Nikka Costa wears Zachariah Bryant blouse
photo by Roger Erickson
Venus Zine fashionista Nikka Costa ‘gets her joy on’ with forthcoming album
Issue #37
By Naila Francis
Published: August 22nd, 2008 | 11:40am
It wasn’t intentional. Yet Nikka Costa can’t escape the distinction. Nor does the Los Angeles artist, known for her fierce funk sensibility and frenetic, sweat-drenched performances, want to. Over the course of two albums — her critically acclaimed U.S. debut, 2001’s Everybody Got Their Something, and its follow-up, 2005’s Can’tneverdidnothin’ — the pedigreed songstress has pedaled an affirming resilience and perseverance in the face of naysayers and constricting societal dictates with her lyrics. And her forthcoming album, Pebble To a Pearl, slated to be released October 14, is no different.
“I’ve kind of become the poster child for ‘Woo hoo! Be the best you can be,’” Costa says with a laugh. “I’m quite happy to fly that flag. I don’t understand where it originally stems from. But if everyone has a certain purpose in life or message they’re here to convey, it’s usually pretty streamlined to one or two things, and that must be mine.”
Consider the album’s title track, an exuberant, anthemic exhortation to women everywhere to celebrate their power. “It’s about time that we got our joy on,” Costa sings, insisting on a sisterhood of pearls instead of pebbles as she rides a slinky bass-driven groove. The positive theme is repeated in various incarnations throughout the CD. Whether she’s defiantly showing her backbone with the vintage-soul swagger of “Can’t Please Everybody,” valiantly overcoming life’s hurdles on the muscular “Keep Pushin,’” or decrying a consumerist culture that leaves no room for individuality and introspection with the feisty funk attack that is “Keep Wanting More,” Costa proves a tireless champion for self-expressed freedom and the pursuit of one’s passions.
“Half of it is my message and half of it is me telling myself that,” says Costa, who after finding slow and steady success delivering two albums for Virgin Records, kissed her label goodbye and launched her own Go Funk Yourself Records. “My career has unraveled in that vein — I’m having to go against the grain, persevere, and not follow the easy route and stick to my guns.”
Costa also attributes her independent ethos to her upbringing. Her father, Don Costa, arranged, composed, and produced music for the likes of Sammy Davis, Jr., Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, and Frank Sinatra (her godfather), with Costa herself making her recording debut at age 5 in a duet with Hawaiian singer Don Ho. By 8, she had already released her first album and opened for the Police.
“It would be weird if I had turned into a lawyer or something,” says the Toyko-born powerhouse. “As artists, you raise your children differently. You try to show them all different aspects, but you can’t help that music is in the house all the time and there are instruments everywhere. It’s inevitable for them to get a bigger dose of the creative lifestyle.”
Now a mother herself to a daughter, almost 2, the singer notes that her shifting perspectives couldn’t help but bleed into the new album, especially on the trip-hop–fueled closer “Bullets In the Sky,” both a plea and prayer for mothers who’ve lost their sons to war. “It’s just a worry that comes with being a parent,” Costa says of the song. “I was more driven to write a political song from that point of view than to try to be political.”
Though she intended to issue Pebble To a Pearl — produced by husband Justin Stanley — solely on her own label, the album will be released in conjunction with Stax Records, a fortuitous partnership given the record’s deeper retro soul vibe and Stax’s credentials. “All of those artists on that brand are some of my favorite of all time, so it’s pretty cool for me historically,” says Costa, who even before Stax came knocking, had given a shout-out to the label’s biggest star, Otis Redding, on the irrepressible album opener “Stuck To You.”
Costa says Pebble is the album she’s always wanted to make. “It’s happy and soulful like all those Stevie Wonder records I listened to when I was 13 that made me so excited, all that stuff from when he was on Motown,” she says.
With that kind of joy as her compass, the songs came quickly, the album recorded over five days at L.A.’s Henson Recording, with her and her band in one room, the horns and background vocals added later. “It was super old-school. Nobody does it like that anymore,” she says. “It was very free and as an artist, that’s what you always want to do, to just create what you want to create without having anyone outside telling you what to do.”
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GET MORE NIKKA
Check out eight pages of Nikka Costa modeling independent designers’ fall fashions in the fall 2008 issue of Venus Zine, on newsstands now through December 2008. Venus Zine is available at Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hastings, Books A Million, Waldenbooks, and record stores.
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