From an early age it was clear which direction she would take. OCEANA’s whirlwind path could not be stopped. Her mother started taking her to concerts as a young child. She saw big name artists including Ziggy Marley, Burning Spear, James Brown and she felt drawn to the stage, where she wanted to sing and dance. She took ballet lessons, danced through studios and at the age of five she was given a part in a film directed by Hamburg’s Lars Becker. As a teenager she won a music scholarship and had her first singing lesson with the Italian vocalist Etta Scollo. Significant musical influence was given by the family’s record collection of artists like Billie Holiday and Etta James. Her initial and enduring experiences with jazz, funk and blues where taken with a family friend - legendary musician Maceo Parker. It was him who often asked OCEANA up on stage at his concerts and who got the ball of her musical career rolling with the sentence “You’re ready now; do your own thing!”.
Maceo Parker influenced and formed OCEANA’s musical and recording style: horn sets, Wurlitzer piano, electronic guitar-tremolo-effects from VOX amps, intrumentation as combined in swing beat and motown sound of the 60’s. Another element of her music are reggae influences - her intonation which she inherited by her father, a musician with carribean roots and with roots-reggae typical instrumentation like in the song “He Said” which was recorded with Jamaica legend Papa Curvin and mixed at Studio One, Kingston. OCEANA met her distinctive sound by the combination with contemporary Soul- and Hip-Hop Beats.
Against the background that OCEANA is in league with Seeed for a couple of years now the musical cycle closes. Demba Nabé, shaped by dub and dancehall, engaged OCEANA for the whole Boundzound tour 2007 where she was singing all female vocal parts. Those two are having a friendship for years and on the song “Bad Boy” Demba Nabé even does a featuring. Before the Boundzound tour OCEANA gained experience on tour with Seeed where she developed the performance concept and all choreographies. As an ambitious cosmopolitan she lived in Paris, Hamburg, London, New York, Los Angeles within the last years, and even some time on Martinique to discover her carribean roots. Her debut album “Love Supply” was recorded in New York and Hamburg in the end of 2008.
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