Music Spotlight: Sade Olutola
Sade Olutola is a 21-year-old singer-songwriter from South London whose visual identity is deeply rooted in nostalgia. She recently dropped a music video for her single "2099" that exclusively lives on her blog.
We caught up with multi-talented Sade to talk about her sound, her early Ed Sheeran obsession, and the inspo behind her upcoming project.
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Q: How would you describe your music/art?
I would say my art is a reflection of my personal experience, my lyrics are pretty much a conscious stream.
I rap as well as sing, which I think brings out colour to the songs I write, it’s like featuring yourself on ur own track.
I write with my friend Luca (producer), so our songs tend to have a fun and carefree vibe to them, I think they reflect the sort of relationship we have.
Q: How did you get started?
This story is crazy. One day, my year 2 school teacher overheard me singing and told me I sounded really good. I got so excited, I remember telling my dad about it in the car on the way home.
Later on that afternoon, Willow Smith made an appearance on MTV.
This was her whip my hair era (absolute banger), and I could obviously SEE that she was a kid like me, I thought ‘huh?! if she can do that then I can do it too!’ And then proceeded to write my first ever song called ‘friends.’ It’s been history ever since….
At 11 years old I developed an obsession with Ed Sheeran. He’s the reason I picked up guitar and began songwriting consistently. I’d never seen anyone RAP on guitar, and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. I fell in love with his lyrics, the way he used his loop pedal to build tracks live, everything about that man was so fresh and new, even down to his accent. I didn’t hear that much British music growing up. It was inspiring hearing someone who sounded like me.
Q: What are you working on/excited about right now?
I'm working on an EP. The name of the EP links back to me at 11 in my Ed Sheeran phase. He would always draw the album artwork icon he was touring on his guitars. Cause I wanted to be like him sooooo bad, I made this album concept called Arrow heart, with a whole tracklist. I wrote some pretty awful songs for it and drew an arrow heart on my guitar just like Ed would have done.
Arrow heart will be the first project I’m ever putting out, I’ve decided to honour my childhood dream by making it a reality, except this time the songs are much better.
To keep up with Sade and her next release, follow her blog @ventrelle ✨
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