Floetry

How are you?

Natalie: I asked you first! You have to answer me!

I’m fine – had loads of running around to do today, but I’ve settled down now.

Natalie:  Run around? Let me tell you about running around. Let me tell you about our last  two and a half weeks. Twice in the last two and a half weeks we’ve been in three cities in one day. We wake up in one city, do radio, then you’re either in a car or on a plane, you go to a next city and you do radio, and then you’re in another car or plane, fall asleep, wake up and you’re in a next… I swear – it’s nuts!

It must be fun though!

Natalie:  Oh it’s really fun. It’s crazy, but it’s fun.

(Marsha enters the room, having previously been on another phone call, so Natalie brings her up to speed)

Natalie:  Three cities in one day is like three different climates all together. It’s like 80 degrees in Atlanta right now, and in Savannah it’s summer out there, and then in Pittsburgh it’s like -7.

Do you get sick?

Natalie:  Nah, we protect ourselves. Multi-vitamins are very necessary. We’re healthy!!

So are you busy getting ready for your December shows in London?

Natalie:  You know what? There have been a couple more Christmas days added to the year for us. Like today is Christmas Eve, because our album comes out tomorrow in the U.S.  Then there’s a next Christmas Eve for when the album comes out in London. Then there’s a next Christmas Eve for when the album comes out in Japan.  In between all that time we’ve got shows. London is just gonna be getting a bolt of energy – we’re gonna be coming round the corner like… wooooooooh! It’s gonna be on – I lie?

Marsha:  Yeah, I’m so excited, I mean, it doesn’t make any sense.

Natalie:  I’m so hyped, I could start bouncing on the spot right now!

Marsha:  I couldn’t sleep. As much work as we’ve done this week, I went to bed about three or four in the morning, cos I couldn’t sleep.

Natalie:  I don’t know what London would do with this amount of joy being thwarted at them. I don’t know!

Will you be doing any type of UK tour? You’re usually just doing small shows like Jazz Café.

Natalie:  You know what I was gonna say – we’ve been on the grind you know, and that’s how it was from the beginning till this far. But we did Shepherd’s Bush in September, and we’re gonna be doing more of a European tour. We’re gonna do an international tour. America is a big ‘oman ya know?!

Marsha:  Really those Jazz Café shows are the only time we get to go home. It’s really about coming home for Christmas, and it makes it worth our while to add a couple shows.

Natalie:  We forced those shows. Like the first one – we forced so hard, and they was so surprised when they sold out the way they did. So big up to London, cos if London hadn’t have represented on the tickets, then it would have been harder to do. It’s only because of that, that it started to get worked in.

What have your album sales been like here, compared to the US?

Natalie:  I don’t know, I didn’t look. But you can’t compare English album sales to American sales. We’ve sold 1.2 million albums in America – that’s the Live album and the first album. The first album sold just over a million, and the other one sold a couple hundred thousand. So you can’t compare those numbers.

Back in the day when you used to do shows like Black Pepper, was this your aim, to get to where you are now?

Natalie:  No, back in the day our aim was to do Black Pepper! We used to buy outfits, man! People didn’t know we used to go to Mark One before Black Pepper! And Morgan, man – people didn’t know! What do you know about Primark?! Getting our nails done before Black Pepper! Seriously man. That’s what’s so funny, because when we came over here we took everything just as seriously as we took everything back home. When we came to Black Lilies, all we did was what we did at Black Pepper. Now on the stage, is exactly what we did at Black Pepper.

So Marsha, while Natalie was performing poetry as part of in 3 plus 1, what were you doing?

Marsha:  I was playing basketball. I was working in Camden library.

Natalie:  She put a single out.

Marsha:  Well this was before that. In 1998 I had a single deal with Warner Bros – WEA. They said the material sounds really good, we’ll give you a single deal – not a recording deal. We’ll put the one tune we like out… I did it all by myself, on some independent thing, and it went to number one on Choice FM. I had no recording deal, no publishing deals, and that gained record company interest, but they didn’t do anything with it.

Natalie:  They don’t know, Marsh!

Marsha:  It was just not the right time. I recorded I even recorded Michael Jackson’s ‘Butterflies’ in 1997, but they weren’t feeling it.

Natalie (singing):  They don’t know’ bout Marsha… they don’t know ‘bout Floetry… they don’t know Marsha… but I don’t spend it I let it grow…

Marsha:  Shut up… Yeah, so that’s what I was doing. I was on my grind.

