‘Brandy’s like the vocal bible – Maleek Berry
Maleek Berry also cleared the matter on whether he is actually signed contractually to Wizkid’s Starboy.
Multi-talented producer and artist Maleek Berry at his South by South West 2017 show held much earlier in the year on March 18, 2017 at The Belmont, Austin Texas, USA., where he totally nailed it with the performance of his songs ‘Hold you down’, ‘On fire’, ‘Kontrol’ and more off his 2016 “Last Daze Of Summer” EP.
The show segment “Sounds From Africa and The Caribbean” performed in the US marked the first leg of the singer’s tour, where he got talking about starting out as a producer to now performing on stage as an artist.
Maleek speaking with NotjustokTV described the reception of his performance at the show as a really good feeling and is already getting accustomed to life as an artist and performer too but can’t tell if he prefers being a producer to an artist.
“I’m getting very used to my artist side, I feel like every musician is an artist by nature, like it’s instinctive, it’s in us” he said.
Berry also revealed American singer and songwriter Brandy is very instrumental to his music, saying he knows most of how the melodies from the singer’s album goes.
“Been listening to Brandy for a long time, she’s like the vocal bible, every Brandy album I know the melodies, that’s how I train my ears, “ Maleek further added , explaining how he always incorporates R&B (as influenced by Brandy’s music) into his Afro-fusion element to create his sound.
Brandy’s R&B sound helped shape Maleek Berry’s Afro-fusion sound elements
The producer artist addressing rumours that he was going to be signing to an international record label said there is nothing on the cards for now, and he’s happy to just have that creative freedom for now.
About whether he is signed to Wizkid’s “Star boy” imprint, Maleek says he and Wiz in 2012 just came up with that name with the aim of promoting and taking African sound to the world, and there was no official business contract binding of that sort, rather the affiliation is purely “family driven.”
“My whole relationship with Starboy is like family, we never did things business wise, and that’s how me and wiz still are, we’re family.“ pulse
