Pivoting from a successful career in musical theatre to one as a solo artist on Drake‘s OVO label may sound like the stuff of fiction, but for Naomi Sharon, this is reality. Speaking over Zoom from her new home in the Netherlands, the Caribbean-Dutch artist recalls the memory: Drake messaged her on Instagram in 2019, asking her to send him her music when she had just three songs out. “I didn’t really believe it. I took it seriously, but at the same time like, ‘Yeah, we’ll see’,” she says of her chance encounter with the Toronto rapper and label boss. “I didn’t realise that I was going to end up at OVO.”
Up to this point, Sharon was new to the industry, but no stranger to music. She grew up singing around the piano with her family, and funnelled her instinct to perform into theatre school growing up. She went to theatre school in Rotterdam, before dropping out to pursue her career; she would go on to perform in productions like The Lion King, Dream Girls and Tina: The Musical. She was doing eight performances a week for three years and ended up having to undergo vocal surgery – this was a watershed for Sharon, who was forced to reassess her priorities.
“If I’m doing something that has such an impact on my health, it has to be something that I decide and do for myself instead of a company,” she says today. Sharon had been writing her own music and performing it on the side of her musical theatre career for a while, and while she was recovering from her operation, she decided to make the leap to focusing on her own artistry.
‘Obsidian’, due October 20, is an album that soothes in its vulnerability. Sharon’s love for spirituality works its way into the record: the title references an experience she had wearing an obsidian necklace and feeling it get heavier throughout the day, she says, as it absorbed the negative energy she experienced.
Elsewhere, spectral arrangements foreground her voice as she details moving through all the whirlwind emotions of heartbreak, from the painful feelings of regret that embellish ‘Celestial’ to ‘Regardless’ and its overarching theme of acceptance. Sharon makes a commitment throughout the album to transform that pain into something productive, in order to create change for herself.
How did you find your own voice as a solo artist?
“I didn’t feel really comfortable in a musical because I had my own voice and I had to then alter it for the musical style. It was tough to be an individual with my own voice and still be a part of this company where I needed to sound [a particular way]. After the vocal surgery, I already knew my style, it must have been baked in somewhere with coming from a heavily musically oriented musical family. We were listening to jazz and Stevie Wonder and Sting, Sade, all these amazing artists, so it was baked into my soul and these influences were always a part of me. It got to shine when I did my own thing, so I tried to do that more while also being in a musical.”
How did you find it writing the album, given that your career as an artist was very much nascent when you got picked up by OVO?
“They’re very easy-going at OVO, they were like, ‘Just make as many songs as you can and then we’ll figure it out.’ I was like, ‘No, I need a goal’. I was planning to go to Toronto for three weeks to record a little bit, and I was already planning like, ‘They’re telling me not to go into album mode, but let’s do it. Let’s see if we can do an album in three weeks.’
“We ended up in the studio making a song every day, which is very special. It was a really tough period for me, ‘cos I was going through a lot of emotional turbulence when it came to my love life, but it really helped me to dig deeper and tell a truthful story which people can relate to eventually.”
Do you have any standout memories of recording ‘Obsidian’?
“I remember one of the songs, ‘Myrrh’. If you’re emotional and going through it, one of the toughest things is to use that in your music ‘cos sometimes you don’t want to talk about it. My producer, who is also a writer, was like, ‘Let’s go to the studio’, and I was like, ‘No, I need a day off.’ He was playing something and started a melody, and I was immediately activated and triggered by it. It was amazing, and one of the most emotional songs on the album.
“It’s a very special one, ‘cos how nice is it when you work with a writer who’s first of all your friend, but who also understands what you’re going through and can put that into words with you? It meant a lot to me; that day will always be a memory that will be very close to me.”
“Spirituality is flowing in everything that I do”
Your general musical practice is very much linked to spirituality. How do you work that into songs or writing?
“Wherever I am, I’m always looking for a spiritual shop where I can buy my candles and my crystals or whatever – we went into this shop in Toronto when we were making the album, we bought a candle, and we set our intentions in the studio. I think that with every song I make, I’m very aware of what I’m writing. Whenever I’m writing about a heartbreak, for example on ‘Myrrh’, or talking about how hurt I am, I set the intention for me to get better, to heal and to meet someone that can give me more.
“Whenever you’re writing something down or saying something, you’re speaking it into existence. That’s what I believe. So spirituality is flowing in everything that I do. Sometimes I like to use, not a spell but an intention in the music, and no one really notices – but it’s different frequencies that you play with.”
Naomi Sharon’s debut album ‘Obsidian’ will be released on October 20 via OVO