Lucille Slade, who rose to popularity early this year when she took South African hip hop songs and turned them into melodic covers, has released her debut album, is working on a new EP and has a social media campaign that’s gaining traction.
Slade, from the Northern Cape, is known for her take on hip hop and RnB.
Scratch the Surface, her debut album, is the tip of the iceberg for the 23-year-old’s plan to become one of the biggest music stars in the country.
“Scratch the Surface is doing really well, Walk in the Light is on a couple of radio stations and I will be shooting a video for that soon, but like I say to so many people, putting together this album for me was a really huge accomplishment and having people show me via social media that they bought the album is so great,” she said.
“The name of this album is so important because by naming it Scratch the Surface I am saying that there is so much more to come from me in terms of music.
“This is only the beginning for me,” she said.
Slade started working on the album in March last year after meeting with her producer.
“So the producer and I had been making music together and we then decided that we had enough material to put together an album. The actual process of putting the album together was not difficult but it was a great learning curve.
"We had made all these songs and then we did not know which to include in the album or which songs will resonate with people but essentially we just made a body of work that I liked and one that resonated with me,” Slade said.
She said that although the production process was easy, she found it challenging sharing pieces of herself.
“At first I found it difficult, but then I realised that some things you just need to let go and put it in the music. For an artist, music is the perfect way to actually deal with whatever circumstance or issues you are dealing with, that’s what I learnt. At the time of course I did not know but now I realise how therapeutic it was.”
A post shared by Lucille Slade (@lucille_slade) on Sep 25, 2017 at 7:15am PDT
Slade has also launched a social media campaign that aims to shine a light on the women of South Africa.
#WalkInTheLight was inspired by Slade’s self-composed song of the same name, which is on her debut album.
The #WalkInTheLight campaign aims to raise awareness of not only female heroes and role models of our nation, past and present, but also tries to encourage women and men to share the light that they bring to society.
“The song really helped me at a time in my life where I was feeling low and needed to get out of a dark space. Everyone in the world has a difficult circumstance in their life, whether it’s economic issues or women’s issues, I felt that we needed a positive spin on everything that is happening so the challenge is really about people taking their power back and focusing on the positive. So you put up a picture or a video and let other know about someone who has inspired you out of your darkness and into your light”, she said.
Slade said that some of the women who have inspired her include her mother. “It might be so clichéd but I have seen her journey. I have seen her make difficult choices, I have seen her get up when things were really horrible, as her first born I walked through a lot with her and all I see is an amazing woman when I look at her.”
“I really want to do an EP. I want to introduce a new sound that is different from the album and I have started working on it already. I have about five songs on it already. I will also be doing a couple of live shows and, of course, I will be doing a lot of promoting for the album and the campaign,” she said.