Hello Nicolette-
Thanks for your time doing this interview. Please feel free to answer at length, to be brief, or to ignore any of the following.

DM: You were born in Scotland to Nigerian parents; that seems like an interesting  cultural mix, can you tell me a bit about your parents, and where, and how you grew up?
NICOLETTE: my parents came over to this country to study when they were very young, and they got married here. (my mother came over to do study nursing, but hated it so she studied english and eventually  psychology. my father studied psychology). hence we were all born in scotland. we grew up in a very musical environment even though neither of my parents were professional musicians. that's because my father, a gifted musician by nature, made us learn to play and perform music of all sorts. there was an incredible variety of music in our household when we were growing up, and we were listening to it and learning how to perform it all the time. my father would record us singing and performing, and accompany us on guitar and piano, or organ. he made us take piano lessons at a very early age. music was always playing in our house, so music became our natural environment as well as something we did. my mother also had a very diverse variety of records, so from both parents our exposure to all sorts of music was constant. in addition to this, because of my natural tendencies and my father's insistence that we be highly educated, i learnt to read at the age of three and a year later started to compose poetry and such. my father would read poetry and other literature to us from a very early age, and my mother would tell us stories from the literature she was learning such as kafka and somerset maugham, and later about the psychology she was studying. and there was a huge library of books at home, which included art books, literature from all over the world, history books, psychology, philosophy, theology, and so on and so on, so my imagination was fired by this, and i would read anything and everything voraciously. and i really got into visual art from this too. after school, we always had to do extra homework before we could go off to play. my father bought extra-curricular books for us to learn more stuff than we were learning at school. also, because he was a psychologist, he would do do tests on us quite a lot as part of his research or whatever. i found this quite fun and this psychology background made me very curious about what makes people tick, and i still am today.

DM: How did you begin creating your own music?
NICOLETTE: i began creative writing almost as soon as i could write, i wrote stories, poems, novels, operatas, anything. it was taken for granted that we should do these things because we grew up in a creative environment and we were all very artistic in everything we did, but very naturally and normally. so, while we played with our toys we would compose songs which would become a part of our playing. and that's how i began creating music.

DM: Tell me about how your “Now Is Early” album and how it came together? And how you feel about it now?
NICOLETTE: well as soon as shut up and dance label took me on, we just co-wrote a a bunch of singles one after the other, then suddenly it became time to do an album, so i had to write a whole bunch of other songs. but thematically they were all coming from this place of awakening to myself, and realising that life is a dream, and that truth lies in seeing intently. i think the album is truly lovely.

DM: Who are some of your inspirations?
NICOLETTE: i really don't know! because i've soaked up so much music i think i've been influenced by everything i've ever heard. i must give an honourable mention to public enemy, because the instant i heard their music something in me just went crazy, and it still happens every time i hear anything from "it takes a nation of millions...". oh! something in me just goes wild; their music is so beautiful i can hardly stand it. i always thought that if my music could have even a 100th of that sort of effect on anyone, i would be so very happy.

DM: What was it like working with Massive Attack?
NICOLETTE: it was a very safe secure situation. they were very kind to me. they had a very leisurely  pace of working  which was strange to me at the time; it almost didn't feel like working!

DM: Your second album was “Let No One Live Rent Free In Your Head” can you tell me a bit about it?
NICOLETTE: yes; after i finished working with massive attack i got signed to talkin loud and the album was released through them. in this album i think i wanted to assert my true identity quite strongly; it was an expression of the casting off of illusion. it was very powerful...making it was a really fun experience.

DM: There was a nine year gap between solo records for you; what were you doing during this time?
NICOLETTE: well from after my album was released i toured quite a lot, then my dk kicks compilation was released so i started djing a lot from that and still do today. then my first album was re-released by k7. then after i left talkin loud in 1998 i set up my own label of course, that ate into my time a lot i found. then i spent almost a year recording a 4-song ep called "just in time." and in 1999 i started making my new album. then i finished it in 4 years later in  2003, mainly because i was trying to run the label at the same time, partly because i had to learn to use the equipment first. i released an earlier version of a single from the album, "wholesome", in 2001. so actually i was really busy but not in profile. after i finished the album in 2003 i co-incidentally had a very busy 6 months of djing and travelling all over. i got back at xmas and went into talks with this record label who wanted to release my album. after months of negotiating, the whole thing fell through which was really great cos i got back on track and the album got released eventually through other means. 

