True identity

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This article was published 22/11/2017 (2930 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In the earlier days of her career, Somali-Canadian indie-soul artist Ladan Hussein had not one, but two pseudonyms. She performed under the name Cold Specks (and still does), but also occasionally went by the moniker Al Spx.

“There was Cold Specks and Al Spx and it was very confusing, but I didn’t want anyone to know my name. I was very private,” Hussein says. 

But that was then, when Hussein was a 24 year old going through a quarter-life crisis, dealing with “depression and dumb boys” while also faced with the release of her debut record, 2012’s I Predict a Graceful Expulsion (which went on to be shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize).

Now, five years older and with a second critically acclaimed record on the books, Hussein was ready to approach her third full-length, Fool’s Paradise, with a lens pointed more deeply inward, focusing on aspects of her essence that had previously been missing from her work, opening herself up fully for the first time. 

Hussein, a child of Somali refugees, found inspiration in her heritage, becoming obsessed with pre-war Mogadishu, her parents’ hometown and the capital of Somalia. In her research, she also discovered her father had been part of an influential ‘70s funk band, Iftin. It was the sounds of that era and that place, compounded by the desire to produce a positive narrative about a country so often cloaked in controversy, that acted as the spark for Fool’s Paradise.

“It’s very difficult to turn on the news every day and hear all of these discussions surrounding refugees and Muslims when my own family — I have three sisters and my parents are all refugees and I am Muslim — and to see my country on the news, to see people who remind me of people I love, being demonized in the media, it can be difficult and it felt like the most natural thing to sing about,” the Toronto-based artist says.

“I’ve always been very proud (to be Somali) privately, but it’s never just been a theme in my music.”

The Somali influence does not present itself only in the sonic landscape; the content of the record, too, sees direct references to the country and the culture, most notably in the opening track, Fool’s Paradise, a song dedicated to a semi-mythical Somali queen named Araweelo. In it, Hussein sings a few lines in her family’s native tongue while near the end of the album closer, Exile, there is a voice-mail recording of a prayer recited by Hussein’s mother. Hussein says the song is rooted in one of the other major themes of Fool’s Paradise: identity. 

It makes sense to address the idea of identity when talking about culture and heritage, but Hussein doesn’t limit the connection there; as with the rest of the record, she dives deeper, exploring concepts of self-assurance and self-awareness, as well as love lost, all of which have different, but equally powerful, ways of impacting a person’s perception of their own self.

Right now, Hussein’s perception of her own self is pretty clear.

“I feel as though I’m a full-fledged adult,” she says. “I’m more sure of my voice and how to use it. I’m unafraid of being soft, or loud as well, and I know to trust my instincts, because at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.”

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabel