It's Sinkane's Life and He's Livin' It

It's easy to look at the current political climate and grow despondent, if not nihilistic. But ask Ahmed Gallab—the musical polymath otherwise known as Sinkane—about the future, and he sounds downright excited.

"If we don't have hope we're just gonna wallow in our own filth," he explains over the phone from his Brooklyn home. And it's precisely that notion that his new album, Life and Livin' It, hammers home over the course of its nine grooving, horn-laden tracks.

The record marks a sharp turn in tone from his previous releases; 2014's Mean Love—Gallab's fifth album as Sinkane and his first with City Slang—sounds downright lonely. By contrast, Life and Livin' It, is a sprawling and expansive affair. If his last release was a study of id and ego, offering moments of bombast and restraint in equal measure, Life and Livin' It is Gallab's superego—a record at once rational and freewheeling, dynamic and explosive, yet capable of pulling back the curtain and revealing a vulnerability and intimacy.

Life & Livin' It is also a full band affair. Gallab teamed up with band members like drummer JayTram for a more inclusive songwriting process, in addition to expanding his touring group with Amanda Khiri (one half of Brooklyn duo Z & A) and Elanna Canlas (a keyboard player in the Easy Star All-Stars), and took the album's nine tracks to the people—performing them at Brooklyn clubs—before recording them at Sonic Ranch Studio in El Paso.

Any fan of indie rock has likely encountered Sinkane in some context, as the multi-instrumentalist has backed-up some of rock's most influential groups. He's played percussion in Yeasayer, where he and JayTram turned from competing rivals into devoted bandmates; spiced up the Caribou rhythm section as a multi-instrumentalist; and he helmed the drum kit with Of Montreal in 2008.

But, according to Gallab, Life & Livin' It would never be the warm, joyous, confident affair it is if he didn't have the opportunity to lead the Atomic Bomb! Band, a live group covering the music of William Onyeabor that consists of David Byrne, Pharaoh Sanders, Damon Albarn, and more. This, to almost anyone, would be a crowning achievement—something you could retire on. But not for Gallab. He's the sort of artist who exudes his love for music at a near constant rate. To hear him speak about Life & Livin' It is to become infected by its joy.

For Gallab, making an album that reflects that is the greatest way to put up a fight against tyranny. Life & Livin' It aims to push this sentiment as a universal truth that anyone feeling alienated can latch onto. The album is human, a resource for anyone afraid to speak out, or for anyone simply feeling worn out and demoralized.

We gave Gallab a call and caught him in the middle of his favorite activity outside of music: cooking. Over the sizzle of the pan, Gallab talked the late William Onyeabor's influence on the new record, the artistic bombast of his music videos, and how Caribou's Dan Snaith is like a big brother.

Noisey: Are you starting to rehearse for the upcoming Sinkane tour?
Ahmed Gallab: Oh we've been rehearsing all month. We started right before Christmas, pretty loosely. We've been going really hard all month.

How big is your touring band?
It's a six piece band for now. The original four boys who have been around for a while [Gallab, Jason Trammell, Jonathan Lam, Ish Montgomery] , and we just added two ladies, Amanda Khiri and Elenna Canlas. We're really stoked about it.

You're touring pretty much non-stop through April. How do you mentally prepare for that?
I have a lot of underwear that I buy right before I leave. And socks [laughs]. You know, I like to tour more than I like being home. It's not much of a prep I need to do. I feel so much at home, you know? It's kind of the other way around. It's like, 'How do I prepare to be at home?' I don't really stay home for that long. When I do I need to organize my time so that I don't freak out.

The new record is fantastic. It sounds pretty different from your prior releases. I don't mean to insinuate that it's a debut in any way, but Life & Livin' It is definitely your most confident release. Why do you think that is?
We did this project, the Atomic Bomb! Band project. I had the task of leading a 15-piece band that included David Byrne and Pharoah Sanders, Damon Albarn and Money Mark. Just these living legends. Pharoah Sanders is the reason I started Sinkane 10 years ago. On top of that, the music of William Onyeabor is a huge influence on me. Taking on that task was probably the biggest challenge I've ever faced as an artist. I think coming out of it, and getting the respect of people like David Byrne and Pharoah Sanders gave me a lot of confidence moving forward.

