Features

It's been seven long years since Adriana Evans dropped her debut self titled LP without as much as a single or guest appearance to be seen nor heard from her. In 1997 when her LP dropped on Loud Records alongside Hip-Hop Luminaries Mobb Deep, Wu-Tang and Tha Alkaholiks and "Neo-Soul" was still a phrase brewing in some suits mind, little did they know it was staring them right in front of their face in Adriana's golden voice and live music. The year's 2004, and Adriana is back with a independent LP, an updated sound and is ready to show the majors what they missed out on!

ThaFormula.Com - It's great to finally talk to you. It's been 7 years since your debut LP dropped, what have you been up to since then?

Adriana Evans - Thank you. I was in Brazil for a while, I loved that. Actually I didn't want to come back. I've kind of been traveling for the last few years. I was in Mexico for a while, and then I came back and went to San Francisco, just kind of trying to find my bearings after doing that record. It was kind of a whirlwind after that, kind of a difficult time. You know the politics of the business, it can just be crazy. You just want to make great music and make people feel good but you have to deal with so much politics. Major labels are just a nightmare. So after I asked to be released from my deal (I actually asked to be released) it was just a mess.

ThaFormula.Com - Yeah, because back in '97 when your LP dropped on Loud you were label mates with Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep and the Alkaholiks. I always wondered whether or not they new how to market an artist like you or Davina who had a great album around the same time on Loud, neither one of you really got that push…

Adriana Evans - Actually you know, I kind of blame RCA for that too. Because when you have a deal like that when you're kind of a niche label through a big company you expect the big company to fill in the cracks for you. Because what do you need them for if they aren't gonna assist you with promotions you know. There was some things that RCA could have done that they did not do, so it's not really all on Loud. It's the politics of having a label through another label, through another label. After doing that album, I just didn't want anything to do with the business anymore. I love music and I just kind of did music just for me. Really and truly this record is a journey it's a combination and a representation of the journey I have been on for the last few years. Every place that I've lived or traveled to I just kind of picked up a couple of songs, whatever I was living. Whether it was Brazil, or San Francisco or Mexico I just kind of collected songs from each place.

ThaFormula.Com - Yeah, you can definitely hear the different influences in the new record…

Adriana Evans - Yeah, this album for me is really just a labor of love. It is just completely devoid of the machine. It was made in a way that I was absolutely not thinking about and A&R person sitting over me saying "yeah we're gonna get the Neptunes to remix it," or thinking about the hooks like "oh that's not commercial enough," it really is kind of like a diary of sorts. We're doing this solely independently. I got my man Paul Stewart, it's myself, Paul and Dred (John) Scott my husband. Its kind of in the spirit of Damon Dash/Jay-Z back in the type thing.

ThaFormula.Com - Now seems to be a good time for that. There are so many different avenues to help an independent artist now…

Adriana Evans - Absolutely. It's so liberating. It's such a great thing not to worry about like "are they gonna like this single," because you know the music industry is so single driven. It's not even album driven, it's not even music driven I don't even know what it is. You know there's maybe one song you kind of like on album, and thirteen other songs that are garbage. You can just tell that they threw it together so they can say "yeah, there's 14 songs on this record." (laughs)

ThaFormula.Com - So they don't have to sell it for the half the price as an EP (laughs)

Adriana Evans - (laughs) Exactly.

ThaFormula.Com - That's what I liked about your first album, nothing seemed out of place, everything just kind of went together…

Adriana Evans - Thank you. You know, I really don't like to think like that either. I just like to make music. It's not like I'm on some old trip like "yeah, I'm just making music with a rubber band and I'm on my own trip," I definitely think about what sounds good and will connect with people. The storied that are in my songs, I want people to be able to relate to them, that's what it's all about. So you can make someone fell just a little bit more a part of…like "I'm not so alone," you know because for me as a kid what I would do when I listened to music, I would hear these songs that made me feel like "wow, maybe I'm not alone I feel like that too." That's what I aim to do with my music. Kind of reach a common core of just the human experience. It's not like I'm on this tip like "yeah, let me just do this song about intergalactical whatever" (laughs) and no one can relate, but they are very personal. They are about me and people that I know, and it just makes me feel good when people are like "wow, that song got me through something," it just makes me feel good and that's what it's all about. It's not about record sales and promotion and marketing and spins, it's about music.

