A Quick Chat with Women of Soul - Candice Monique

Can you tell me a bit about your inspiration for your single ‘I Am Enough’’?

“I am enough” was written as part of a songwriting intensive put on by Women Of Soul where a group of all women identifying and non-binary vocalists, musicians and songwriters came together to write a collection of songs. There were 5 writers involved in writing “I am enough”, including vocalists Thando and Chelsea Wilson, keys player Monique Boggia, trumpet player Audrey Powne and myself. The underlying message of the song is really about self love and overcoming the societal pressures that many of us face around body image and unrealistic standards of beauty and how they affect our self image. The idea was to challenge these notions with a song about unconditionally accepting and loving yourself and acknowledging your own worth. I was honoured to be asked to sing the song on the recording for the upcoming Women of Soul album and added my own flavour to it  with not only my vocals but also through the spoken word middle 8 section of the song where I speak on my own perspective of body image struggles. 

What are your influences and how do they affect your songwriting? 

I grew up around a really diverse array of music, everything from jazz to pop, but my first loves will always be hip-hop and neo-soul. I’ve always loved artists like Erykah Badu, India Arie, Jill Scott etc but my all time favourite artist has got to be bassist and multi instrumentalist Me’Shell Ndegeocello. I love her music because it’s not only musically brilliant but it’s raw and real and outspoken. I think you can hear that influence in me in the way I’ve always combined spoken word into my music and live performance, my intonation and cadence and my content. 

What’s the creative process like for you?

My creative process differs depending who I’m writing with. When writing with my band, Candice Monique & The Optics, it would often start out with myself and our guitarist messing around with riffs and grooves, me coming up with vocal melodies and either simultaneously writing lyrics or writing lyrics later to those melodies, then we’d bring that to the rest of the band and come up with bass parts, drum groove etc. other times I’ll come to the band with a vocal or lyrical idea and we write around that. We will often have been performing a song for quite some time before we record it. We do a lot of improvised pieces in our live shows and jam in the studio so the title track of our first album actually came out of an improv jam we were having between takes. If i’m working on other projects, say with a more hip hop based producer, I’ll often be given a selection of beats to listen to, choose one I like and build a vocal melody around that, and I’ll go to town on stacking vocal harmonies and experimenting with backing vocal parts etc. Often the studio recorded version of the song will be complete before I ever perform the song live. I love both processes, they each bring something unique out of me as an artist and provide different ways for me to get creative.

If you could change something about the Australian music industry what would it be? 

There are three main things. First off, wage sustainability for professionals in the music industry, particularly women. We need to invest enough in our artists and in the arts generally that Australia doesn’t lose its greatest artists to their next financial hurdle. Someone once said to me that ‘Australia loses it’s best artists to their first child’, which obviously disproportionately affects women artists. That has always stuck with me because it’s often true that the financial and logistical needs of a child mean we need to make our side hustle our main hustle and music takes a back seat simply because music income is unstable. I struggled through, working as a vocalist and solo parenting my now 16yo for as long as I could before taking a break to recover financially, but it was a hard slog even with family support and the industry and child care systems are not set up with artists like me in mind.  2) more opportunities and skills development for women and gender diverse folks in all aspects of the industry, not just as vocalists and musicians, but also in music management, production, engineering and festival and events management. This would include support navigating the legal and contractual adventures one goes through in the music industry. It’s an incredibly male dominated industry and as a young woman first coming into the industry I really struggled to navigate the minefield that is the Aus music scene, particularly in genres like soul and hip hop that aren’t as recognised here. Which brings me to point number 3) more support and recognition of and opportunities for local, home grown talent. I’m talking radio play, live gig/touring opportunities, investment in building the scene from labels. It’s a sad unspoken thing in the industry that often Australian artists feel we have to go overseas and have success elsewhere before we will be recognised, seen as legitimate and taken seriously here, which is a part of Australian music industry culture that needs to change. My first signing was with a label out of the UK and i know many other artists, particularly in soul and rnb genres, who’ve had similar experiences of feeling like they were getting more love from overseas. It’s a real trip seeing your album get rave reviews in Japanese, Portuguese, German etc and yet not be able to get play from anywhere outside of community radio in your own home. 

What do you think life would be like for you if you didn’t have music as an outlet? 

Well I can tell you because it’s happened. Things got to the point with me where as a single parent I could no longer put food on the table from what I was making as a vocalist and I went back to university and got a degree in criminal justice and forged a whole nother career to feed myself and my eldest daughter. It was a forced break from music for me and during that time I needed another creative outlet, which ended up being spoken word poetry and dance. I did a lot of performing as a spoken word artist in that time and did several styles of dance (I was a dancer since age 3 before I was a vocalist so i just reverted haha!). I also decorated cakes, that was another creative outlet of mine. Basically if music is in ebb, some other creative outlet is in flow. I can’t not have that creative outlet, i’d be climbing the walls. 

Is there anyone you would like to collaborate with?  Why?

Hands down Me’Shell Ndegeocello. Because she’s my hero. That’s bucket-list stuff. Getting to see her live here in 2019 was bucket-list, but the collab: that would be a dream come true. 

What’s your advice to young people who want to make a career for themselves in the industry? 

I guess i’d say, firstly, that while honing your craft is essential, also put just as much effort into learning the business of the industry. Learn about music management, learn about how labels and publishing work, learn about how royalties and songwriting splits work, learn about how touring and event management works, learn about how marketing and publicity works, learn about how distribution works and the realities of distribution vs development deals with labels. Unfortunately you are likely to have to do a lot of your own publicity, management, booking and tour management yourself in the initial stages of your career and having all these skills and knowledge will be to your advantage. Secondly i’d say: back yourself. Have confidence in your skills and abilities and what you have to offer and, especially for young women in the industry, know you can go toe to toe with any mediocre man with any amount of power in this industry no matter what because what you’ve got is unique and no-one else has it. Don’t allow anyone to intimidate you into believing anything otherwise. 

Who’s the most interesting person you’ve worked with/met? 

That’s a really tough question. There’s so many people I’ve met and worked with who were all so unique and talented. I guess some oi the highlights would include a random one off recording session with NY producer Rich Medina, playing support for Omar Lye-Fook here in Melbourne, singing backing vocals for Anthony David when he toured here, but to be honest a lot of my coolest memories are of meeting people on the Big Day Out tours which i did a few years in a row back in the day. I got to meet everyone from Scribe and Ladi 6 to Aloe Blacc, to Lupe Fiasco and Dizzee Rascal. I have vivid memories of watching Dizzee’s show from side stage and of Lupe Fiasco offering to purchase a merch t-shirt I was trying to gift him because he insisted he knows how expensive it is for us to produce our own merch and wanted to support! Back even further than that, when i was in the US recording my first demo, i got to meet a bunch of people including at an Allstar weekend party in LA put on by Shaq where i briefly met Busta Rhymes and Anthony Hamilton handed me a copy of his demo CD just before he went big. In Atlanta where I was recording,   got to meet KRS 1 and hang backstage with his wife for her birthday event at this open mic at Apache Cafe and I met India Arie at a Van Hunt show. You meet lots of random people after 20 years in the music industry. I’ve probably forgotten most of them haha!

Any plans for a tour on the cards?

My band Candice Monique & The Optics are looking at possibly coming back together to put out a second album, so if that goes well,  you might see us back on the road yet ;)