I can imagine that would be the case.
Before that project, I always felt like people like them were on this other plane. There was this club for these musicians that I wasn't a part of. I was just doing my own little pet project and these guys were the real deal. But when I got that confidence, I sort of felt like I had been accepted in, you know what I mean? It was just like, wow. The things that I wanted to do became a bit more validated. I can go into this album a little less insecure and really enlightened and excited to make something.

How did you become the band leader for the Atomic Bomb! Band project?
Eric Welles Nyström and Yale Evelev from Luaka Bop Records saw Sinkane perform at the New York SummerStage a couple years ago. We were supporting Femi Kuti, Fela's son. They were there to interview Femi about William Onyeabor. I saw them walking around wearing Onyeabor shirts, and I was like, 'Who the hell are these guys? I love William Onyeabor. Who are these guys?' We struck up a conversation and started geeking out about him and they just asked me to do it. We met for lunch a couple of days later. They told me David Byrne and Money Mark were involved and I instantly said yes. I then went home and thought to myself, 'How the fuck am I gonna pull this thing off?'

I may be projecting a bit, but I definitely hear a lot of Onyeabor on the new record. Was he a big point of inspiration while writing this album?
Oh yeah. More than anything, the reason why I love his music so much is because it's so distinctly African, but he transcends any idea of African or Nigerian music. It goes to another place. It's an out of this world experience. It's still ahead of its time to this day. No one's doing music like him, still. I wanted to take that idea of taking music that sounded distinctly African but transcended any idea of African or American music. Folk music from indigenous people, too. Whether that's reggae or country western, soul; I wanted to incorporate all of it.

Jason Trammell is one of my favorite drummers. Did you two overlap much during your respective stints in Yeasayer?
When I was asked to join Yeasayer, they wanted me to play drums. I went up to this house where they were recording their second album. I jammed with them for a night or two. It was a kind of audition. A few months later I get a call from Anand [Wilder], and he tells me, 'Yeah we decided to work with this other guy Jason on drums, but we still want you in the band.' And I agreed to do it. I met Jay the first day of rehearsal. It's a funny story because I kind of did this thing…I was super competitive and looked at him, and was like, 'You're the guy who took the job that I'm supposed to have. Who the hell are you?' As soon as he sat on the drums, I knew that he was gonna come up with some next level shit. I just conceded and bowed down immediately. We became friends that first day. And he's still the closest friend I have in New York. We had a very strong musical connection from the moment we started playing with each other. We were kind of in the boat while we were playing in Yeasayer so there was a strong bond between the two of us. He's been my right hand man. He's been around, he's always down. I love that guy to death. I'd take a bullet for that guy.

How soon after you two left Yeasayer did Sinkane become the priority?
We started playing as Sinkane literally right before we parted ways with the band. It was kind of a mutual thing. They [Yeasayer] wanted to do something else and I wanted to do Sinkane. Jay came with me. We were rehearsing before we even knew what would happen with Yeasayer.

Why did you decide to record Life & Livin' It in El Paso?
Living in New York, you get really distracted very easily. By everything. The food here is great, there's always something to do. There's always a great event. In the summertime, the beach is right next to you. There's every excuse to not work. I wanted to do this record with the band and not just on my own. I know my discipline, but when you get working with a group of people, it's hard to stay focused. There's always a gig that night we could play, there are always people going to some crazy cabin upstate. I just wanted to completely take us out of that comfort zone and put us in a position where we could only work, where we had no distractions and could really focus and bond as a band. I think I succeeded with that. We had a really great time while we were down there. Beyond having no distractions, the recording studio is one of the best studios in the world. The facilities are unbelievable, the recording gear is great, and you're in this beautiful hacienda. You're with your best friends, getting cooked these amazing meals…You're just focused. The only thing you want to do is play music. You wake up in the morning, play for 14 hours, and come up with some magic.