ThaFormula.Com - I think that is what the people that head you're album got from it too. Because at the time people like Mary, Faith, and Aaliyah and even Lauryn was coming out…they had their sound are were all classics to me but you're sound was just different and more natural and was kind of a shock when compared to them…

Adriana Evans - Yeah, I mean we really like to work with musicians. I'm from the whole Hip-Hop background, I was one of those kids with a backpack, I was a B-Girl and it was because of Hip-Hop that I got into rediscovering the way music sounds on records, like how the ambiance was, how the drums sounded and how the guitars were EQ's and Hip-Hop actually made me rediscover that. Because we grew up on those records, and Hip-Hop did that, it made you remember what music was supposed to sound like. For us, what did was we were just like "let's just strip it all down like they used to do it," and Hip-Hop taught us that lesson. It's just kind of sad to me where Hip-Hop has gone, it's like it's forgotten itself. A lot of people would say to me "what does you're record have to do with Hip-Hop?" My first record absolutely could not have been created without Hip-Hop. It was Hip-Hop that made me rediscover what music was supposed to sound like listening to those breaks. You listen to how those records were made. All Hip-Hop is is just old music you know, getting the break finding that place where the record was really hot and just looping it over and over again, and you know you don't really need very much to make good music. I just see all the bling and all that and am just like, "wow." I remember De La, Tribe and Blackmoon, and all that underground stuff that just sounded so beautiful.

ThaFormula.Com - We're right there with you on the same page…

Adriana Evans - Yeah, and there is underground stuff out there, but the labels aren't signing any of it. I mean, it's all independent.

ThaFormula.Com - It's getting to the point where you really have to search for it…

Adriana Evans - You really do, but it's worth it when you find it. For me, I just can't do the major thing. You just get to a point where it's like you're either about music or you're about nothing. Because for me to do music, and it not to be about the music…that's just insanity but maybe that's just me. But some people can do the same thing over and over again and what the majors want you to do is find that same note and just stay on it for years and you never divert from it. For me…that's just death. As human beings we are constantly evolving so why wouldn't our music evolve? The majors just want you to be who they want you to be and if you can't do that then they jut get somebody else that will.

ThaFormula.Com - It's too bad you couldn't have dropped back like three or four years ago when the "Neo-Soul" thing started…

Adriana Evans - Yeah, you know what I think the problem with my project was that we really did that record before anybody did that. My project came out right before Erykah's and our record came out the same time as D'Angelo's because "Reality" came out around the time that "Brown Sugar" came out. What happened with our record is that people didn't know what to call it.

ThaFormula.Com - Yeah, why do you have to call it anything, why can't you just like it?

Adriana Evans - Yes, if they can't explain you or fit you into one sound byte, then you can't exist in that matrix and that's what it is. That's just what the machine is. I spent years just beating my head against the wall like "why? why?" and I just got to a point where it's like "you know what, I'll just create my own door, I just don't want to do this anymore," and that is what Brazil was all about. Going down there was like "wow!" music was just everywhere.

ThaFormula.Com - How long were you there for?

Adriana Evans - Just shy of a year. The love of music is just everywhere there. People just enjoy music, they play it not to make money, you can walk into someone's house and they grab a guitar and it's like a jam session. I was soakin' that up, I really and truly did not want to come back. I think at some point I will probably end up there. I think it made you appreciate music in a way that is about the love of it, and that's pretty much what this record is, just about the love of music, like the music I listened to growing up without the labels. People are like "wow, you're doing like rock," and I'm like "I'm doing it all, it's all just music! It's all from the same source, get over it, forget what you're calling it." That's where I am now, and it just feels great to be independent and see that people are supporting that and understanding that we are literally pressing these things up in our living room (laughs) What we have now is the CD-R's but we have gotten some manufactured and they will be available shortly.

ThaFormula.Com - When you originally came out what led you to the whole vibe of using live instrumentation? Because not many were doing it, and Dred's album didn't sound anything like yours…

Adriana Evans - It just seemed right. What happened was really and truly we were into Hip-Hop. One day we were like "you know what, we could make a record that sounds like these records" and those records were made with real instruments.

