Monique Bingham – Take Me To South Africa

“Uyaz’ uMonique nguMichael Jackson wehouse” [you know Monique is the Michael Jackson of house music]. That was one fans reaction when they arrived at House 22 in Pretoria to watch this living goddess of deep house music, Monique Bingham. At 8.30pm, the venue was at full capacity and there was a solid 400 people milling about outside the entrance hoping to squeeze in. Mind you her performance was only scheduled to start around 11pm. So what better testament to show just how adored Ms Bingham is than such an unprecedented turn out. Fortunately IDM got the chance to chat with her the night before the madness that was her SA tour began. Monique Bingham is no stranger to house, nor is she alien to the magic that it takes to put together timeless hits. From the days of We Had A Thing with Abstract Truth, through to Kissing Strangers and all the way up to her latest gem with Ralf Gum, Take Me To My Love, Monique has been serenading the souls of deep house lovers the world over for years. Her sultry voice and poetic lyrics nestle themselves in the warmest parts of your heart and uplift your spirit with an effortlessness that may just well be supernatural. True to the message of her soulful number with Dunn Easy, she just ‘Won’t Stop’ giving us good ‘ol great music. How did your music career start out? It began on the streets of New York at the Giant Step parties. What happened is I just sang on the street for one of the dudes that was playing, and he really liked me and a couple of months later he called me for a studio session. After that it ended up in us forming Abstract Truth way back in 1996. So was house music then a conscious decision? Honestly no. I used to go to the clubs back then just because I loved the scene. Everyone was there. So House found me. We Had A Thing broke me into house. Originally it was a down tempo song but Matthias “Matty” Heilbronn remixed it and that became my intro into house. What brought about the idea of starting your own label? Freedom. The freedom to be able to put out a record whenever I felt like it and not have to wait, as well as have control of the whole thing. Is anyone else singed to your label and would you be interested in signing anyone else? No, no one else. It was really just my thing to put out records when I felt like it. With signing anyone else, I’m not closed to the idea but it’s just never occurred to me. That’s not really why I started the label. With so many tracks out, any chance of a full length Monique Bingham album? [laughs] Yes. It’s happening. It’s about 75% done and it’s coming out next year. I’ve been going back and forth with it but I’m just going to bite the bullet and put out a full length album. I have a good 10 tracks but I want more, around 14 or so. So with tracks like Kissing Strangers and We Had A Thing, those are really deep songs lyric wise, are they true stories? That was just me making up stuff [Laughs] Even my man was like ‘what the heck is this?”. Haha, even I’d be stressed! What then is your creative process when it comes to writing a song? I definitely write songs after I come up with the melody. It starts with the song first then I take it from there. You did the vocals for Ralf Gum’s ‘Take Me To My Love’ and it’s beyond huge right now, what’s the story behind that hit? Take Me To My Love kinda came out of my mouth while I was adlibbing. It started out with just the bassline and evolved from there and I basically crafted the lyrics as I went. Locally we have a large number of female vocalists, what advice could you offer to them to ensure that they make this career choice a lucrative one? Find someone that you trust to manage you. If you can’t find that, do the research. Learn the business and get basic information on how things like publishing and distribution work. Plus there is nothing wrong with just going up to someone doing the same thing as you and asking for a bit of advice. INTERVIEW: Tendai Luo