Velvet Voice of Shaz Oye

Irish Voice Entertainment

Velvet Voice of Shaz Oye

November 23, 2007

By Mike Farragher

IF Shaz OYE’s voice could be woven into a fabric, it would be a rich velvet; soft to the touch, elegant yet warm.

Her velvety voice envelopes the acoustic, jazzy arrangements of her fantastic debut CD, Truth According to Shaz OYE. A cross between the supple stylings of Sade and the tough, gritty poetry of Joan Armatrading, shaz provides a sophisticated alternative to the sensitive strummers that Dublin has been producing in recent years.

An exquisite poet, shaz also tackles matters of the heart. ”It can’t be pink champagne and roses/I don’t expect devotion 10 years on/I’m selfish and I’m jealous/I’ve got this life we made together/it’s my security against the world,” she confesses before asking her lover to “dance with me like you don’t have too much to say.” Over a tango beat and flamenco guitar licks, she talks about “passion spent, neatly folded” on the sensual “Through the Glass, Darkly.”

Born and raised in Dublin’s Docklands, Shaz OYE (pronounced “Oh Yay”) has established herself as a unique artist on the Irish stage. She was regularly called on to sing at school concerts, according to her website, with her musical abilities further enhanced playing trumpet with the Communication Workers Union Band.

Shaz developed her musical identity and became a unique delicacy on the streets of Dublin. Growing up as a black lesbian in Ireland led to a deep commitment to work as an activist campaigning for change. She wrote “When Lady Sings the Blues” in response to witnessing a generation of young Dubliners devastated by heroin while she was in her teens.

“I don’t describe myself as a person of color,” she tells the Irish Voice when asked about her nationality. “I find the phrase vague and insufficient, not unlike the pastel shades ascribed to candy floss or Neapolitan ice cream.”

Still, what is considered exotic now was viewed a bit differently in the formative years.

“I attended a local primary school run by the Sisters of Charity,” she says. “Of course capital punishment was still the privileged preserve of both the benevolent and the deranged, and I was always getting into scraps — there was always some dim wit taunting me to ‘climb back up my banana tree.’ But invariably, it was from the adults around me that I grew to understand what my blackness meant.”

She recalls feeling uncomfortable when she witnessed the neighbors laughing at The Black and White Minstrel Show, a derogatory parody of black performers.

“Even though I was too young to understand what everyone found so funny, I felt uncomfortable with it,” she recalls. “I think that was the point at which I made the connection between the ‘black’ characters on screen and myself. I learned early on that my childhood was going to either kill or cure me, and the fighter emerged.”

Other artists with lesser talent would have exploited the uniqueness of being black, gay, and Irish, but shaz lets the music do the talking. Her songwriting talent has earned her features on RTE’s MONO and Rattlebag, and she has also played live in studio on RTE Radio 1’s Today with Pat Kenny Show and the John Creedon Show as well as a host of top regional radio programs.

She’s opened for artists as diverse as Aslan, Hazel O’Connor, Juliet Turner, and John Spillane, and she’s performed alongside or shared a bill with some of Ireland’s top performers including, Brian Kennedy, Maria Doyle Kennedy and Damien Dempsey. After the success of her self-financed debut EP Child of Original Sin, in 2003, she set up her own label, Radical Faeries Records, with her manager and partner, Patricia Kennedy.

Shaz recalls hearing a melange of artists growing up. “Ella Fitzgerald, Glen Miller and Elvis were on the turntable growing up,” she says, “But in my teens my tastes were eclectic; everything from Led Zeppelin to Bob Dylan and Queen. I found great solace in Beethoven, and my favourite music was that of contemporary composers like John Barry and Henri Mancini.”

On Truth According to shaz OYE, that same melange bleeds into her artistry to create one of the most unique sounds you’ll hear in many a moon. The album was entirely financed by shaz and Kennedy, and based on the positive press she received in Ireland, that risk has reaped rewards.

“It was a great validation of the work we put into it to receive one of the few 9/10 reviews in Hot Press last year, and to have recommendations from respected journalists like Eamon Carr (formerly of Horslips),” she enthuses.

“From conception to delivery, the costs we accumulated with the project were not only financial but also emotional. We knew we might only have one shot at it, so we put our home on the line to finance the project and we went for it, and its always been my experience that the bigger the risk, the greater the reward.”

Rewards abound once you give shaz a listen. She has very limited distribution in the States, which is a crime. Someone give this girl a record deal!

To get your copy, log onto cdbaby.com/cd/shazoye.

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