Having made a name for himself as a sixteen year old in Bermuda, Bento BDA has been on a musical journey via collaborations, music production and songwriting that has brought him to London. With his latest track ‘Personal’ and an EP titled ‘The Deep’ due out shortly, Matt Tarr caught up with with singer/songwriter to find out more…
MT: Having been brought up in Bermuda, what was the music like where you grew up?
Bento: Culturally it was all Reggae, R&B, Motown, all the classics. My pops was a musician as well and he did a lot of musical theatre and was in bands; he plays guitar to this day still in a couple of bars in Bermuda every now and again. So he opened me up to everything from Bob Marley and The Beatles to Elvis and Tupac and I just picked up on everything which is why I love all types of music. If it’s good, it’s good irrespective, although heavy metal I can’t really get on with yet, it’s a bit hard for me as I’m more of a chilled person coming from Bermuda. In Bermuda there are maybe one hundred people that are part of that market.
MT: You mention your dad as a big influence on you musically; would you ever consider working with him on a track?
Bento: When I was in school at Berklee College of Music he came to visit the studio and sat in the session we were doing. He then came to London and we got him recording some guitar on one of my things and we recorded some stuff in Bermuda too.
MT: In terms of the stuff we’ve heard from you so far, ‘Personal’ is the first track we’ve got our hands on. What has the feedback been like for the track so far?
Bento: Its been good, everyone’s liking it. The live shows have helped it as well. A lot of people have come up to me and said they’re captivated watching it which is cool. In soundcheck I’m very precise about stuff; if the mic doesn’t sound right I don’t like it. I like everything to be clear so people get the full attention of the music. I’m actually not a fan of going to gigs. I’ve been to see some of my favourite artists and I get bored midway through, I don’t know why, I just do and I never want that to happen for the live shows here, so I try and keep things short and sweet. But the feedback has been all good! The only bad thing is that it’s not a radio single but the next one is the radio track!
MT: ‘Personal’ sees you both rapping and singing but is there one that you prefer to do over the other?
Bento: I guess in pre school and primary school I was singing, middle school is when I got into reggae, rapping and toasting as we call it in Bermuda and then hip hop. So I like both and I have a fight with my vocal performance coach about it but I think I prefer rapping and then I prefer singing. It depends how I’m feeling, sometimes I start singing and then I put a rap on it or vice versa. The first song I ever recorded in Bermuda when I was thirteen was a singing and rapping one. I actually wrote about that in one of my songs because people say it’s like Drake or something, but I was doing the singing/rapping before Drake was even around and I’ve got the songs to prove it.
MT: Is what we hear on ‘Personal’ the kind of sounds we can expect to hear on your upcoming EP ‘The Deep’?
Bento: It is very wintery sounding and the soundscapes are very dark, atmospheric and moody. ‘Personal’ is quite a slow tempo and there are a couple on there like that. Everything has a really current feeling about it with a little bit of trap here and there and one obvious trappy, rap beat. There’s not really a happy song on there per se, it’s all about perseverance, struggling, getting through that and putting my own spin on it.
MT: Well I guess with a title like ‘The Deep’ we would expect those more meaningful and heartfelt tracks.
Bento: Right! And ‘The Deep’ also comes from a movie that was filmed in Bermuda back in the seventies. It was the only movie that was a big blockbuster to be filmed in Bermuda and my dad was working on the set back then. Actually the person that introduced him to my mum was the stunt double for Nick Nolte who was in the movie, it was about modern day pirates and shit like that, plus The Deep is another name for Bermuda like The Big Smoke for London. Every track has some water elements in it too!
MT: With regard to your writing for other people, is that something you wanted to do above pushing yourself as a performer?
Bento: I wasn’t putting myself out there at the time but was always working on my own music in the studio, but opportunities came about and I’ve always been the type to do all kinds of music so I can go in and out of different genres. The opportunity to start writing for people and getting published came about with Bluey Robinson and I started doing that. From there I developed my production and my mixing, I never really had a problem writing lyrics, it was more with the technical stuff in terms of the music. But I always look at it like a Kanye thing or a Pharrell thing where you can do both, so it’s pretty dope. I’ve been working with a few good artists writing here and there and putting my production on a lot more things.
MT: Having written and worked with several other artists, you’ve also recently opened for US rapper The Game. How did that come about?
Bento: Through Hipman Junky, another singer doing his thing right now and working with Rudimental and people like that. We worked together on a few things and may be shooting a video soon as well. He’s been on his grind for a while and came up with the Benny Banks team. He’s got the cockney singing thing going on with a little bit of the thugness, so it’s a nice mix and something different which is refreshing. He just pulled me up and said “yo we’re doing The Game gig, you wanna come through?” so we did a couple of our tracks. Dappy was there too and Paigey Cakey, so those were the other two UK acts.
MT: If you were to launch an album tomorrow that could feature any artists, who would you have featuring alongside you?
Bento: Obviously a couple of my boys from Bermuda like Case, who’s one of the best in Bermuda doing it right now. The team here as well, Bluey [Robinson] and Raheem [Bakare] etc, but I’d probably like to do something with Wiley cos he can spit. Toro y Moi as well who is dope and does indie soulful pop shit, plus Ab-Soul and Kendrick too. Sade would be dope too!
MT: Am I right in thinking you won an award whilst you were in Bermuda for your service to music?
Bento: Yeah when I was sixteen. The only other big name to come out of Bermuda was Collie Buddz, who had the track ‘Come Around’ and he still tours off that one album. When that song came out I was sixteen and I had put a song out called ‘Working On You’ and sent it to the programme director at the biggest station in Bermuda at the time, Hot 107.5 and he liked it. That song then got picked up and got spun in loads of places and it got an award, ‘Song Of The Year’ in 2005. The Government do awards for the top teens in the country in terms of sport, music, performance arts etc and I won the music one which was dope!
MT: Alongside making your own music, you also somehow manage to find time to DJ at The Bohemia in North Finchley. Is DJing something you’re quite passionate about too?
Bento: I’m more passionate about the songwriting and production side of things but the DJing I started in school. I took a side course learning how to do some DJing and I actually skipped loads of classes so I didn’t really go to the DJ classes, but after one or two lessons I had it in my head. I like it but it’s not a big one for me. I’ve always been the one to grab my iPhone and plug it in at parties and always been the one to start playing the music and stuff but I just don’t know if I like standing on my feet all night playing music that I hope will it. But I’ve never had a stale gig so it’s alright!
MT: Do you ever slip your own tracks in when you’re DJing?
Bento: I did the other night! Bluey came through with the mans and I played ‘Good Times’, the track we did together, so as he came in I stuck it on but that’s the only time!
To keep up with all the latest news and info from Bento BDA make sure you follow the man himself on Twitter and Facebook and keep your eyes peeled for his EP The Deep which will be released very soon!
Matt Tarr
@MattTarrJourno
Matt Tarr
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