ThaFormula.Com - It's like a light bulb came on over your head right?

Adriana Evans - Yeah! We really listened to a lot of different stuff too, like Roy Ayers, Rufus and Chaka Khan and Minnie Ripperton (who I just really adore) and we just went back and listened to a lot of old records and how they sounded. We talked to a lot of musicians and engineers and said "we want to make our music sound like this." So we went and found these studios that had these old boards, we went and out found some of the cats that played on those old records and it was kind of like a learning process for them again because for the last 10 or 15 years that they had been working in the industry, everything had become really computery and digital. We had to get them to think like "do it like you did in 1974," and they were like wow. A lot of the musicians came up to us afterward and were like "you guys, I want to thank you because I had gotten so used to playing all this Babyface and stuff that had no feeling to it and I had forgot how to play almost and you guys reminded us what it was all about."

ThaFormula.Com - Wow.

Adriana Evans - It was like a family thing when we recorded that record. I remember the board was going out, it would get hot and we'd have stop and wait for the mixing board to get cool! We were in this little studio in Los Feliz (California) and it was 102 degrees in that studio. Just hittin' it and countin' it. Me signing live with the band, laying it down as they were playing it.

ThaFormula.Com - Wow, it just sounds far fetched by today's standards to do it that way…

Adriana Evans - Yeah, it is. It's sad.

ThaFormula.Com - I remember reading an interview where you had said you had like 9 albums tucked away…

Adriana Evans - Well, I have a lot of music. I don't know if it's 9 albums, but it's a lot of music. It's just a matter of sifting through it all and putting some things together. Some of it just doesn't end up anywhere, it just for you know, my own personal gratification you know.

ThaFormula.Com - How did the first album end up doing?

Adriana Evans - We might have ended up doing 138,000, which is by major standards, not very well.

ThaFormula.Com - Yeah, but I really don't think I saw one ad or poster for the album. I had to go out and find the 12"'s for the album because no one was carrying it. The label put out promos though, but it was getting into the right hands because I was literally tripping over them in the used stores. Maybe the DJ's just weren't ready to play it and break something new, I don't get it…

Adriana Evans - A lot of it is timing too, but it was a combination of timing and record company that had no intention of pushing it. It was really funny to leave the country because when I left to Japan touring for that album it was a completely different response. People really knew over there. Even in like London and Holland it was a really big deal. I think that a lot of time outside of the states, people don't look for the machine to tell them what they like, and they'll go out of their way to find it. But if you don't have the promotion behind you people won't even know you're there and I was getting none of that. Over here (in the states) it was pretty much dead in the water. But once I left the states it was like "oh wow, this is the way it should be in the states! That would be nice."

ThaFormula.Com - Did you get to do any touring out here (in the states) in support of the album?

Adriana Evans - Well, I got to do a lot of shows over seas. I did some shows in the south east a lot like Atlanta (which was cool), D.C. (which was very cool too), New York was ok, although I got no radio there. I got pretty much no radio except for like in Atlanta, D.C., and the Carolina's. but outside of that, like in California, I got no radio love, none.

ThaFormula.Com - That must hurt, to put in all that work and see it go down like that…

Adriana Evans - It was pretty painful and it took a minute to get over that. Because you put you're heart and you're soul into it. It's not like you're detached from it, it's not like somebody came in and wrote the songs and then I just sang them…

ThaFormula.Com - Yeah, you co-produced that album alongside Dred right?

Adriana Evans - Yeah, and wrote all the lyrics with Dred. It was really like a labor of love and it was like someone not liking you're child or someone saying "yeah you're child's ok." (laughs) It was really just like a personal rejection. But then you have to look at it like this, it's not so much that you were rejected, but that you just weren't promoted. Again with the majors, they don't really do it like that, very rarely do they do that. For them to promote an artist like me, there's really nothing in it for them. Because the way that they do it is that they get songwriters that are down with their publishing wing so they are making all the money and that's how they do it. And these people sing the songs written by people who own their publishing and the artists has absolutely no voice, no control nothing.

ThaFormula.Com - And no money, no royalties.

