S!RENE on Silence Gives Life and producing Nigerian sounds in Ableton

Effortlessly blending Afrobeats, amapiano, jazz, African funk, and much more, S!RENE is a Dutch-Nigerian musician, saxophonist, DJ, and producer based in Amsterdam. Following performances at London’s Jazz Café, this chameleonic artist has released his sprawling debut album, Silence Gives Life. He speaks to Headliner about being a member of the Soulection artist collective, the plethora of genres and sounds on his new album, and speaks to the relationship between silence, music, and life.

S!RENE debuted in 2022 with his debut single, Ginga Riddim. The track announced all of this artist’s versatility and willingness to treat music production, sounds, and genres like a laboratory; its off-kilter rhythms, use of African sounds and percussion, and shoving at least five genres into a blender mean it's unlike anything you’ll hear on the radio. And yet, it’s a totally listenable tune that will make the repeat loop button on your streaming platform look very tempting indeed.

“My dad used to play music in the house,” he says. “We’re Nigerians, and that was my first introduction to Nigerian rhythms and the soul that is in that kind of music. It always got us going. It took a while for me to connect with music. I always wanted to be a pro footballer, but that was obviously not my path. When I was 13, I started listening to electronic music radio shows that were big back then — they were playing Hardwell, Martin Garrix, stuff like that. That was my first introduction to DJing. When I was 14, I actually started doing it myself. And then I realised that I can actually bring back the music that I grew up with into my own music. DJing doesn’t need to be only electronic. Obviously, in the Netherlands, electronic music is very big. But there was no one playing stuff like Afrobeats or the jazz, funky stuff, not in my environment. And I grew up in a village, so I just had to figure it all out for myself.”

S!RENE is a passionate and skilled DJ, but many who hear his music would likely agree that this is music that also demands to be performed live, beyond a set of decks, with all its organic sounds and his ability on the saxophone. On this pull between DJing and more traditional live performances, he says, “I definitely always had this urge to go towards the live version of what I do. My first step was, okay, I have my turntables, I have the DJing. How do I implement the love that I have for live music into the way that I play as well? Even in my sets, I would play music that is not common to play in the club and turn the turntable into some form of an instrument.

“And once I started doing that, people started to notice, ‘Oh, this guy is different, he does stuff in a different way.’ And for me, the next step is to go towards the live aspect with a band. But I am going to take my time, because I feel like everything is always in a rush in this industry, and I really love the art of developing and taking your fan base with you on that journey. Developing your sound, developing your personality, developing your way of playing, trying to give them the best of yourself.”

In 2023, S!RENE released the EP, Tales of Lusan, in which his music production abilities and sound-mashing stepped up even further. Its opening track, Jama Banela, is a dizzying yet excellent melting pot with all manner of samples of jazz instruments and African percussion and sounds, over a bed of an amapiano beat. It’s very difficult to think of another artist doing it quite like this. The recurring whistle sample will have you wanting to find the nearest carnival to let loose at.

S!RENE, who has already mentioned how his approach has helped stick his head above the parapet as a unique artist, found some kindred spirits last year when supporting the Brit Award and Mercury Prize-winning London jazz group Ezra Collective.

“I did the after shows in Amsterdam when they toured here last year,” he says. “It was definitely nice connecting with them, just on the level of me being a fan of their music as well, even editing a couple of their things that I haven’t put out yet. What I love about them is how they have been able to bring all of their identities together and form this amazing wave of African music, especially Nigerian music. That’s what I mean with patience; once all of those things align, it would be very nice to create things together, because I feel it’s a beautiful thing that I am from this side where people listen a lot to DJs and the electronic side of things, and to combine that with the live aspect of things, in terms of jazz and Afrobeat and the bigger diaspora, which is usually a different crowd. That’s what I love, bringing those types of people together.”

After a number of singles, EPs, and mixtapes, S!RENE brings us Silence Gives Life. Its title alludes to the power of silence and stillness, and the strength he believes it brings. It’s a totally instrumental record, and S!RENE is a rare artist who can powerfully hold the listener’s attention without supplementing his music with vocals. Nor does he need to, with his psychedelic scope of sampling so many different instruments and sounds. While the beats will keep your head nodding, the LP nonetheless maintains a meditative, deep inhale throughout that synergises with its title and concept.

On that moving title, he says that, “I feel the music industry has become a place where it’s a lot about being online, being active the whole time, having constant output. And I personally don’t believe that is how it should be. I feel artists should experience more. Artists should be out there more. Music is a reflection of who people are — it’s not only being online, talking the whole time. It’s just experiencing life, being out there, and actually being silent from social media. People almost connect social media with how good artists are, or how good they are at their craft, while the best artists that I connected with, I usually don’t hear anything from them till their music comes out. They speak through their music, and that is the music that has always lit this fire under me.”

One of the album’s most supremely creative moments is on Ni Ayika Agbaye, an interlude track in which S!RENE cleverly creates the impression of a radio skipping through channels, with all the feedback you’d expect, and we unsurprisingly get through jazz, soul, traditional Nigerian music, funk, and even country, somehow all within the space of one minute.

“I’m not gonna lie, this track came about in a day,” he says with an audible grin. “The name of the track is Ni Ayika Agbaye, which means ‘around the world’ in Yoruba. This track is all about going around the world in terms of sounds and in terms of having these little cameos of genres. At the end, you obviously heard the little Afrobeat part, which jumps immediately into Tree's Root. I felt that was my way of showing in this album that music can be connected. And if you listen even deeper, I went up with the bass, every semitone, and I added the genre to it that I felt it connected with the most.”

It would be a crime not to ask about the tools and music production behind Silence Gives Life, with S!RENE clearly being such a talent when it comes to sampling and production. It will come as little surprise to those in the know that Ableton Live is his weapon of choice for patching all these sounds together or taking a sample and turning it into something entirely different.

“I work in Ableton; it has been a pillar of my sound since I started making my own music. It has helped shape my sound over the past five years. Having a combination of live elements, samples, and also playing stuff myself was just very interesting. Making this thing electronic, but at the same time helping it sound almost live — for example, if you are listening to Tree's Root, it just invokes that feeling of it almost sounding like it was played by a band. That’s where that inspiration of Dilla comes in, MPCs, Madlib, 9th Wonder — these guys have this way of sampling that it sounds like it was played live, and that also makes that bridge towards performing live much easier. I used my Push and my keyboards a lot, and I have a big piano here as well that I used. For the percussion, there are so many elements in the tracks, and so many samples that I was able to bring to life in a way that if you had heard the samples by themselves, you would be like, ‘What could you make with this?’ Once I started creating, I was just in this flow state.”

Hopefully, this multi-talented musician has inspired you to have some silent moments in your day-to-day life, away from your phone, apps, emails, and the dozens of other things vying for and monetising our attention spans. And, once you emerge from your silent retreat, Silence Gives Life is out now. “I am excited to get better. I am excited to tour even more and do more shows with my music, connect to more people, and learn even more from other artists as well. This lit a fire under me, especially now that it is out. I am very excited to take the next steps and see what is on the horizon for me.”