He might not have the name recognition of some of neo-soul’s other originators – the likes of D’Angelo, Erykah Badu, Angie Stone and Maxwell – but British artist Omar has always been held in high regard by both fans of the genre and his peers.
In fact, no lesser musical authority than Stevie Wonder is a long-time fan, and after hearing his album in the early ‘90s, he made it clear that he wanted to work with him.
As Omar explains in an interview with The Guardianthough, making the collaboration actually happen was another matter.
It was first attempted in 1992 when Omar and Wonder shared the same manager and were both in LA. “He played my album to him,” remembers Omar. “Stevie wants to write my first No 1. Fantastic! Midnight, I got the call: come down to the studio. Finally, he’s ready. We’re talking. And then …”
Stevie, it turns out, had dropped off: “So that was the end of that session,” says Omar. “I waited all day for him to fall asleep.”
“Then seven or eight years later, I got a phone call out of the blue when I’m in London,” he continues. “‘Yo, man, it’s your boy’. Who’s that? ‘Steve!’ Steve who? ‘Stevie Wonder!’ Yeah, bollocks – sing me something. And he did.”
Omar goes on to say that he proceeded to spend a couple of weeks taking Wonder round London as the pair wined and dined, before he finally got him in the studio.
“The song we started with, it’s alright but it’s not blowing my skirt up,” he recalls. “And then I had an idea to take him to my friend’s studio where they were jamming.”
This time, Wonder was alert enough to feature on Omar’s Feeling You, which would eventually be released in 2006.
Elsewhere in the interview, Omar indicated that a collaboration with another famous name might one day see the light of day. He says that he met J Dilla in Detroit around 2000, and that he recently discovered that the late producer made a beat with him in mind.
“We went to a strip club, J Dilla paid for a stripper, and then we went to the studio,” Omar recalls of their encounter. “It seemed to be a normal Tuesday for him!”
