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By Patrick Harney<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cBringing beauty from ashes\u201d is the mission statement from Juno award nominee Ladan Hussein a.k.a. Cold Specks in regard to her upcoming album <\/span>Fool\u2019s Paradise<\/span><\/i>. A Toronto artist in the most technical forms of the word Hussein has always seen the suburb of Etobicoke as her true home. \u201cThe most interesting stuff is found in the suburbs outside the downtown. Kids get lots of Youtube views but no radio play.\u201d Says Hussein, showing her slight bitterness toward the Toronto music scene, \u201cI had to leave Toronto, no one gave a damn after I tried, it wasn’t until I moved to the UK and got press coverage there did I get any attention. It\u2019s a classic story, you have to leave the city to become successful, which is kinda sad.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n After getting her start in the UK music scene Hussein felt she had to leave after seeing the gentrification rip the area apart. \u201cIt\u2019s very sad. I watched rent prices skyrocket, I watched low income areas become infested by hipsters and I watched cute working class cafes turn into chic wildly expensive coffee shops,\u201d comments Hussein, reflecting on the very place she left. She commented on the most interesting work in the UK being their working class grime scene. \u201cThe best art comes from people that aren’t really trying to be something that they are not,\u201d similarly to the suburbs of Toronto \u201cit\u2019s exciting that it\u2019s coming from the hoods.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Coming home to newly found fan fare, Hussein has had the opportunity to work with and learn from many different artists. \u201cI have been able to work with a number of artists. For me, recently working with Moby has helped shaped some of the songs, namely \u201cSolid”.<\/span><\/p>\n On the record after I had a session with them, I just became obsessed with Shara Nelson\u2019s voice and the way that she projected but still had so much control.\u201d Stating some of her favourite memories to be working with others she speaks of how, \u201c[Working] with Ambrose Akinmusire was a wonderful session lasting an hour and he didn’t tell me what the subject matter of the song was. Afterwards he asked me what to call it and I said \u201cceaseless inexhaustible child\u201d and he told me that it was about a 16 year old child prostitute who murdered a [man], it was really quite special that we could just kind of hit something really wonderful in that hour.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Despite having great experiences working with other artists Cold Specks has been first and foremost a solo project. \u201cI could never be in a band. In school next to works well with others it would say: needs improvement.\u201d Working with only a small team on her upcoming record \u201cI did work with a couple of people, Tim Anderson (producer) and Josh MacIntire (additional production) also La Timba (additional production), a kid from Toronto who we will be touring with; it was just the four of us.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Constantly having to move schools since her youth, Hussein has always viewed playing music as a form of escape and <\/span>Fool\u2019s Paradise<\/span><\/i> will be carried by that idea of \u201cdetaching during the apocalypse as a means of self care.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n On <\/span>Fool\u2019s Paradise<\/span><\/i> Hussein takes a departure from her earlier work attempting to shed the \u201cDoom Soul\u201d moniker she had gained when she started in 2011. Hussein never truly understood the \u201cDoom Soul\u201d title understanding there was both a dark side and a light side to her work but seeing it more as a label that doesn\u2019t fit. \u201cI used to be quite a pretentious lyricist but on this new record I don’t think that is the case any more. On Wildcard (one of the singles) the chorus is \u201cI\u2019ll be there for you\u201d I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s just one of those things that fits.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n One of Hussein\u2019s greatest influences for <\/span>Fool\u2019s Paradise<\/span><\/i> was a series of VHS tapes of her father performing in Somalia during the 1970\u2019s. After gaining independence from Britain in the 60s, Somali began to swarm with art and culture and by the time the 70s rolled around Somalia had a deep rich art and music scene which people began to flock to. Hussein became obsessed with analyzing the VHS tapes, causing them to have a huge impact on the lyrical and sonic quality of her upcoming album referring to them as her \u201cnumber one influence\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n This isn’t a recent thing for her though she has always been connected with her heritage saying \u201cIt\u2019s always been something that has affected me, my songwriting has only recently reflected it because I have become obsessed with these VHS recordings but it\u2019s always been a part of me, it\u2019s just who I am.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Fool\u2019s Paradise<\/span><\/i> enters a world in a state of turmoil with bans to muslim immigrants and the rise of the extreme right artists are moving to politicize their music, and Cold Specks is not left behind. Hussein explains \u201cas a black muslim woman who is a songwriter I just wouldn’t know how not to reflect on the times.\u201d With allusions to Somali mythology Hussein is finding power in the characters of her past. In a time that she refers to as the \u201capocalypse\u201d she believes that self care is what is most important.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Patrick Harney \u201cBringing beauty from ashes\u201d is the mission statement from Juno award nominee Ladan Hussein a.k.a. Cold Specks in regard to her upcoming album Fool\u2019s Paradise. A Toronto artist in the most technical forms of the word Hussein has always seen the suburb of Etobicoke as her true home. \u201cThe most interesting stuff […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[202,1163,1164,1029],"class_list":["post-10866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","tag-cold-specks","tag-juno","tag-moby","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10868,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions\/10868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}