Adriana Evans - Right! I knew coming into this that you're money is in you're publishing. The record labels are like "why should I promote her, she's not using any of our writers," that's just not the way they do it. That's pretty much where it's at is in publishing, because they (the labels) don't know what they're doing, they are losing so much money. They're pretty much going out of business.

ThaFormula.Com - Yeah, and they aren't willing to take chances like in the early 90's, they are sticking by the stuff that's so generic…

Adriana Evans - And they have wasted so much money in the past and now they're broke. There is only about six artists out there that are getting any love, people that are actually selling records. People see the videos and the hype and those record companies are really just about smoke and mirrors. These people that you see in the videos, they aren't even selling records. It's just the hope of the record companies to shove them down you're throat to get you to go and buy records that aren't selling because now people are just downloading.

ThaFormula.Com - I don't even think the lost sales is what is scaring the industry, I think at this point they are starting to worry that this (Independent music) is opening people's eyes to something different.

Adriana Evans - Because they (the fans) that with those artists, they'll get the truth, they're gonna get something that they know that the artists really believes in. It's an exciting time in the music scene in terms of the independent scene, that's exciting to me and I support people that I know that are putting it out themselves like "good for you!"

ThaFormula.Com - How did you and Dred meet ad decide to collaborate with each other?

Adriana Evans - We met in the underground Hip-Hop scene kind of through other people, like the friend of a friend and we just clicked. We liked all the same music and I would go to a show like Das Efx or whatever and I'd be like "hey, there's that cat again," so we just started becoming friends and collaborating. He was working on a record and it just kind of happened.

ThaFormula.Com - His album "Breakin' Combs" was the first album you appeared on right?

Adriana Evans - Yeah.

ThaFormula.Com - I wanted to ask about some the remixes and soundtracks you appeared on…there was a remix of one you single "Seeing Is Believing" that was remixed by the Roots, did you record that with them…

Adriana Evans - No, they got sent the vocals. I've never met them.

ThaFormula.Com - You had a song called "Lucky Dayz" on the Hoodlum Soundtrack that was kind of rooted in the period of the movie and it sounded like it was a fun song for you to record…

Adriana Evans - Yeah, it was really fun. It was a real opportunity for me to do an homage of sorts to the music that like my mom grew up listening to and really getting a chance to explore and show that side of myself. Growing up I had sung a lot of standards because of my mom. I knew all the Billie Holiday songs and Duke Ellington classics, it was just cool to write something like that and explore that side that you don't get to in popular music. It was perfect. We got the musicians, I sang it in the room with them, it was just so cool.

ThaFormula.Com - You also did a track on the "Ride" soundtrack with Phife of A tribe Called Quest," was that a label pairing or something you wanted to do?

Adriana Evans - Yeah, it was on Jive. I never met Phife but I worked with Ali who produced the song. We had to write it in like one day because I was going to Japan the next day. It was cool, I wish it had been mixed better (laughs) Because I'm very hands on and I like to be there when they're mixing it. Some of the background vocals weren't there. So I went to Japan and the next time I heard it was when it was pressed up.

ThaFormula.Com - There was another track that kind of came out of nowhere that you did with DJ Hasebe from Japan….

Adriana Evans - Oh yeah! I've only heard it once, I never heard the finished product of it. I think before I even went to Japan he had contacted my people and I flew to New York to record it because he was there. He was very cool, the Japanese really love and respect music.

ThaFormula.Com - Now, it's been like 7 years since the album came out, what clicked and made you say to yourself "It's time for me get back in the game and drop something new…"

Adriana Evans - It happened kind of organically. It's two reasons. I just got tired of meeting with record company executives and hearing them say "this is what we need to change about your music, this is what we need." It's like door three, when you keep going back to a door, and you know nothing's on the other side but you keep going there. For a moment I couldn't believe that I couldn't get a deal and do it the way I wanted to do it. But that's door three, that's just what they do.

