Emerging Artist Interview ‣ Nil Bambu
You Should Ask Nil Bambu About Love
An interview with the Florida-based romantic
Kurt
Writer
Updated
Until Nil Bambu can solely live life as the essence of love, her music will suffice as her take on such a complicated emotion. Based out of Florida, Bambu is an up-and-coming contemporary R&B artist, voicing her unique perspective on love and love-adjacent subjects (Sex? Nah, there’s more to it than that).
Bambu’s new EP, ‘Eternal Lover’, is a six-track project that explores the surface of her love-life up ‘til present day. Though the EP is short in length, Bambu is able to cover a lot of ground, the dirt beneath her feet being her processed thoughts on past relationships, situationships, and the various other entanglements that modern day love-seekers find themselves in.
For instance, the song “Incomplete” discusses the idea that not many of the people we get into a relationship with fully satisfy our idea of what love is supposed to be. In the end, it is only ourselves who we have to blame, when we understand that our expectations are the root of our own disappointment. Bambu’s ability to understand this puts her on an echelon that not many of her contemporaries in the jungle of love can reach.
“Runnin’ Plays” has a simple message: those other girls aren’t the one, you know where you are supposed to be (sort of like the vibes from Wanda Sykes’ character in Pootie Tang). Bambu knows that these dudes be playing around, dipping their toes (or maybe a different extremity) into any pool (pussy) that they can manage, like a child finding any and every puddle large enough to make a splash in on their walk home. These mf’s are quarterbacks, and while they can easily dump off to the nearby tight end, Bambu is begging them to throw the long ball; she’s wide open down the field, waiting for her moment to do her dance in the end zone. We're still talking about football, right?
Bambu is the voice of a generation, sharing experiences of romantic interpersonal relations that I hear all too often. However, if God needed just one tasteful recording of the human experience of love from this nexus of space and time, Bambu’s ‘Eternal Lover’ would be a good contender.
Bambu is on a journey, using love to share her experiences with love. She made her way to New York in April, where we were able to meet, and I was able to get an idea of who she is, where she’s been, and where she’s going. Inside of 368 Studio, Bambu shared her withdrawn thoughts on dating and modern romance in general, briefly discussed her practice of meditation, and of course, her music! The rest, well Bambu can speak for herself.
All photos by Smith Durogene @smithdurogene ; Cover art by Kurt @kurt.is.ig
Is this your first trip to New York?
Half Moon
No, not my first time. But this is my first time in action; I usually come for family friends.
Nil Bambu
Oh so this time is more of a business trip?
Business trip, yeah.
How’s your stay in New York been so far?
Fire, I got in yesterday. To be honest I haven’t slept. Well last night was my first night of sleeping. I couldn’t sleep the night before, I was just pumped. I just had mad energy. Normally I’m asleep, I love sleeping, but New York has me up. It’s been fun, it’s been great.
I have a love-hate relationship with New York, because I’m from Florida. [Florida is] quiet, we have beaches, it’s spread out. New York is a city, it’s tight, it’s loud.
Yeah, we got rats and shit.
[Laughs] Yall have rats and shit. But it’s beautiful. There’s no place like it.
There is not, but Florida is beautiful too. You moved there at a young age with your mother; do you remember how old you were?
Four. A tender four years-old.
What part of South Florida did you move to?
Broward County, like around the Fort Lauderdale area.
Okay so around Kodak’s area?
[Laughs]
You ever run into Kodak?
No, so Kodak is Pompano, I’m in like Sunrise-Lauderhill. It’s maybe like a 15-20 minute drive. But I’m from the suburbs, Kodak’s from the hood. Like he’s in the hood, I’m next to the hood. I live up the street, legit up the street.
Hey, the hood, the suburbs, I’m good with all of it.
I’ve gone to places he’s been, like events and stuff, but I never ran into him. But we love Kodak. He’s our Michael Jackson.
No matter how many times he goes to jail, I will still fuck with Kodak. Tell me about growing up with your mom in South Florida.
Well I grew up with my grandparents. We moved up here, just me and my mom, and then we lived with my grandparents for a while and that was really cool. You know we’re from the islands so we’re in each other’s business, on top of each other all the time.
