Clinton Curtis: Child Of Music Having A 2nd Avenue Ball

Posted On: April 12, 2011
Posted By: odeisel
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By Odeisel

Clinton Curtis grew up shuttling from Florida to Jamaica a the child of musicians who had musical interests in Negril before it became the tourist destination it is today. Surrounded by music throughout his childhood he eventually settled in America, unable to get the music out of is blood. After college at NYU, he released his debut album Smoldering Youth on an indie label and toured all over the country.

Now he’s back in one place and one piece, ready to release his follow-up, 2nd Avenue Ball. We sat down with Curtis for a very interesting interview about the source of American music and the power of the pop single. It went a little something like this.

Planet Ill: You’ve got a pretty extensive background as far as musical influences go. What do you take from each of them to inform your music?

Clinton Curtis: Yeah it’s a pretty eclectic background; I had a very interesting childhood. I’m not sure there was ever really another option for me as far as working in music. My parents were musicians. As far as American kids go I had a very strange angle about how I learned about music. I knew all of the 80s and 90s hits before I ever heard of the Beatles, which was kind of weird.

Planet Ill: Your first album was called Smoldering Youth. Compared with growing up in America, how are those different influences overseas contributing to that attitude? What was the difference between growing up internationally and growing up here?

Clinton Curtis: I’m really grateful for it. I’ve been in New York for about 7-8 years. Of course it’s the greatest city in the world; you can get everything you need here. But there’s a lot of information and world perspective that you can only get if you see some of the places that don’t look like it does here. Jamaica’s a kind of interesting example.

People talk about Jamaica like ah it’s so beautiful, spend some time on the resorts for your bachelor party or your wedding or whatever. As everyone well knows, on the other side of those big hotels, there’s like a very serious problem going on and I was always aware of that growing up in Jamaica. My parents actually left Jamaica in like 1994 because things had changed so much.

When they got in Negril, there was almost nobody there. So they kind of built up this club and this whole music scene there. But them everybody else came to Negril and they put up all these huge monstrous hotels and these all-inclusive stuff and it was really just terrible for the people who were from there. It really kind of isolated them. First of all, it took away their beach. The people who are living there have Jamaica, only without the beach.

I was a kid but this stuff was all very real to me. And the Smoldering Youth record was about my travels through this country (America) kinda in response to what I’d seen in other countries. The new record, 2^nd Avenue Ball, actually there are some lyrics on there that are bouncing everywhere taking us all over the world, actually Jamaica specifically for the first time in one of those songs.

Smoldering Youth I had just gotten done with 11 straight months of touring in 48 states and I just totally fell back in love with America, for the good and the bad. And there’s a lot fo ugly out there to see, trust me. That’s what my whole lyrical background is. Blending the lines; you’re not quite sure where you are. You could be in Savannah Lamar, Jamaica; we could be on the Lower East Side of New York. I try to see what they have in common and kind of blend the lines.

Planet Ill: In America there are a lot of race and class related issues. In Jamaica there’s a lot of corruption and things that run counter to the pride that you have and the positive things that you have to say about it. How do you reconcile that without being an apologist?

Clinton Curtis: Well I think there’s truth on both sides of everybody’s argument. I’m not a cynical person and I’m certainly not a cynical songwriter. I can’t get with people who live in America or live in New York City but try to purposely cut themselves off from the rest of the country. I think the biggest source of pride that we might have in this country is our musical background. It’s really amazing. And of course we know where that comes from. The basis of popular music and what I do and what everybody is doing whether they know it or not comes from a slave culture and this incredible Blues and Jazz music that got started at the run of the century. So right there is the complication to your question. We can have pride and we do, especially in the music specifically, but it comes from a dark background.

And I think the same thing can be said for, and I don’t want to be too specific here, because I’m by no means Jamaican, I’m just a kid who spent a lot of time there. Talk about a small little country that’s had as big a musical effect on the world as you could possibly imagine. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s illogical the contribution that Jamaica has made. But that music too comes out of the same dark past. So to answer your question, there’s a definite balance between pride and the ability to have that pride and still search for the things that go on in your own country that can get better.

I try to write a song that doesn’t have a clear question or answer; it’s somewhere in between unless people kind of fill in the blanks. I’m definitely not one of these people that’s gonna sit around incessantly criticizing America and then sit on your couch and not do anything to make anything better. That really gets me, people that just sit there on their computer and read the news and just spazz off about everything that’s wrong; meanwhile they haven’t gotten off the couch.

Planet Ill: What is the first song that you actually remember?

Clinton Curtis: “Jamaica Farewell.” I was constantly with my parents flying back and forth from Miami to Montego Bay. And when you get off the plane I remember very specifically when you get off from Air Jamaica from Montego Bay, and I haven’t been to Jamaica in like a decade so I hope they still have it, but right when you get off there are three women who are singing “Jamaica Farewell” an it’s like the most incredible…that song definitely sticks with me. It’s such a beautiful welcome when you come from Miami and you get off the plane and you’re in a whole new world.

Planet Ill: your parents were part of the business side of music. Does that angle affect the way that you craft songs? What is the direct motivation behind your creative practice?

Clinton Curtis: that’s a great question. My parents have always said to me a great song can be three minutes long. It doesn’t have to be any longer than that. And they always gave me a profound respect for the Pop song; for the format. Three minutes you can tell an entire story that’s really meaningful over and done. That was something that came out of Jamaican music too. That was a single scene. They were all about putting out your single. There were no albums. They would cut up 45’s on vinyl at the beginning of the week and if all the singles haven’t sold out they just melt them down and put the next single out from somebody else.

I think most of all what came out of that was trying to get the whole story over and done with in a way that manageable for the average person. Can they sing this hook after hearing it once? Do you know the song instantaneously if you’ve only heard the first verse? That’s the kind of thing that came out of that, for me, and I really tried to stick to that.

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