DM: Could you tell me a bit about the Early Records label?
NICOLETTE: yes. i'd been signed to a major label before that though somewhat indirectly and i found it very corporate. well the good thing about corporate is that it's very efficient and far-reaching, and the uncomfortable thing about corporate for me was it lacks a human touch, it's like this big machine. so i set up my label to achieve the same sort of thing efficiency-wise, but with a warmer flavour. early records was set up for pop artists like me who want to do whatever the fuck they want musically and have it out there for people to hear. and a place where artists of all kinds (photographers, video-makers, designers, dancers, actors, whatever) can get together and be inspired by each other and exchange ideas and services if they want.

DM:I love your new album “Life Loves Us”, it’s so bright, inventive and deep. Can you tell me a bit about it’s creation?
NICOLETTE: i started off with a bunch of vocal hooks that had been floating around in my head. they were like little mantras, saying something deeper than i realised at the time. i was really reluctant to start it because i knew somehow there would be a huge amount of work involved because it would like a journey of discovery of my new self that was unfolding at the time, and trying to be concrete about that sort of thing you know, well, you need patience. i did it all in my studio at home. it was fun, just playing around with all these new noises and creating my own noises. i felt like a baby with lots of bright colourful new toys. i really just let go and didn't try to influence what i consciously thought the songs should sound like. so i think that made the album really ring true.

DM:Do you have a ghost story?
NICOLETTE: yep, lots! here's one  - a few years ago, me and my family were on holiday in st. lucia. the second week, we stayed in this old mansion in the hills. most nights i saw these two ghosts, a guy in in old colonial attire, and a woman in a long white dress, just walking along in the grounds. they weren't interested in us at all. i knew they were ghosts because they were kind of shadowy, like projections. but three-dimensional, exactly like us. my sister corroborated this later on; she'd seen them too, separately from me.

DM:  What part if any do dreams and/or dreaming play in your art or your life?
NICOLETTE: i often dream about stuff that's going to happen, so i pay attention to my dreams. they are often lucid anyway, so i'm usually aware i'm dreaming and how it's a fuller extension of our "waking" life. and songs sometimes come to me in dreams. i've always believed that dreaming is when we are really wide awake.

DM: How do feel about the “Billie Holliday on acid” line regarding you?
NICOLETTE: it's really nice to be compared to billie holiday in any small way; she was beyond amazing.  

DM: Have you thought of your music as a psychedelic experience?
NICOLETTE: well it's certainly a trip to make! so i hope it's the same to listen to.

DM: Do you believe in magic?
NICOLETTE: yes, absolutely.

DM: A few favorite films?
NICOLETTE: so many favourites!!!! tarkovsky's "andrei rublev", truffaut's "400 blows", bergman's "fanny and alexander", anything by scorsese but especially "mean streets", hitchcock's "vertigo", 'rear window", and "nostalgia", anything by wong kar wai but especially "chungking express", mahomat saleh's "abouna", bunuel's "discreet charm of the bourgeoisie", anspach's "made in the usa”, woo's "the killer", anything by kitano but especially "dolls”, "brother", and "zatoichi", anything by chang cheh but especially "five venoms", anything by kurasawa but especially "rashomon' and "ran". satyajit ray's "apu" trilogy, michael moore's "farenheit 411", park chan-wuk's "old boy", mehra's "aks", yash chopra's "deewar', leo mccarey's "the awful truth", and of course popular modern classics like the matrix, lord of the rings, crouching tiger, and the godfather 1+2. and that isn't all but i'll stop here! oh sorry i forgot to mention the "othello" that laurence olivier's in; but i can't remember the director.

DM: Tell me a bit about the linking sections of “Life Loves Us”?
NICOLETTE: they're to bring unity to the whole album, to establish beyond a doubt that this river of sound corresponds to the river of life.

DM: Thanks again. All the best from dreamland.
NICOLETTE: thanks :)

George Parsons

Dream Magazine