My mom is literally my biggest supporter. My family, they’re taking a while to come around because they’re that “straight to school; education” type vibes, and I just wanted to focus on music. I wanted to chase my dreams, I wanted to give it a shot. I really love music. My mom is really my biggest supporter, day one, like “This is so great, I love it.” She never doubted for one second, ever.
That’s pretty dope. On your website, it says you were in a choir.
Chorus.
Chorus.
High School.
Okay, nice. When did you start making your own music?
I’m gonna come clean: I made my first song in middle school, and it was to this Neyo song, I think it was “So Sick”. I wrote my own lyrics, and I did this because my two friends were in love, and I was like, “Ima make a song for them.”
Mmm. I never heard anyone do something like that before. Your two friends were in love so you made them a love song?
It was like I foresaw the future.
That’s pretty dope, actually.
That was legit first, first song on CD. I legit have it on CD at the crib, like it’s a thing. I think I recorded it on a webcam. That was middle school, and then in chorus in high school – believe it or not, I was very shy. It was like if you know, you know she sings. I was an alto, the sopranos were a higher key, confident. The altos were cool and chill, I was very shy. I performed during shows and things or that nature that we did in chorus, but I was a shy ting for sure.
It wasn't until after high school that I kind of gained more confidence, but I also hated high school. So it could’ve been high school, not me, lowkey. Yeah, chorus taught me a lot. I remember my first year of chorus, my teacher was saying that, “Whether you want to be a singer, whether you’re into music or not, I guarantee you will leave here with something.” And I remember she said that, “By the time you’re done with” – I stayed in it all four years of high school – “you’re going to be able to hear the harmony in something, the lead in something, you’ll hear any song and be able to piece it out.” I literally can do that, any time.
That’s pretty dope.
Yeah, so I learned a lot. Shoutout to Ms. Fuller, she was a great lady.
Shoutout to Ms. Fuller; we love educators that really inspire, you know. Would you would say you started out with R&B?
My mom, I think I can give her all the credit for my musical palette. She was into very 80’s ballads, 90’s music. We’re from the islands where it’s nothing but reggae, dancehall. I’m pretty wide, but I think R&B was my first love, like, I love R&B. I’m like a lovey gal.
I’m really glad that you said it before I pointed it out. I am not trying to say it’s one-track minded, but the theme in a lot of your music is love. I love your song “All I Need,” I had it on repeat while I was on the train yesterday. I got an 80’s vibe from the beginning of it.
It’s synthy.
Yeah, exactly, that synth. It’s interesting that you are inspired by the 80’s and that you have this attachment to the idea of love. Are you trying to tap into an older sound of R&B or are you cultivating a new one?
I feel like I am an older sound of R&B. I love today, but nothing beats the 80’s and the 90’s. I feel like that was our peak of existence. As a humanity, the 90’s were peak existence, versus today. I would say, for me, because I’m glued to that real sound, really feeling things, real emotions, I would want to bring that, to the best of my ability, to music today without being – obviously it’s gonna be reminiscent of older vibes, but it’s still going to be modern because we’re in today’s time.
The best of both worlds; that new quality and how it sounds, but still that old vibe that we’ve somewhat lost.
Think about “Can We Talk” by Tevin Campbell. We have nothing like that today. Just the feel.
Soulless.
Yeah. I think that’s kind of my vibe.
Word. Most great R&B songs are about love. We are going to talk about love in general as it seemingly relates to your music.
Let’s do it.
What is your love language?
Oh my God – physical touch, I'm very touchy-feely. I don’t know, now that I think about it, I don’t know. I like people, being sensitive to people’s feelings. I like when people feel – not that we don’t have to say things, but I like the things that don’t have to be said to be understood.
Unspoken bonds.
And you can take that in whatever way. Mine aren't acts of service, it’s not really quality time, not really gift giving, I think it’s just physical touch, and I can’t remember the last one (words of affirmation). I like that unspoke, “you know you know” vibe, as far as love.
I get that. As a journalist, I have to dig a little to do a good job; on Twitter you said something about –
[Laughs] Whoa, I love how you set that up there. Great, cool.
Hey, it's public!
Oh my God, my Twitter is so embarrassing. I be tweeting crazy stuff, I need to chill out.