The album has lyrical contributions from multiple band members. What went into that decision? Was it hard to strike a thematic balance?
The last three records I worked with my friend Greg Lofaro. He writes almost all of the lyrics and he wrote all the words to every song except one on this album. He's my songwriting partner, more or less. In the past it was a bit more collaborative. For this record, I did a lot more songwriting and he just worked on lyrics. I've learned a lot from him in many, many ways. He's an amazing editor and a great producer. He's just an incredibly creative man. I'll work with him forever.

With this album, the more that everyone is involved with the band, the more I see a lot of talent in everyone. What I wanted to do with this album was open it up to more than Greg. Jay, Ish, and Jonny are really, really talented people. I wanted to give them the opportunity—if they had any ideas—to see what they could do to the songs. Jay wrote the vocal melody and sings one of the songs. "Theme From Life & Livin' It" is all JayTram. We worked on that song a couple of summers ago when we were living in Asheville, North Carolina for a month. It never really came into fruition until now. There's something to say about being able to do everything yourself, but when you collaborate with people and you work with them, you're gonna create something bigger than either of you could imagine.

Jonny Lam also contributed a bunch of production to the album. He contributed arrangements to three of the songs and him being in the studio with me was important because he's a really great coach. He really showed me how to approach singing a song one way versus another. It really felt like being a part of a team. I really enjoy that atmosphere.

The new record is lyrically (and musically), an exploration in trying to be happy; the vulnerability in letting yourself be happy and striving to be happy. I find that really admirable, especially now. Since the songs were written before the country imploded, has the meaning of the music shifted at all for you? Or do you think the music stands alone, independent of outside influence?
The thing about this album is, I wanted it to reflect my personal experiences. The reason why is because…The number one aim of Sinkane is to connect with people. In order to connect with people, you have to give them something that they can relate to. For a long time, I shied away from being so personal because I thought that was too selfish and that people wouldn't relate to this personal experience. What if I just make it vague so that they can just kind of pick from it and say, 'Oh yeah, he's talking about sadness. I feel sadness.' With this album, I realized that if I do talk about my personal experience, I'll connect with people on a more profound level. I talk about my experiences as an African-American man, an African in America, an American in Sudan, as a Muslim, as a part of this second generation diaspora. I talk about my experience with religion; all of these experiences people who grew up like me have dealt with, but probably don't know how to speak to other people about.

Beyond that, all of these experiences are universal. People deal with issues of religion and identity issues. People deal with this all the time, no matter where they may be. I think it's not surprising that what I'm talking about relates to the current state of affairs in America and in the world, and I don't really retract my ideas at all. It's exciting for me because it's opening up a dialogue that needs to be discussed, and it's also giving people hope. For instance, the song "U'Huh," everyone has asked me about that, and the relationship with the video—it shows a lot things about police brutality and the whole Trump thing. If you look at the video, all of the footage is old. It's all from the Civil Rights era. What I'm trying to say with that song is, 'Shit sucks right now, but that's nothing new.' There have always been tough situations happening and tough experiences happening all over the world. If we go back to our parents and talk to them about their day, they're gonna give us something that was very tough and that everyone was dealing with—Civil Rights, inflation, The Vietnam War, the depression era, the stock market crashing, World War II, The Korean War. All these things happened all over the world for every generation. Now, shit sucks, but it has always been that way. The one thing we can take from that is that we need hope. If we don't have hope we're just gonna wallow in our own filth.

It's interesting that you find hope in things still being bad.
[Laughs]. Frederick Douglass said, "If there is no struggle then there is no progress." And I think that is absolutely true. You talk to any black person, they'll tell you that you can find beauty in the struggle. Anyone who has dealt with issues, they'll tell you that. You just have to figure that out. Otherwise, you're gonna be crabs in a barrel. No one wants to be sad all the time. It's really fun being happy. And it's really exciting when the energy of positivity ruminates in a room. You can feel that energy and it's really inspiring.