How come you decided to do something as Floetry, instead of maybe Marsha  joining 3 plus 1 or something?

Natalie:  Thank God we didn’t eh! You’re about to ask us about it going any other way but how it went. Right now I’m cool with the decision. I don’t wanna know about anything else.

Marsha:  It’s like a parallel universe and I don’t wanna judge for what would have happened, because it didn’t.

Natalie:  Listen man, we’ve got a song on Earth, Wind & Fire’s album – I don’t mind how it went right now.

Do you think that if you’d stayed here it would have been like that though?

Natalie:  You know what, I understand why you’re asking that, but there would also be another question which is ‘What do you think of the English music industry?’ It’s done. We came over here 5 years ago, and we didn’t even come over cos we were trying to get through London and it didn’t work. Like I say, when we did Black Pepper, that was the stage for us. There’s nothing more important than an artist finding their stage. So where that is in the ladder – it’s served it’s purpose. Then after a while we needed another stage and we were going through all the stages is London, and then we needed to take to a different stage, because we thought, you know what, these are our people, and we wondered how this would do somewhere else as well. It translates. It’s a universal language. Then we went to Atlanta and it worked there. And it worked in Philly. There is no difference between going to the Jazz Café and seeing us, and going to DC and seeing us, or Atlanta and seeing us, or Zurich and seeing us, or Amsterdam, because it’s all gonna be Floetry live.

Are you able to keep up with the UK underground scene?

Natalie:  Kinda-ish. We can’t even keep up with the American one.

Marsha:  It’s hard to keep up.

Natalie:  We’re working all the time, but you hear what’s around you being played. My husband’s always hooking me up with what’s going on and what’s new. And we’ve got nieces and brothers and cousins, and anything that’s big you’ll know about. But it’s only when we come home that we get to see what’s going on.

So who are you feeling that you know of?

Natalie:  I love Dizzee man! I love Dizzee. That tune ‘Respect Me’… I love Dizzee perceptually. I love what brought men. I love him so much because he’s riding how nasty we can be to each other in London, man. He’s got his hand up and it’s not knocking him off his square. There’s nothing worse than doing something for or with your people, then your people turn their back on you because you get successful. That can break your heart worse than any relationship.

You’ve got a couple of songs with producer of the moment, Scott Storch. Who else would you like to work with?

Natalie: I know that he’s one producer of the moment, but that’s not all we deal with, you know. We’ve worked with Michael Jackson, jammed with Prince… we really deal with the jedis out here. It’s been great working with Scott, and with Raphael Saadiq, and it’s been great working with Marsha. Right now it’s just about how ever it comes.

I think it was Mathew Knowles who said that he didn’t understand why people are so concerned with breaking the US, because we have enough of an industry here in England. Do you agree?

Natalie:  We’ve got enough of an industry to start something off. Remember, we had Lovers Rock, so it’s not like we never had it before. It’s not like we never had Omar and Soul II Soul or Loose Ends. But you know we’re so torn up right now, we don’t know how to support each other. we just don’t know how to big up someone who’s from where we’re from, always somewhere else. It’s mad! Common and Mos Def are our peers out here. We’ve sold like them out here. We got six Grammy nods. We’re out here really working hard. Marsha wrote Michael Jackson’s last hit – it’s on his Greatest Hits album along with Billie Jean – ‘Butterflies.’ We just made the same moves our grandparents made from Jamaica. We did a two-woman Windrush.

Have you ever had any pressure to change your appearance? Because I must say, you two look really good right now.

Natalie:  None, other than the pressure I give myself – ‘change your shit.’

What advice would you give to those trying to get where you are?

Natalie:  Don’t try and get to where we are. We’re out here trying to be second, don’t try to get to where we are. Get to where you need to be.

How is married life treating you, Natalie?

Natalie:  (sighs) It’s the best thing I could have ever done right now. Helps me to stay focused. It’s great. But you know what though? My married life… that word is so over-used. My married life is not what it sounds like, you know. It’s something more amazing than most people could imagine. Marriage is supposed to be till the end.

Finally, what can we expect when we come to see you perform in December?

Marsha:  Expect us to be…there. We will be there. There giving our all.

Natalie:  We should ask people what they are expecting.  I’m expecting my family to be there, having my back. And I’m really really looking forward to being home.

Floetry will be performing at the Jazz Café from December 14-18.

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