Rising Indie Star Zanillya Breaks Down Her 'Choose Life' EP, Family Legacy & More
On a sunny afternoon in late July, The Crypt's very own Malcolm sat down with Zanillya to discuss her latest project and the myriad of elements that go into her melting pot of inspiration.
“The EP is a snapshot of me facing my demons and being open about it. The title of the EP is an affirmation that no matter how dark it gets I should never forget to Choose Life.”
Beautiful things happen when an artist creates with intention. On her 2021 EP Choose Life, Zanillya does just that. The Netherlands-based singer-songwriter pulls no punches, taking the listener along with her on a journey towards womanhood, self-love, and peace of mind. Zanillya's vocal efforts are placed over graceful dancehall-inspired production.
Just six tracks and 17 minutes in length, the EP is a perfectly paced snapshot into the mind of a woman trying to define herself on her own terms. The project opens with the beautifully inspiring “Stand Up Interlude” before transitioning to “Sacrifices”. “Sacrifices” is a track with an infectious dancehall beat that meshes effortlessly with Zanillya's melancholy lyrics, a dynamic also seen on the very next song, “Million Reasons”. “The Love What You Do Skit” that follows serves as the project's thesis, bolstering the theme of loving oneself before loving anything else. Choose Life is capped off by “Nothing to Lose”, returning to themes of despair and existentialism before ending with the grand, choir-backed finale “Alive”.
Just like in the real world, the EP contains moments of immense joy followed immediately by moments of intense pain and then joy again. Listening to Zanillya speak on the almost three-year recording process—recording while in therapy, constantly doubting her craft, finally learning to trust her intuition. The end result of these proceedings revealed a genuine woman who chooses to live life daily through her art.
The Culture Crypt: This EP transcends genre, implementing elements of dancehall, lo-fi and R&B. What inspired you to tackle that kind of variety in your music, and who did you grow up listening to?
Zanillya: “I just always gravitated towards music. It was just in me that I loved all of those genres. I couldn't do anything else but put all of that in one.”
A lot of the artists that inspire me are Afro-Caribbean. Whether that's Bob Marley or the wide array of artists out today like Burna Boy and Wizkid. On the other side of the fence, I gotta say I love Kid Cudi. He's heavily inspired me as his themes are very dark. Cudi speaks about what he's going through and his mental health. I felt like if I put that together with the dancehall and the afrobeat, that would be my own little unique mashup. That's something that's going to make me stand out more. So, Kid Cudi, Frank Ocean, Nina Simone and the pain that she embodies in her music.”
This project is incredibly vulnerable and very introspective while also being something you can move and dance to, which is a great dynamic. What kind of headspace were you in that made that happen?
“Great question. Naturally, I'm a very open and fun person. I love life, and I love people. I love music. With my dad [the late Bobby Farrell] being an artist too, his mood swings affected me as a young girl, making me very moody and sad a lot of time, which people don't naturally see when they meet me. But in my music, I really wanted to be as vulnerable and open as I could.”
“I was in therapy for the last three years and stopped last year, so this record was made while going through therapy. So, it was me expressing myself, going into the studio, and what I was feeling that day was what I would create. So almost all of the records were freestyle, just me behind the mic freestyling how I feel. So, like Sacrifices, the more Afro-dancehall track, I did the whole song freestyling the melody and then just pieced the words together.”
The transition from “Million Reasons” to “Love What You Do Skit” was probably my favourite moment on the EP. I didn't know that was a freestyle which is crazy, but can you talk about how they came about, specifically the skit—is that your voice in the beginning?
“That's not my voice, it's my close friend. She's like my sister. It was done in February of last year, but then COVID hit, so we had to wait, and creating the visuals was a little bit harder than we expected it to be. But even ‘Million Reasons' is a song that's already two years old. So, my friends have been hearing this music, and they're telling me I have to release it.”
“We were very inspired by ‘The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill’ album, where Lauryn crafted her own skits, so we were like 'let's make it sound like that,' combined with Frank Ocean, the long skit he has with people talking on the street. So, we wanted to mash that up, and were like...this really stands for the journey I've been taking, that I need to love me first. Before I can let anyone else love me and what I do, I need to love myself. And that's still a journey! But that's how the skit came about.”
What was the recording process like? And were there times when you where wanted to quit?
“Definitely man. Honestly, I have this duality within me: I believe in myself and I don’t believe in myself. I have moments I love myself. I have moments I don’t love myself. There are moments I believe in my music, and there are moments I don’t believe. There are continuous mood swings... which is also maybe part of me being a woman, though that’s not always true. But I’m very moody, so there were definitely times when I didn’t believe in it. I really had to count on my environment to tell me that I was on the right track and I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.”
"As far as the recording process: my producer Humphrey Dennis and I went in the studio, he would make something, I would grab the mic, after five minutes we would lay down my vocals. This was the process for a lot of my tracks like “Million Reasons”. That was really just freestyle.”
Can you speak to your journey as a woman of colour in the music industry, especially after your father, Bobby Farrell, the frontman and face of Boney M, was essentially exploited by his label?
“My father was very hard on me. He tried to steer me away from music his whole life, which made me doubt myself because I always felt that my dad didn't believe in me. But at the end of his life, I asked: "Dad, why are you always so hard on me? Don't you believe in me?." He said: “Zanillya if I tell you to do something and listen to me, it doesn't come from within.” Nobody told me to pursue music, and here I am."
“The trauma he experienced in the music industry tainted him, and I saw that up close what the music industry can do to you. It made me just so much more aware of everything. My dad told me to go to school, so I went to music school. I learned about contracts. He taught me all of that. It made me a little bit too cautious, too careful, but in a sense, it has protected me—I own my music, and I can live off my music. I haven't signed any bad deals, so that helped me find my own way and not expect anyone to give me anything.”
I really enjoy your sense of style, very retro while remaining chic. How does it play a part in your artistry?
“I feel like you know me because it's such an essential thing to me. My mom is a fashion designer! She used to make all my dad's clothes. When he was in Boney M, he didn't know her because there was a significant age difference, but she was in fashion school when he met her. Her parents married her away to another man, and my mom ran away to my dad. After that, she started making his clothes. So, I was raised with that. She was sowing and designing. I started performing when I was 8, and she would make my outfits. My mom is ten times me! We would always bump heads; it was a whole thing. And my dad was very glittery, so he didn't like my tomboy style.”
The baggy stuff!
“Exactly! When I saw Aaliyah, I was like this is it, and my parents did not approve. So, for years I had to fight for my own style, and I can hear my dad in my ear now saying: “You look like a boy. Nobody goes on stage like that, they go to the grocery store like that.” But I don’t believe that! I like my style, it’s effortless to me. I like to be comfy; I have my jogging pants on right now, my trainers, I can go a little bit over the top but it always has to be boyish. Why? I don’t know, it’s in me.”
What’s next for you?
“I want to consistently keep giving music. It’s been such a long journey for me to really find myself and own myself and love myself. I feel like I’m finally ready to just give people more of me, without continuously trying to perfect it so that people don’t have to wait for four years. I hope that I can keep my promise to myself, I have some great sessions coming up with some dope-ass magazines in the UK and Holland, so yeah that’s what I wanna do. More music, more visuals, I have a whole idea of what I want my live show to look like, just creating more of this sound and getting it to the level I aspire to.”
Stream Choose Life below.