ThaFormula.Com - Right, beside they can't make any money off of you…

Adriana Evans - Even if they could make money off of me, they don't want to see others go down that path of not being controlled. I just got to the point where I was like "what am I going to do?" I had these songs that I had done over the years and actually Paul Stewart had approached me and said "you know we need to do something, we need to do this independently." Dred and I had been talking about that but we didn't really get off our butts and do it until Paul confirmed what we had already known what we should do. So we put all three of our heads together and just kind of made it happen. Once you get past that point where you're like "oh I'm not gonna do that on a label or get a deal," you just can't look to them like they control you're destiny, because they just don't. The whole machine of the majors…they're evil (laughs) they're really like the devil, it's so funny! (laughs) I remember heating Q-Tips line "…record company people are shady, you better watch you're back I think they smoke crack," and back then I wasn't a signed artist, I was just groovin' off of it, but after you get into it you really are like "they are evil, it's really like getting into business with the devil."

ThaFormula.Com - So you've been meeting with labels throughout you're break since the last album?

Adriana Evans - Oh yeah, it's just the same thing. It's like "oh yeah, this is cool but it's not really the sound we want," they just want to dismantle you. They pull apart everything that you do that makes you you, and they rebuild you to the point when people see you they don't even recognize you or your sound. The reason why people liked you in the first place, they completely destroy. For me, that's not something that I can entertain. I am at a place where I know what I know and I know who I am and I stand in that and I'm comfortable with that and I don't need anyone to tell me who I need to be, especially when I know they don't know who I am in the first place. The majors were definitely a big wakeup call for me, like "wow, they are not going to let me do what I do, they really don't want me to do what I do, they don't want me to have my own voice."

ThaFormula.Com - Tell me about the new album and did you work with Dred Scott again…

Adriana Evans - Yeah, we did it al together. I wouldn't say it's a concept record, well the concept is just music. It's about all types of music that I love woven together like a story. The Soul thing is definitely represented in songs like "I Hear Music," and "Remember Love," and "Cold as Ice."

ThaFormula.Com - Yeah, "Remember Love" sounds like something right off you're first album, it just has a lot of feeling in it…

Adriana Evans - Thank you, yeah that one had kind of like a Brazilian theme…

ThaFormula.Com - Yeah, the little breaks with the samba…

Adriana Evans - Yeah, I just incorporated a lot of the rock stuff I love growing up. Kind of like the Blue-Eyed Soul I loved growing up like Hall and Oates, and Carole King. That's definitely a part of my growing up coming from San Francisco and being raised in like the Haight-Ashbury. I was not really allowed to explore that on the first record. I love Minnie Ripperton and that was kind of a part of her thing with the Rotary Connection and a lot of those funky groups from the 70's like Rufus & Chaka Khan so it's kind of a blending. It rock, but it's like Soul-Rock. That came from listening to a lot of break beat records. A lot of those break beat records are rock records but they are like funky-Rock. So we were like "we should explore some of that." So in songs like "What it Is" there's a lot of breaks and stuff in it, and even though we use live instruments it's kind of like breaks from Rock records.

ThaFormula.Com - Your mom (Jazz artist Mary Stallings) is recording a cover of you're single "Remember Love" right?

Adriana Evans - She's actually in New York recording it this weekend.

ThaFormula.Com - Have you been there for any of it, or is she kind of running with it and letting you see the finished product?

Adriana Evans - I actually sent her the chart for the song and a tape of me singing it in kind of a Jazz style and she gave it to someone else who is writing out the charts for it, so I am really excited to hear it.

ThaFormula.Com - Is this the first time you have collaborated on something?

Adriana Evans - Yeah, this is the first time I have ever written something for her.

ThaFormula.Com - How does that feel?

Adriana Evans - It feels great, it's awesome to be able to do that. She approached me on it, she always said to me "I want you to write something for me, I really do." This song ("Remember Love") we had done in a sort of Brazilian style and Dred and I were talking one day and we're like "this would sound great in Jazz," and he started playing it that way and I sang over it thought to myself "this would be cool for my mom," and she loved it.

ThaFormula.Com - We talked about touring earlier, now that you're independent, how big is touring going to play into the promotion of this album for you?

Adriana Evans - It's gonna be key, I'm gonna be touring a lot. I'm actually doing three dates on the Black Lily tour at the end of May in Philly, D.C. and New York. Hopefully I'll also get overseas again too, but touring will be key especially with something grassroots like this.

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