AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
If you want to learn to beat box, Kevin Olusola has a few tips.
KEVIN OLUSOLA: I always say it's the boots and the cats. That's the kick and the snare, the (beatboxing). And if you can do that, you can just start messing around with vocal sounds.
RASCOE: OK, so I don't think I can do that, but I get what you're saying.
(LAUGHTER)
RASCOE: Can you - so can you beat box a little bit for us?
OLUSOLA: Absolutely - (beatboxing).
RASCOE: Olusola's musical gifts distinguished him as a member of the hit a cappella group Pentatonix, and now he's gone solo. Olusola's released his first album, "Dawn Of A Misfit."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
OLUSOLA: (Beatboxing).
RASCOE: It's a kaleidoscope of sounds and feelings that reflect his struggle to appreciate the different parts of himself.
OLUSOLA: Growing up, I just felt like I never fit in anywhere. I'm a part African, part Grenadian, cello-playing, Chinese-speaking Kentucky boy.
RASCOE: OK, that's a lot. That's a lot.
OLUSOLA: Exactly. It's a lot. And I was bullied and teased for a lot of that. I didn't feel like I was Black enough for the Black kids. I felt like I was too Black for the white kids. Nobody said, oh, we fully accept you just the way you are, or I didn't feel like I got that same type of acceptance from them. So many years, even up until in my adult life, I asked God, why am I here if I don't fit in anywhere? But I realized that misfits aren't broken. Misfits are meant to be original. And the things that you were misunderstood for - that actually may be the superpower you need to change your world.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HALLELUJAH (I DON'T THINK ABOUT YOU)")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Hallelujah.
OLUSOLA: (Singing) You used to be my sweetest song.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Hallelujah.
OLUSOLA: (Singing) Turns out the auto tune was on.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Hallelujah.
OLUSOLA: (Singing) You used to be my Northern Lights.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Hallelujah.
OLUSOLA: Turns out it was just CGI. Once upon...
RASCOE: Well, I mean, this album, it has these mashups and these different things all put together. There's hip-hop, you know, mixed in with lots of classical Beethoven, Vivaldi. How does something like that come to you?
OLUSOLA: You know what? I grew up absolutely loving classical music, and that lexicon is so embedded in me. But I listened to a lot of popular music growing up, and they felt like two disparate parts of me. But as I was going through this personal journey, I realized they are both me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HALLELUJAH (I DON'T THINK ABOUT YOU)")
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Hallelujah.
OLUSOLA: (Singing) This freedom look too good on me.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Hallelujah.
OLUSOLA: (Singing) I be...
Something like this, it took time for me to just take the "Messiah: Hallelujah Chorus" and chop it up in a way that felt like I could put it into pop cord progression, and then I added the beat. And I knew I wanted this to be a song that kind of juxtaposed this worship-type feel with a breakup idea, which shouldn't really go together. But that's the juxtaposition that is me - right? - adding these things that shouldn't really make sense. It turned out to be something that was beautiful in its own right.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HALLELUJAH (I DON'T THINK ABOUT YOU)")
OLUSOLA: (Singing) You already know. So funny how since you've been gone, I'm singing hallelujah.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
RASCOE: Did you incorporate some of your influences from - because your parents immigrated from Nigeria and Grenada. Are any of those cultural influences present on the album?
OLUSOLA: Absolutely. It may not necessarily be present as much in the sonics, but the story of so many first gen kids in America, trying to understand - how do they reconcile the culture of their parents but also being American, and everybody is telling them that this is the dominant culture that they have to assimilate to? - is infused in the album completely.
RASCOE: You also have a cello rendition of Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come."
(SOUNDBITE OF KEVIN OLUSOLA'S "A CHANGE IS GONNA COME")
RASCOE: This song dates back to the Jim Crow era, and it came out shortly before Sam Cooke's untimely death. And it was partly inspired by an experience Sam Cooke and his entourage had when they were turned away from a whites-only motel in Louisiana. It has now taken on so much as a song that is about the African American experience. Why did you include it on your album?
OLUSOLA: When I think about how timeless this song is, I think its message is so relevant today, but it doesn't just include the African American experience. I think it also includes the experience of so many Afro Caribbean, first gen, immigrant, third culture 'cause there are a lot of people that still look at everybody that look like us the same. And my hope is that there is a change that comes where people now are not stereotyping everybody into one box but are realizing the Black diaspora is extremely diverse. There's an expansion that you have to take into consideration so that you see the beauty of the culture. I call it technicolor black. And once we start to do that, we're going to see, I think, a change to come that you cannot, as Martin Luther King said, judge somebody by just the way they look. You have to understand the concepts of their character, their background, their personage, to really understand the love that's inside of them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Say, good luck, Daddy.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Good luck, Daddy.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Say, you're going to do great.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: You're going to do great.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Say, God will bless your cello.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: God will bless your cello.
RASCOE: I want to end with the - kind of the cutest part of your album - your children who make a cameo toward the end.
OLUSOLA: (Laughter).
RASCOE: What did it mean to you to have them on the album? And how do your kids inspire you?
OLUSOLA: Everything I do now is for my children. Them growing up in this day and age, they are going to be misfits, their dad being Afro Caribbean, their mom being, you know, Caucasian. I want them to feel like they can celebrate all the parts of who they are. This album, this is my history book so that they can understand their father better and that they can listen back and see what their dad was thinking about at the time and feel absolutely loved and cherished by their father.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RASCOE: That's the music artist Kevin Olusola. He has a new album out. It's called "Dawn Of A Misfit." Thank you so much.
OLUSOLA: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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