Soul Searching
“My music has always been experimental and kind of left-of-centre. I’ve always been genre-bending and flirting with electronic music – for the last nine years."
Bilal Oliver's A Love Surreal, is his most high-profile album in years and one that will entice both fans of progressive R&B and vintage soul. Best of all, the cult favourite is bound for Australia. “It's gonna be a full band,” the laidback Oliver says of May's shows. “We're gonna be playing a lot of the stuff from the album. When we play, the way the music is composed, every show we do is kinda different, so I can't really say how the shows are gonna be. I just know it's gonna be... electrifying!”
The Philadelphian has a dual heritage, his father Muslim and mother Christian – and his love of music was fostered in Mom's church. “Growing up that way made me open-minded about religion and just society in general – and how we're all related,” he says. Oliver, who attended a performing arts school, left Philly for New York to study jazz and so, once signed to Interscope, he wasn't associated with the boho music scene that gave rise to The Roots and Jill Scott. But he did experience the famous “jam sessions” on trips home. In fact, others checked them out. The singer/producer recalls spotting John Legend and Alicia Keys. “It was just a real surging of hip hang-outs where musicians could get together and convene.” Oliver's 2001 debut, 1st Born Second, with production from J Dilla and the unlikely Dr Dre, was a success, spawning his break-out hit, Soul Sista. Yet his career would be defined by industry struggle. Interscope was unsure about Oliver's freeform follow-up, Love For Sale, which was then digitally pirated, never coming out legitimately. Still, Oliver gigged solidly behind the acclaimed Love... “It was a curse, but it turned out to be a gift as well.” Ironically, he pioneered the very promotional strategy later used by Frank Ocean and The Weeknd, who'd give away albums for free online. Nevertheless, Oliver faced a contractual quagmire with his label. He is now philosophical. “I wouldn't change anything creatively. You learn from the situations that you go through in life. Everybody has their trials. Looking back on it, I have learned to really pay attention to the business side of what's going on.” Indeed, ahead of A Love Surreal, he assembled the mixtape The Retrospection with the help of Philly DJ Vikter Duplaix.
In 2010, instead of a flossy comeback, Oliver presented the experimental (and socially-conscious) Airtight's Revenge on the Californian IDM label Plug Research – the song Little One, dealing with his son's autism, received a Grammy nod. He'd become acquainted with Plug Research through collaborating with Sa-Ra's Shafiq Husayn. Oliver also befriended Flying Lotus.
As Oliver's third “official” album, A Love Surreal and its theme of the cycles of love, retains the electronic production but is more traditional. “My music has always been experimental and kind of left-of-centre. I've always been genre-bending and flirting with electronic music – for the last nine years,” Oliver says. The lead single, Back To Love, is '90s hip hop soul. The delicate ballad Slipping Away is the finest song Prince never wrote (it even has the guitar). Winning Hand evokes Oliver favourites Steely Dan. The chief guest is jazz pianist – and college friend – Robert Glasper. A Love Surreal's title is a reference to Salvador Dalí's art movement, Oliver viewing his works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “I guess that whole concept just meshed in – I started to really think about music like a painter would.” Oliver himself paints. “I wouldn't consider myself a visual artist, though!”
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Between albums, Oliver has made countless cameos, including on Jay-Z's American Gangster. He likewise duetted with fellow renegade Solange Knowles on Cosmic Journey off Sol-Angel And The Hadley St Dreams. “I love Solange,” Oliver enthuses. Today Knowles DJs on the side. Bilal can't see himself following. “If I ever DJ, everything would sound weird as hell – like nobody would be dancing and everybody would be confused,” he laughs. “It'd be some strange stuff. I will have to DJ at a lounge.”
Bilal will be playing the following dates:
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