Words Annabel McLeod
Hot off the release of her new single, Be, we spoke to Welsh/Ghanaian singer-songwriter Rhian Benson.
Raised in Ghana, Wales and India, Benson grew up surrounded by music – her mother was a singer, her father a guitarist, her grandfather a musician and her uncle a session singer. She returns to Ghana three times a year but when pushed to define where she's based, is more elusive: "I don't have a fixed address. For now I'm probably London, next year might be more America or I might be back to Ghana again."
The Accra-born artist came to the public's attention in 2003, with the release of her debut album, Gold Coast, which earned her a cluster of awards including a MOBO for Best Jazz Act in 2005. So where has she been since then?
"I was about to start writing for the second album and my old label went out of business," she explains. "It left me in no man's land musically". Benson suffered a tougher loss in 2006 when her mother passed away. "That changed my whole personal setup in a major way, it turned the family upside down and music took more of a back seat. I'm glad it did as I gave me time to think about what I wanted to say before the next album and to something daring and bold. Hands Clean [her new album] is a very different sound to Gold Coast."
Indeed it is. Electro-tinged production and blues lyrics abound, while on up-tempo dance track Be, Benson references old-school electronica. "Jonas [Rendbo, Danish singer/producer] came up with the first verse," explains Benson. "I came up with the pre-chorus. We started layering harmonies. I made the melody as went along. It happened really organically."