September 14, 2010 Music » Cover

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Esperanza Spalding talks music, fame and more 

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One last thing I want to know: What kind of direction did you get from your record company when it came to the making of your new CD? I mean, I think it would be hard to give an artist like you direction because you have such a singular vision.

(Laughs) That's really amazing what you said. It does seem kind of weird that some record executives would be trying to give me direction! (Laughs) No, I've heard all kinds of different things — from the hilarious, to the infuriating, to the ignorant, to the brilliant, and insightful and meaningful — from these people [whose] primary area of expertise is business and marketing. And what I've learned is sometimes what they have to say is really helpful for the music, and sometimes it means nothing to the music; and you never know until the end of the process — well, sometimes you know right away — which one it's going to be. But what I do know is that the pity is that a lot of young artists are unfortunately kind of at the mercy of that advice and of those suggestions and of that guidance. And on my last project, I kind of was at the mercy to a certain degree of what the label had in mind — only because I had no structure for them to refer to, to see if it worked. So, of course they had their idea of what was going to work and what wasn't, and we certainly had some disagreements about different things. And on some levels I think it compromised the project last time, and on some levels I think it helped. So this time, with this project, I was in the middle of some kind of bizarre negotiations and kind of doing the record on my own. So the record label through the creative process wasn't really involved at all; they only kind of started participating in the conversation after we already recorded everything. So this last project, uniquely, was ... my own little brainchild and my own little baby that me and [co-producer] Gil Goldstein got to work on in this cocoon of creativity, outside of the influence of the label — because they were worried about business stuff that had nothing to do with the artistic side. And what they're going to get to see, if this record is a success, they'll get to see that, like, "Oh wow. Sometimes artists have a concept that is totally outside of our ability to understand how it's going to work in the market, and it still works because people connect with the art." So I think if this record works, that's going to be a really good thing for them and will probably, really positively, affect the conversation between artists and labels. Because any artist will tell you that's always, like, the main problem ... trying to convince someone that is business and market minded that: "Look, this new creative idea that I have is valid and will work so just give it a chance." And that's always a type of conversation that any artist is having with the label. It's like, I'm not a business person in any sense of the word, myself; some musicians are, but I'm not at all. I have no business skills, and I don't necessarily want them. So, I kind of depend, to a certain degree, on the insight of these businessmen, and I realize that. And it usually doesn't work the other way — that these people realize they are not artists (laughs), so it's a complicated conversation. And when people listen to this particular record, they are getting an opportunity, I think, to hear a record that is being promoted pretty mainstream without the influence of mainstream business people ... and their concept of what works and what doesn't — which is actually pretty rare, to be quite honest with you.

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