That’s okay because there was a lot of gold in there. You tweeted something along the lines of “I want to love existence itself”, and I feel like what you’re saying right now is along the lines of that. It can be physical, but maybe something more unbounded.
Okay, just to elaborate, I’ve always been in relationships since I was super small. I was a girlfriend-boyfriend kind of gal, like way too young for middle school. By the time I got out of high school and college, the whole time I was in long-term relationships. As I’m older now, being able to reflect, I genuinely feel like my love – and I could change, I don’t know – my love is, I don’t know if it’s meant to be bound. I don’t even know if love is meant to be bound to one singular person.
[Whispering] It’s not.
I do believe – this may be my experience in this life – I think I’m just supposed to be love, and love everyone. That doesn’t mean I’m on some poly shit, nothing like that, just that my existence is to become love, be loving. You have experiences with different people but I don’t know if I’m going to be bound and glued to one person. And if I do, we gotta be on some, I’m just here to share this journey with you.
We’re humans; I think we’re legit meant to love, and I think we bound ourselves and restrict ourselves. I said to my friend, I could fall in love with a tree. If the tree is vibe, like this is a great tree, I can fall in love with anything.
No, I 100% agree. It sounds silly, but in actuality, we are the essence of love. I’m not gonna say I can love that A/C.
You could.
I could. I love what it does for me.
[Laughing] If the temperature is right.
If the temperature was right. Like if it was hot outside and I walk in like, “Ooh, thank you A/C.” Walk up to it, drop a rose on it.
Be loving, be grateful to the A/C. Absolutely.
But seriously, love in the sense that you don’t necessarily just love people, you love certain things about them. You like animals –
Becoming in love with existence. Not necessarily a specific person. I think we would feel a lot better because we would be exhausting ourselves more, and you don’t put so much pressure on people.
Have you met anyone in your dating years or just in general that was close to giving you what you were looking for?
[Laughing] Yes but they’re a nut. They’re crazy, like they’re a crazy person. But it takes a crazy person to understand these types of these ideas of love. I feel like we’re not normally like that. Everyone’s like, “You’re a girl, you’re a guy, we’re rocking this out,” or girl-girl, guy-guy, whatever.
I think only one, but in that relationship, even to this day we're very cool now, it’s a friendship. We’re legit brother and sister at this point.
You went the whole way around from being strangers, to friends, to lovers, then back to strangers with a history.
No, we passed strangers with a history and now it’s love.
Platonic.
Yeah. Other than that, absolutely not. I think the closest thing is God. As far as that, it’s honestly God and just existence that’s the most fulfilling.
You brought up great points, all of which make absolute sense.
I love that we’re talking about this, this is great.
I mean you sing about this, this is why we’re talking about it. Are you actively dating now?
No. I think so, but no.
Elaborate, what do you mean you think you’re actively dating now?
I’m not opposed to the act of dating. If I were to meet someone and they wanted to date me, cool, great, but is there someone right now that I’m dating? No.
So I would say [Laughing] –
That’s why I said “I think so.”
That’s fair. What do you think is one of the biggest issues in modern relationships and just dating in general?
We put too much pressure on each other. Our expectations are way too high. That’s just the first, there’s so many answers, but that’s top. I think we put too much pressure. We know what we want, and then you expect that out of this person and forget this is a completely different entity. They’re their own world.
I feel like we put too much pressure; we don’t take enough accountability for that pressure. Maybe there’s things within me that I’m lacking that makes me want so much out of this person. We’re not really that kind and compassionate in a sense like, no one has any idea what they’re doing here, much less love.
[Sigh] That’s something… Do you meditate?
Yeah, I do. Everyday. At the bare minimum, 20 minutes a day. An hour is like a great day for me – I do a Kundalini meditation – but at the bare minimum, 20 minutes. It’s a sitting down one.
You’re gonna do great in life. How long have you been practicing that daily?
I’ve always been inclined to meditation and learning about awareness. I think when I got out of high school, I was 17-18, I started learning about myself more. I was into Buddhism, my family was big on Buddhism. I’d say when I was 23 is when I really locked in. Just exploring meditation, awareness, the power of your mind and body.