I love the video for "Telephone." You don't see many videos that are as cinematographically ambitious. What inspired you to do the one take?
When we were starting the press campaign with that song…Whenever I start a campaign I know I want to make a video with dancing in it. I feel like all of my songs, the reason they come together is because they make me dance. If I'm in the studio and I'm writing, if it doesn't make me dance I put it on the backburner. If one makes me dance, I start really working on the song. With "Telephone," it really brought me out of my chair. When we were thinking about a video, I realized we had to do something with dancing. My friend Cherie does these really cool Instagram videos where they just dance to '90s songs. They're super vulnerable and just so much fun. I talked to my friends Bráulio Amado and Bruno Ferreira from Portugal about a dancing concept, and they put forth the idea of a one take. We decided to have one person do a sequence and every time, she just gets more and more into the track. It was cool to couple that with me dancing. I thought it was a great idea. It was still fun and loose, but it's one of those videos where you watch and see something new every time. It's subtle at the same time. I just want to show it to all my friends [laughs].

Speaking of film and art in general, one of my favorite things when talking with musicians is finding out the non-musical influences that permeate their work. What sort of books, films, or art that helped inspire this record?
All the books that I read are weird business books. My girlfriend put me on to Brené Brown, a Shaman vulnerability researcher. She wrote these two books, Daring Greatly and Rising Strong. I loved reading those books. They really helped me gain a lot of confidence and helped me let go and embrace my vulnerabilities when it came to this album. It's really hard as a musician to fully realize your ideas because you're exposing yourself to the world in a very straight up way. If you see artists doing that, they're absolutely secure with who they are. It's hard to finish a record and let it go in the world, sitting and waiting for people to judge it.

Other than that, a lot of cooking inspired the album. I really love to cook. It's very similar to making a song; getting a bunch of ingredients together and seeing how they interact. With this album, I really wanted to make the perfect cake.

What's your go-to dish?
I make a really great chili. An amazing chili. It will blow you away. If you're ever in New York, hit me up. It's a pretty robust, intense chili. I signed up for a CSA [community supported agriculture] this past summer, and it's a lot of fun. Every two weeks my girlfriend and I would pick up our share and you'd end up getting whatever had been harvested at that time. Every two weeks we'd be challenged to make something new. I would never buy fennel on my own. I'd have to figure out how to make a dish with that. I ended up making some really fun things. But chili and full-on breakfasts are my favorite. Sudanese food, too.

How did your relationship with City Slang come about?
We met through Dan Snaith. I played with Caribou for a while and Dan…Dan, of all of the people I've played with, he's been the biggest supporter and mentor. He has helped me out so much. He always gives me such great advice and he feels like a big brother. After I finished playing with him, I'd be playing with all of these other bands, and he'd always come up to me and be like, 'You know, I loved it, but next time I want to see 300% more Ahmed.' It really inspired me to finish my record. As soon as I finished it, he passed it along to City Slang and really pushed for me to be on the label. Christof [Ellinghuas, the label founder] really liked the music. He flew from Berlin to talk to me. We had a really great meeting and he was super enthusiastic about everything. It's been a really great relationship with those guys. They're so amazing and super supportive.

You guys tested the new songs live before recording them. Did you change much based on how they sounded live? What did you glean from those live shows about the new songs?
It impacted the record pretty tremendously. It made me feel excited about recording because the response was overwhelming. You never know when making demos. They don't really have a dynamic quality to them because they're just shitty demos. How it affected the recording process was that we went into the studio knowing the songs inside and out. We understood everything we wanted to do, how we wanted the songs to end, how we wanted the transitions to go. We had a great amount of practice on our own and with the live band. When we played live, it showed us how expansive the songs could be. We had a bunch of our friends jam with us and stuff and that really gave the songs this really cool energy. We saw where some parts were hitting, where others weren't, and we took those back to the drawing board. There are songs like "The Way," which I wasn't expecting to get any response, but got a great response when we performed them live. It allowed us to take chances without any pressure. It gave us a lot of confidence.

I know you're about to go on tour on the heels of this new record, but have you thought about what's next for Sinkane?
Man…We added these two ladies to the band and we're super excited about that. It's changed the structure of the live show dramatically. It's a lot better, I think. There's just a lot more to do. I'm very excited about touring. I'm really excited about taking on more projects like the Onyeabor project, taking on more projects showcasing the band and what we do. JayTram just released an album so we're trying to build the Sinkane family up, build up the dynasty. I want to show people that it's more than just me. It's more than just the show.