Posted at 06:00h
in
Interviews,
Music
>
“In my time it was like N’Sync, Michael [Jackson] and Usher,” 20-year old singer/songwriter Loick Essien says of his childhood musical influences. You’d expect any sentence containing the phrase “in my time” to be the opener to a nostalgic jaunt for a person much older than Loick, but that’s what makes him a bit of an anomaly. His old soul counters his energetic, youthful spirit.
“[As a child] I always knew I had a love for singing, but I didn’t know that was what I wanted to do.” In fact, it was acting and dancing which captured his attention as a kid. His mother supported his penchant for performing, which led to him attending two theatre schools and appearing in British programmes including
Holby City and
The Bill.
It was a few chance relationships which introduced Loick to a new passion. “I met [music and film director] Jake Nava; and he really liked me, we built a relationship. He said, ‘If I’m doing any more stuff I’d like to get you back down, as I’m starting to do music videos’.”
True to his word, Nava invited Loick to feature in a video for urban/pop group
Big Brovaz. “That’s where it all started, on the lunch break I had my headphones on and I was singing out loud, but I didn’t realise, and the producer for Big Brovaz was sitting behind me. He said, ‘You’ve got a good voice, have you ever recorded anything before?’”
Then just twelve years old, Loick experienced life behind the booth for the first time.
Arriving at Scala on Thursday, June 30 I felt an undefined mix of emotions, some where between excited anticipation and uncertainty. I'm not entirely sure why, maybe because I had only recently discovered the 19-year-old teeny-pop-princess about a year ago, or the fear that the young singer-songwriter from South Carolina may be another churned out manufactured starlet from the industry mould with catchy singles. I wasn't sure what to expect.