Also, I’ve gone through a lot of pain and suffering, and I just feel like that was the greatest solution for it. I think life is going to be pain and suffering the entire time, but I think that it’s being able to learn to suffer well; being able to go through life knowing it’s always going to be shitty to a certain degree.
I think meditation has helped experience my existence here. It brings you back.
It’s said that pain is, you can’t get past that. But suffering only happens when we –
Resist it.
Resist the pain, and try to get past it. Or we’re like, “I don’t want the pain, this hurts too much.” But it’s going to happen. Bad things will happen. The suffering comes from you not wanting it to happen, but that is outside of your control.
I think meditation has definitely helped me, not disassociate, but disconnect from that ego control.
Detach. The art of detachment.
Absolutely.
You say, “Music has served as a vulnerable and self-reflective experience. I was going to ask if you engage in any other activities that help you better yourself, and you brought up meditation. What have you learned about yourself?
50% I have no idea what I’m doing, and 50% I understand myself. I have no idea what I’m doing; who knows what they’re really doing. We wake up and think we know what we’re doing, but does anybody really really know. We’re going with the flow. We’re doing the best that we can everyday.
I think thus far, I’ve learned there’s so much more. There’s levels to this shit. I think I’m barely, like, I just poked my head in. It’s like day one type vibes in terms of life with deeper levels of understanding. But I think within the next 5-10 years, I’ll have a better foundation. I’m grounding myself to be able to get through this journey of life, which I think is cool. I’m still pretty young, some people never figured that out. They don’t even know what to think.
For the roughly 20-minutes we’ve been speaking, I can tell you have a good head on your shoulders. You understand the nuance to life, so no matter what you choose to do, you’re going to be great at it. I would say stick with the music though, cause it’s really good.
[Giggles]
There was something else on your Twitter that I found interesting…
That’s so funny, I’m a crazy person. I’m literally a crazy person on Twitter. It’s because I don’t have that many followers. I deleted it and then started over. I think I have like 80, maybe 90 at most followers. So I’m like, “Oh it’s only 90 of yall in here, we can talk crazy.” It’s not like Instagram where I’m thinking about it a little more. I be saying a lot.
I did see that you have a smaller following on Twitter than on IG. Eh, it’s all good. It allows you to –
[Laughing] I kinda like it.
Same for me. I don’t have many followers either so I just let the craziness fly.
[Laughing] “I let the craziness fly.” Lucky you! It’s a blessing.
It is, but when you’re trying to get stuff out there, it can be a hindrance, but it’s all good, I don’t really mind. You said on April 3rd of this year, “I legit should’ve gone to law school.” What happened there?
One thing I realized – me and my team, we were looking at contracts and realized – I just wish I knew everything. I don’t want to go to law school, I was being a little dramatic.
Two things I wish would have done if I didn’t go to college: Engineering, like music and sound engineering. I should’ve taken a class on that – I still can – and law. I wanna be able to see a contract and, on some Kim K shit, I can do my own contracts. I just think it’s super helpful. In any industry, but in the music industry, contracts, paperwork, it’s very important.
People are always tryna dupe you trying to get one over on you.
I’m the type of person that likes to know my shit. I like to know what’s going on and be as experienced I can be in anything that I’m doing. So I was like, “I should’ve gone to law school; I should be able to look at a contract and read it. But that’s why lawyers are here.
That’s true, but they make money off the fact that people don’t know certain things.
Yeah, I just like to be self-sufficient, that’s really what it is.
Self-sufficiency is key. Thank you for sitting down with me. One last thing before you go: what’s in store for the rest of 2023?
2023 is lit, I’m not gonna lie. I have a show coming up next week Saturday in Tampa (Florida), which is dope because I have never performed in Tampa, so it’s like I’m home, but it’s my first time being a county away. So there’s a show next week. I have an EP dropping early May, I have another single coming out. Music; 2023 is feeding time, giving the music and just having fun. Working, having fun, and being consistent. 2023 is lit, I’m lowkey excited.
2024? Too early to say?
Too early because you never know.
You never know how it’s going to go. Something wild could happen this year that exceeds any expectation you had.
Yup. 2023 could be 2024 is where I’m at with it. You never know. So just new music, new videos. Just working.
That’s all we can do.
Listen to Nil Bambu's latest EP, 'Eternal Lover', out now!