Erika de Casier: You Can Call Me Anytime

The singer Erika de Casier is nothing if not introspective. She sings in a gentle whisper that belies her music’s existential concerns. On “Drama,” a single from her sophomore album, ‘Sensational,’ De Casier unravels her own internal monologue with invigorating precision. She’s dissecting the particulars of her less-than-chill actions. “I didn’t mean to cause any drama,” she croons. “Somehow it always gets me.” On “No Butterflies, No Nothing” she mourns a fading romance with soft specificity.“ I’ve been looking real closely / Didn’t really find nothing,” she sings over a radiant club beat. “Guess I got no excuse / It’s just not feeling right, what we doin’.”

De Casier’s 2019 debut, ‘Essentials,’ featured sensual R&B laced with the frenetic production of U.K. dance music. Songs like “Do My Thing” and “Little Bit” earned her comparisons to Sade and Aaliyah, and made de Casier a household name among a set of sensitive dance music fans. On ‘Sensational,’ she leans further into the influences from her debut, transposing emotional heft onto dance music euphorics. Except now, she’s far from alone in her quest for emotional depth. The past year of global shutdowns forced the entire world to look inward. 

Thankfully, we now have a soundtrack. 

Has this time, has it given you any space to make new things or think about music differently?

Yeah. In the beginning, I was feeling very uninspired, or it’s difficult to write love songs, for example, when you feel like there are more important things going on. I don’t know. I guess I had to look at it more as an escape to make music, to be like, “Okay, I’ll deal with it when I’m not making music.” But yeah, it gave me a lot of time to make music because fortunately, I don’t… I’m not, what’s it called, dependent on any band or a producer or anything to write music, so it was actually pretty, I think, healthy for me also to not have all this FOMO and I didn’t have to play any gigs, either. That gave me a lot of time that I didn’t expect.

Did you make a whole album during quarantine?

Yeah, I made an album, but some of the tracks I already wrote: like, I already wrote the song. But then during quarantine, tracks that I had forgotten or that I was like, “This is nothing,” I was giving more of a chance because I had time to look at it. Then I completely changed them up.

How did you connect with your own creativity during this time?

That’s a good question. I guess I used a lot of time thinking how my life was before quarantine and how many things I took for granted, and also it really gave me time to reflect on some situations that I experienced, also in my love life, to be like, “That actually wasn’t how I wanted to react in that situation,” if that makes sense. For example, I wrote this song that’s called “Polite” and it’s actually just me recalling this date. The song is how I would’ve wished I would’ve reacted. Does that make sense? Actually, I’ve been writing a lot with this reflective mind instead of just writing about how it went down. Being more like how I should’ve been like, “No, this is not okay,” you know? 

Did quarantine gave you an opportunity to look inward a bit differently.

Definitely. And also because, you know, when I wrote Essentials it was also in this very private state. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do that with this album or with the music I was making because I was traveling so much. When I wrote Essentials I wasn’t traveling at all. I was just working and making the album: like working in the kindergarten and going to school and doing all this. This forced me to be in that space again, so it was actually… For music writing, I think it was a good thing for me to close off the world, in a way.

You just signed to a label and I guess that’s probably the biggest difference between the first record and this one. What was that experience like?

That was crazy. Because they gave me the offer before quarantine and I was super excited about it. But then when the lockdown happened and all the shows were canceled and stuff, I was like, “Okay, they’re just going to drop the offer. This is not going to happen.” Then we asked them and they were like, “No, it’s still on.” It’s super crazy because for me it was such a gift. To have this happening was really like a bright side, I think.

Did you feel like there were expectations this time around since when you wrote Essentials you were on your own and now you have more of a fan base and an audience?

I went through this period, I think, where I was thinking about what people would think or if it wasn’t like Essentials or if it was too much like Essentials. I was comparing it with Essentials all the time. But then I began seeing the work I made by itself in a way. It became it’s own after a while and then it was easy for me to separate the expectations and what I was doing, because when I sit in the studio I never think, “This will sound good in a club,” or, “This will sound good,” or, “These people will like it,” because if I do that it just kills all motivation. I try to have fun with it every time.

When you write music, how do you find inspiration for yourself?

I always make a sketch first: like the production sketch. I make the production sketch and then I start writing little bits. I mumble some stuff on it. Then all of a sudden I feel this urge that I know what the theme is: “Oh, this is the theme.” Or I mumble something where I’m like, “This is the theme.” Then I write on it and try to write as much as I can in the first section. I don’t like to, for example, write a little piece and then close it off and go do something else. I like to sit the whole day, write the whole song, or the sketch of the whole song because I feel like that first kick is the most important because afterward you can change it up a bit but it’s hard to get in that same feeling.

Then when I have the sketch I always change up the production a bunch and I also work with my friend [Nathan Sacks], who’s also known as DJ Central and El Trick. We’ve been friends forever and he knows my style and my music. Then we sit together and mix it and maybe he’ll be like, “I know exactly what bass line this needs,” and then we sit back and forth and work on it and finish it. But the first sketch, like the heart of the track, I guess, and the lyrics, I write at the same time, if that makes sense.

How do you and Central know each other?

