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When you're telling the Mark de Clive Lowe story, one of the first questions that comes to mind is this: How did a guy who grew up in Auckland become an integral part of the West London broken beat music scene, working regularly with its luminaries?
Not to mention recent projects with Lauryn Hill in Miami, Shirley Bassey ("She has pipes mate!"), and a new album with long-time vocal collaborator Bembe Segue under the name The Politik.
TimeOut spoke to him on the phone from London, as he prepares for a live tour to support the new record. Mark de Clive Lowe: musician, remixer, label owner, producer, keyboardist - how did it come to this?
The 34-year old got going musically on the piano at age 4, before playing jazz through his teens, and then in his 20s found an affinity for the dancefloor.
At central Auckland's Cause Celebre nightclub he worked with Nathan Haines and DJ Manuel Bundy, sparking and fuelling his interest in the soulful, jazzier side of dance music. In 1998 de Clive Lowe decided he needed to see the world. "I followed my musical dreams - went to Cuba, the States, England and Europe," he remembers, "In England I hung out with an array of dance music people ... and this whole community of people. And that basically became my, kind of, creative touchstone."
He returned to New Zealand in 1999 and produced his debut album, 6th Degree, which he describes as "a dancefloor influenced jazz soul funk something-a-rather, just a mash-up really".
This "mash up" gained a British release through Universal, and that was his sign to head to London for good, where we find him passionate about his latest project, The Politik, with West London singer Bembe Segue. While working together on his 2004 album Tide's Arising, they hit it off.
"I got her in to sing on one track, and she ended up doing most of the record," he laughs. "We really had a great creative synergy, and it just worked. Then when I started touring to promote the album she became my main vocal collaborator. It just got to a point where we thought, let's do something together that isn't just Mark de Clive Lowe, and isn't just Bembe Segue. We found this middle ground, we just let it flow and, you know, bingo - there's the album."
They christened themselves The Politik, and this debut self-titled release sees jazzy trumpets rubbing shoulders with heavy hip-hop undertones, dancefloor-friendly broken beat numbers, groovy soulful almost-ballads, and an underlying feeling that de Clive Lowe is one funky gentleman. He's also one busy gentleman, running Antipodean Records, and putting the finishing touches on Auckland singer Cherie Matheson's debut EP.
"I'm just trying to cover as many bases as I can," he explains, "I mean, I love hip-hop and house and drum and bass and funk and jazz and soul and everything. So any chance I get to put my hand in a different pot, I love that."
Then there are the live shows, where he takes half the studio on stage with him. "MPC, drum machine, I programme all the beats live, play some bass, keyboards and have a couple of other musicians and singers augmenting that."
When it comes to touring, the half-Japanese de Clive Lowe rates the Land of the Rising Sun as one of the most enjoyable places for him to perform, while Russia is also up there. "Moscow is off the hook," he enthuses, "I've been there three times, and I'm going again next month. I can't wait! "It's a right laugh - it's that whole kinda eastern bloc community, the first generation out the gate, and they're just so, so, up for it." Maybe sometime between Miami and Moscow we'll see him back down in Aotearoa?
"I hope so man," he says with genuine yearning, "I'm really lucky to travel a lot of the world, and nowhere is quite as special, nowhere resonates with me as much, and nowhere is as beautiful as New Zealand to me - hands down. The longer I've been away, the more I realise you can't really escape where you're from, it's always going to be home."
He also buzzes at the ability of Kiwis to succeed away from home. "Being from New Zealand - it's a whole different headspace really. I meet Kiwis all over the world in all sorts of different fields of work, and they all sort of manage to slip in there, and smack it up, you know?"
LOWDOWN
Who: Mark De Clive Lowe
What: Album The Politik (Antipodean)
When: Out now
