
Ultra Nate: I probably was. You kind of lean towards your icons
when you work on things. It's a creative thing but your own
particular influences filter through regardless. But yes, I'd look to
people like Grace, Chaka Khan, Donna Summer, Barbra Streisand, or for
that matter Bobby Womack, Marvin Gaye, or whoever I'm kind of feeling
the song demands, I go there.