OY (Foto: Paula Faraco)
The Schlüterhof is a beautiful Venue in the center of Berlin. From July 28 to August 20 it was used for a handful of open air performances. As a part of the festival DURCHLÜFTEN!, DJ sets, concerts, movies and workshops inhabited the space.
A summer event with a colorful mix of music, free tickets and lots of much needed activism. One of the acts playing there was OY – a Berlin-based duo that combines traditional African music with electronic beats. We asked them five questions about their inspiration and influences, their bright costumes and their upcoming album.
GROOVE: Joy and Marcel, you are the two artists behind OY. How did it happen that the two of you started producing music?
Well OY really came to life in Berlin. Joy found the time to concentrate on the project when we moved here together years ago and I joined in shortly after–it immediately became a band. We released our first full album on a small label–it was re-released on an international level via Bruxelles based Crammed Discs a year later. We both were into writing and producing music long before that but only had international visibility with guest appearances on Big Dada or with other projects compiled by Sonar Collective and such. Combining our forces just felt right and luckily it worked.
The looks and costumes of OY are bright, colorful and seem to create a mask that you guys wear on stage. What is your intention behind this look?
Most of all we just like to use a stage to its fullest and also enjoy the transition from the private persons we are into a different character when we go on stage. This actually has a very old tradition in human history, and this transformation helps us to dive deeper into the music–it ideally also invites the audience to follow us. A bit like in theatre and other forms of performing arts we simply love to unify all elements such as lights, visuals, costumes and narrative elements in our concerts.
Your music combines cultural sounds from all over the world. On Place des Clichés, we can hear french vocals, some tracks are mixed with traditional African music and modern electronic beats. What is your source of inspiration, bringing all of these sounds together?
The most honest answer is that we play the music that comes to our minds with as little limitation as possible. We both have a background in electronic music that is basically the music of our generation and is still the most innovative language in the game just now flourishing all over like very refreshingly in hip hop nowadays. We spent a lot of nights dancing in clubs and also performing electronic music live in the early days. Additionally to that we both have an education in Jazz played pretty wildly, experimental, free, as well as Punk music, and later we moved on to more hip hop, pop and indie influenced fields. We both dig contemporary classical music and films scores. The African music part you refer to is just one of those many ingredients and basically the one in which we have the least knowledge in. But on the other hand many of the above mentioned styles have their roots in Black culture and the African heritage. Aside of music we gain inspiration out of books, arts, movies, politics, philosophy and of course everyday life.
Your last Album Space Diaspora feels like a journey to another planet. Where do you want to take your listeners to, and what do you want to show them on this acoustic trip?
On Space Diaspora we tried to explore an utopia in a time when everybody was complaining about a lack of them. There was a sense of emptiness with the old big systems about to come to their end. We decided to do so in a Sci-Fi format and used it in its purest from–so to speak: reflecting on the current state of humans on this planet and its problems but simply mirrored via future times.
This form allows to keep things positive and humorous even though one might speak about serious stuff. OY always has had this tongue in cheek approach we both like. The underlining thought was that in a globalized world, in which we could fill a whole big continent with people who either migrated voluntarily or were displaced, we might need to reconsider the term home. We live in a time of fluidity, and wish that to be celebrated. So not being able to be put into a box, be that of nationality, gender, or in terms of occupation–it implies people have innate multiple perspectives on life–and we need more of those viewpoints to globally move on in intelligent ways.
On what kind of journey do you take the listener with your upcoming album? Do we stay on earth this time?
On the new album that we’re about to release soon and which will definitely will be our strongest work so far we will basically speak about similar topics such as the huge potential of migration, transculturation, but also about what is in the way of living that potential. And this time we will reflect it in the now. We feel that if the world has to come together to solve its problems we also have to move closer to our audience and speak to them more directly. Or as AfroPunk blog once put it: “OY – a new sound that might make the future a little more colorful–if we listen.” And you can already listen to two of our new songs which were released in May.
You can find out more about OY on their Homepage.
The Duo will also be touring soon:
16.09.2022 Mannheim, Planet Ears Festival
18.09.2022 Lausanne, Label Suisse Festival
02.10.2022 Ulm, Femtastique Festival