We went to school together in Denmark. Because he was already DJing and producing stuff when I wasn’t even looking at music. I remember going to his shows and being like, “He’s cool,” when I didn’t know him yet. Then we went to school and I got to know him and we started to listen to music together. I was really blown away by his music knowledge. He knew so much music because he’s a record digger. And me, I was more like, “I watch MTV.” That was my thing. I listened to whatever my friends were listening to. I wasn’t really digging for anything like that. I remember when I was younger I went to the library and that was where I got all my music. I borrowed CDs and if I liked the cover that’s how I discovered so much music. Then I went home, put it on my computer, put it back. We didn’t have Spotify or iTunes. But yeah, I was really inspired by the catalog in his mind of music. Then through the years, we’ve synced up more and more, even if I’ve been in other projects and he’s been in other projects. I knew when I started making the sketches I didn’t really want to show them to anybody. I think I made the track “Puppy Love” and “What You Want to Do.” I didn’t want to show them to anybody but then I was like, “He’s my old friend and I just made these tracks. It’s nothing.” Then I showed him and he’s like, “Yo, we have to put this out.” 

Do things feel stressful now that there’s a label involved?

There’s more pressure in like, “I have to finish this by this date for it to be released on this date,” which I didn’t have before because it was in my own time. But I still set my own deadlines even though I’m with a label now. It’s not like they’re like, “You need this two-year plan.” It’s not like that at all. It’s me that is saying, “I want to release an album,” and they’re helping me get to that point. Also, I actually think deadlines help me a lot to structure my day more, especially now when there are no gigs. It’s fairly manageable because I know exactly what I’m doing in this period. There are only one or two things to look at. Right now it’s actually manageable.

Does it feel like a job at this point?

Of course, it is what I do, but I think that’s the beauty of it, that I made it my job, is that I like doing it. I don’t see it as a job even though it is my job. I see some parts to be my job. I see when I’m writing emails and having meetings and stuff, I see that as my job, but when I’m making music it’s something by itself. I don’t say, “Okay, I’m going to work now,” when I’m going to the studio: “I’m going to go do some work.” That would really, like, sound bad.

Do you find yourself always leaning into the subject matter of love and romance or on the new record?

I guess I’m expanding this theme because I touched so many cliches. I feel that it’s in the cliché that I find something deeper and I think with this album I guess… It’s hard for me to look at from a distance because I’m making it now, so it’s difficult to put words on it when it’s not done yet, but I guess I’m looking at more of a mature viewpoint, and also I’m looking at it from, of course, a woman’s perspective because I am a woman, but it’s… Like I said the thing about me trying to write how I wish I would’ve reacted to some things. It’s like grabbing some love cliches and then pointing out the silliness of it. Does it make sense?

For example, a typical date situation. Even though it’s like, “It’s just love,” no, but it’s like the structure in that date format. I’m sorry, it’s difficult for me to explain in English, but it’s like it’s… I feel that in my lyrics I try to put in a lot of symbols and critique points without me saying like, “This is fucked,” but just by the tone of my voice or the situation and the self-irony. That’s a word, right? Self-irony?

Would you say it’s a little sarcastic?

It’s difficult for me because it’s a balance for me. It’s a balance of meaning what I’m saying and saying it with a bit of sarcasm. But there’s a truth to everything, you know? And also finding myself in this, for example, some traditional straight love roles and being like, “This is fucked, but this what I’m used to also, and this is what I actually like. Should I be ashamed of that?”

So you’re exploring both the critiques but also the experience of it.

My whole life I’ve been told this one thing, so this one thing feels right. The guy pays when you go out or he holds the door. He’s a gentleman. You are listening and very passive, or you’re pleasing. That’s your role. You’re pleasing. Then all of a sudden it’s like, “No, I’m not going to please anybody! I’m going to please me and you should please me!” That is also a bit funny. It’s a funny situation. So I have that all of a sudden in your life as a thing. 

It’s almost like you’re making empowering music. I think of Destiny’s Child or a lot of early 2000s R&B.

Yeah. Destiny’s Child has been such an inspiration for me. It’s crazy. I guess you could hear that as well. I can’t sing as well as Destiny’s Child but the message for independent woman, that was so much ahead of its time and it created a big impact, especially on me because I was raised only with other white kids and seeing other girls look like me being like, “You should be independent and you shouldn’t take shit from anyone.” I guess I try to do that in music, too: to not be the victim in it, even if I am.

As a young kid of color, how did you connecting with R&B impact you musically?

I grew up in this  small itty-bitty town, and my brother and I were the only kids of color that I saw anywhere. I experienced so much racism there. It was also a different time, but for me to turn on MTV and to see people like me was so important for me. It was like, “Okay, there are other people like me and they are successful and they are doing things and it’s possible and nobody’s going to tell me anything.” In Denmark, people weren’t watching Netflix and seeing other kinds of people. My town is known to be Denmark’s oldest town. Their high school was founded in the year 1100.

Whoa.

