The Tall Racks artist shares how she got her start
Written by Themba Kriger
10 min readPublished on
Cape Town-born, Johannesburg-based singer Rowlene first made her mark in 2016 with the release of her first single ‘Imposter’. A collaboration with Nasty C on ‘Phases’ thereafter as well the release of her second single, ‘Dance with You’, would eventually lead her to pursue music full time. As the first person to sign with Nasty C’s Tall Racks Records, she is currently working on her album and took some time to chat with us while she was at Red Bull Studios Cape Town to discuss her journey into music, find herself and what led to her signing with Tall Racks Records.
What kind of music was playing at home growing up?
A lot of 90s music and 80s music. My grandparents used to listen to Etta James, so there was blues and jazz. So a lot of my influence comes from jazz and R'n'B music. My influence comes from old music. I grew up listening to Toni Braxton, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, trying to imitate them. But I never thought it was something that I would pursue and passionately would want to be doing.
When did you discover your voice?
I’d always been singing but the whole discovery thing happened when I was messing around in studio a couple of years ago with a friend of mine. He was doing music and submitting demos to artists abroad and he wanted someone to do the demos for him. A high school friend who had always heard me sing in class we went to the producer's house the one evening because her sister was friends with this guy and she forced me to sing to him and ever since then I’ve been hooked. And that’s like 7 years ago. And I’ve been singing in studio. Just recording. Not even singing but I’ve been doing a lot of studio work. I didn’t think this is something I would actually be doing. It’s something that has always made me happy and something that I realised really late, why am I doing something else when I could do this is something I could do 100%.
If I didn’t get that push I wasn’t going to do it. Even now, getting signed, that was because people believed in what I was doing and what I could do. So they trusted the fact that I wasn’t pushing myself hard enough at the time or I wasn’t trusting myself. I was one foot in, one foot out and I don’t think that’s how anyone should live their lives. That’s what I was doing until I found out that people actually wanted me to pursue this and I want to pursue this.
Your first single was ‘Imposter’. What led to the release of that?
Crazy story! Exactly the whole, me meeting with the producer guy, this was a demo he tried to send to Rihanna’s team. A couple of years back when she was just dropped ‘Diamonds’ and all those other edgy tracks. I had to do the demo for this song and another track. I had the song for so long until I decided, can I buy this track, because I really wanted the song and I wanted to drop the song. So I did, I took the song, I bought the separates, I took the plunge, I put it on Soundcloud and people were like, ‘oh, you actually sing!’ I was very skeptical for a very long time. I had people on my team who said I need to do this. My first interview was on one of the SABC stations and at the time I didn’t know anything about SAMRO and registering my stuff so I was very ignorant and naive to so many things back then, it made me so happy I didn’t care about the logistical things.
The song resonated with me. When we worked on the track it was a really hot day. I’ll never forget that when we wrote it, myself and two other people, we were listening to Tamia’s ‘Stranger In My House’ and it’s so much slower and the contrast was stark, we were singing along to it and then the beat came on and I said let’s do a similar concept. At the time I kind went through something like that. It wasn’t even about a guy, that’s the best part. It’s easy to write about something and people relate to it through a different story. That’s the best part about music. Even now, I try to keep things as ambiguous as possible so that when you do listen to it you’re like that’s dope she’s singing about her mother or her dog. Something as simple as that.
So yeah, the song dropped on the radio and it was my first single that got airplay. They did so much for me at the time. They promoted it and made a banger. That’s how I know my people are actually looking out for me and actually want me to do this. Because they’ve never done that for anyone else. They’re registering my song, they got me an ISRC code and explained to me what it was! So it was a lot of help from external factors and it’s just been real love. So that first song was the start of everything.
There was a 2-year gap between the release of the single and your debut EP…
The single dropped when I was still in high school, Grade 12. I decided to study, did dentistry for a year and didn’t do any music at all. If I was going to study, I’d do that 100%. I never want to do something 50/50. Then I met Nasty and we did ‘Phases’, that song did a lot for me and even then I wasn’t convinced. I dropped a couple of singles after that because everyone was convinced except for me. I stopped, took a two and a half year break and decided, there was one thing that was always there nagging me, ‘what are you doing with your life?’. My subconscious knows but it was just a situation of having to do it.
So that two-year period is basically why I am as persistent now because I took time not just to retreat from music but to find myself in the sense that I’m not going to do something to make everyone else happy. I need a common ground where I can actively say, and not just lie for an interview, just because I’m good at it so I can make money off of it. It became a passion. I wanted to sit and write, be in sessions and watch. I wanted to learn. I was a sponge, I still am.
Now I can do everything myself. I can record myself. I write my own shit. I produce kinda. I started doing everything, I mix my own shit. It was all just being able to know when to take the “No’s” and work on it and asking where did I fuck up, can you please assist me. You don’t always have to be right. A lot of people in this industry have egos and when people do try and assist or help they become defensive and I’ve never been that. Don’t make excuses. If someone is trying to tell you something I was always the person sitting there and listening even if it wasn’t for me because I don’t want to make the same mistake.
So it’s been a lot of that within my break. Then I came back and dropped my EP in 2017. I moved to Johannesburg and started working on my second EP which I dropped last September.
How do you compare collaborating to working on solo material?
A lot of the collabs that I’ve done have been via social media or email. I base a lot of my things on synergy and being able to vibe with somebody in studio but it’s not that deep for me because if I really like the song and I can hear myself on it or not even hear myself on it because I always push myself. The first dance hall track I did was so different for me but when I did it I was like oh shit I’m actually dope at this, I should do this. And I’ve been doing Afro-beat, that’s not something that I’m actively pursuing it’s just that it’s so much fun to create. Not a lot of overthinking. The fact that music doesn’t restrict you and you need to do this and always do it, that’s the best part.
What led you to signing with Nasty C?
I felt like I needed to do it because being independent is the best feeling because you feel like you can do whatever you want. But having a support structure, having structure means so much more. You just need to know what you’re getting yourself into. We were always friends but we know the line when it comes to business. It wasn’t a decision where I was forced to do anything. I took four months to go through the contract, think about it, do I want to do this? I’m almost there, I just dropped this dope song, it’s doing really well. But it wasn’t even about that, again that’s where your pride and ego come in. If someone can help you, you should allow them to help you. I feel like this is a win-win because we’re both helping each other.
I’m okay with being a guinea pig. We spoke about it because he’s never done this before, we’re the same age, and I’m okay with that. I told let’s do it. He thought I was going to say no, it took me so long to answer, we were doing the final touches for ‘SMA’ and I couldn’t answer him. I just smiled and said I’ll think about it. I wasn’t excited, not because I wasn’t excited, but because I didn’t know how to react because it was the first time someone had approached me with something like that. Personally to me, not even my managers, it hit me on a personal level. Because he gave me a whole speech prior.
And I signed. I thought about it, I went to everyone for advice. But it’s a contract, we know where we stand, our relationship is dope, we don’t make shit music, we have great synergy and that’s all that matters to me because I know him so well and I know when he’s lying to me. It’s never gotten to that because we’ve always been friends. There’s a lot of trust.
Any upcoming releases?
I’m working on my album. That’s where I have been investing a lot of my energy into. I have a lot of things I want to drop but I can’t because I need to focus on the album. A lot of visual content coming from me.
Catch Rowlene as part of Nasty C's Ivyson Tour. Click here for tickets.
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