Yeah. So to come there as a kid — because I moved there from Portugal — was very crazy. Then of course all the other kids, nobody looked like us. At one point, two Muslim girls enrolled in the school and people would take away their hijabs. And because I got bullied, I remember this point where the teachers were like, “Okay, Erika and these two other girls, you spend your recess inside while the other kids play outside,” and to them, the problem was fixed.

How did your family end up in Denmark from Portugal?

I moved here with my mom and my brother. My dad who is from Cape Verde. He already moved back when I was like six, so when I was eight my mom decided to move me and my brother to Denmark because she’s from Belgium and she wanted to go back to the north, I guess, and she wanted us to have better opportunities with education and stuff like that. So she decided to move and she got a job and that’s just how it happened.

Do issues of identity come up in the music that you’re making now? Especially considering the climate of the past year?

With my lyrics, I’m never that overt. For example, I never say any gender. I never say any he or any she. I think it would take away some of the focus. I try to create feelings, so I don’t know. Because I was thinking that and I was feeling a lot of shame, actually, with like, “I should make a song about all this inequality that I’ve felt throughout my whole life.” And then I actually felt like, I guess I’m not ready for it. Maybe it will come one day but I don’t want to force it at all, because I think for many it’s a trauma. For me to be writing about the stuff I experienced as a kid would be… I don’t know. Not yet.

Do you feel a responsibility to be more vocal about inequality? 

I think about the people I work with, especially when it comes to gender. I always try to think about other women that I want to work with because it’s very easy, I think, especially when you’re doing art, that you think, “I need a photographer,” and then for some reason it’s a male photographer that comes up to your mind and then you go with that.  I try to also, when I talk to people, just say my opinion, but I’m not very active on social media so it’s very difficult for me but I try to make people aware of my beliefs, and I think I have made that very clear.

But it’s also been difficult for me because my mom is white and my dad is black. I feel like if I say that I’m black then some people will say, “You’re not really black.” It’s just difficult because I feel like, “If I’m not black, then why did I experience all this racism in my life? That doesn’t make sense.” But on the other side, I can also understand it. I feel like I’ve been walking a bit uncertain.

I think it’s interesting that you mentioned you don’t really use social media because I think there is something mysterious about your music. Is that more of an intentional thing for you? Do you kind of try to keep to yourself with things?

I don’t necessarily try to keep it to myself, but I like it to grow organically. For example, I don’t do ads on Facebook, I don’t do ads on Instagram, because I feel when I see an ad I feel I see the machine. I don’t see the artist. I’d rather wait a very long time to grow the music, to let the music grow, instead of pushing it so much that it’s like being pushed down someone’s throat. I don’t like that. Just like when I was a kid and I found a CD or my friends will be like, “Have you heard this CD?” Because I think if the music is good enough it will be fine.

I think it’s proven true for you, at least.

Yeah.

Is there anything that you are most excited about on this next record?

Yeah, I’m excited about the videos and to show people what I’ve made because I haven’t shown it to that many people. Just like friends that have asked. Some days I’m super excited and I can’t wait for it to get out and other days I’m like, “I can’t release this. I’m never going to release this. I’m just going to burn this hard disk.” But no. I’m just excited for it to come out. I’m excited for people to hear it, because they are always super — or they were when I released Essentials —  nice about writing and saying what it sounded like to them and all these feelings that they got when they listened to it. It gives me a lot of post joy after releasing.

And also, of course, if I get to go out to play. 2022 maybe. I’m looking forward to that because I think it’s it’s going to be exciting to see, when it does get back to normal, how people will be in a concert situation with that pause in mind: What it will be like to be out playing again. Or if it will just go straight back to normal or if it will actually change the way we play concerts.

You didn’t really get to do as much touring for Essentials as you would’ve been able to.

Yeah, no, I was going to the States. I was going to play South by Southwest. I was going on tour in Australia. Europe. But that was all canceled. I haven’t experienced tour life or anything. I’ve never been on a bus and have it be like, “Okay, next town or city.” I haven’t done the whole thing yet, so that will be exciting if it happens.

Do you feel like when you were making this album you had that in mind, that most people are going to be listening to this at home for a long time?

No, but I was actually thinking… because I made a new live set in quarantine as well… how I wanted to do it. I’ve been thinking about ways to create a show with people sitting down with distancing. I’ve been thinking a lot about that because it’s a different experience than people being in a crowd like, “Woo!” It’s sitting two meters distance… because I’ve been to concerts like that. It’s more of a… It becomes less of an artist-audience interaction but more of a performance that you sit down and watch, which I actually like. Almost like you’re going to watch an opera or something.

You want to create that sort of experience?

Yes, I think so, because it also takes away some of the pressure to be like, “Hey, what’s up guys? Are you having fun tonight?” Because I’m not that type of performer anyways. For me, at least, it’s a good thing that I can sing in my own level, because you tend to… at concerts… You listen to a record at home and it’s super chill and the vocals are mellow and then you go to a concert and it’s just this notch up. The vocalists give a bit more and it’s more of a blast, especially like when I go to see hiphop concerts. You have this… And the production is just like this production and is super mellow vocals but then when you go to see the concert it’s just like yelling and these live drums, whereas sometimes I think, “It would’ve been cool if…”

I think that’s a smart way of thinking.

Mm-hmm.