He introduces himself as Lawrence Udeigwe, a musician. Interestingly, he is also a mathematician! For over a decade and a half, the ‘musician-mathematician’, who simply assumed his last name as his stage name, Udeigwe, has courted foreign audience with his first three albums. Off his forthcoming album is a song ‘Today’ which he recently dropped. This Manhattan College professor of Mathematics speaks to Ferdinand Ekechukwu, among a select number of journalists, from his base in the US, talking about his brand of music which is jazz flavoured with elements of African sounds, his love for music, life as a mathematician and musician which he both describes as his wife and girlfriend…
You said for the purpose of this interview you are a musician and not a mathematician. But there’s no way we will talk about you without the other aspect of you which is mathematics. Can you take us through a bit of that actually?
Alright, I’m going to be a little biographical about that. I studied… got my bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science. But while in school, I actually wanted to play music. My goal was to finish and then move to New York and do music. But after that, I went to grad school. I thought I will do a Master’s degree. By the time I finished my Master’s degree, I decided I want to be a college professor. So I went on and did a PhD in applied Math. And then I got a job, teaching mathematics and doing research in Math. But then the music bug was still in me throughout this period; throughout the period of my education I was performing in clubs. I had a band. I formed my first band in 2008 and had been performing. And I released at least three albums along the way. So I’m working on my fourth album actually right now. So that’s it.
I understand you are working or have just released a single. Can you tell us about that? And while you are telling us about that maybe it will be nice for us to go through your discography; some of the songs you have done that really came out there, how they did and everything about you musically?
So I released my first album in 2008, it’s called ‘Highlife, Soul and Ecstasy’ yeah. I was a baby musician then. I just worked on this album. It came out in 2007 with my friend in his bedroom studio. And we got it done. It came out in CD format. It was only on i-tune then. And it did quite well Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and the surrounding music market. And then in 2010 I did another album it’s called ‘My House’. This was my first attempt at producing. And when I said producing, it just means taking musicians to the studio and recording it live. I was on piano and I got a bass player and a drummer. And then a sax player and a guitarist and we did the album. So, it wasn’t digitally produced; it was done in the studio and I produced it. I like the outcome of the album. But it wasn’t too successful. I had a single that was in it. The single was called ‘Reflection’. I actually promoted it in Nigeria and a few radio stations played it. I didn’t have enough funds to make it go big but I was happy with that single ‘Reflection’. And then I released another album in 2018 called ‘Rhythm Sustained’. It’s on a streaming platform. I think that’s my only album on the streaming platforms now. And the album actually did really well. It leaned more towards jazz. And the jazz community in New York City actually rated the album very high. They rated it 4 out of 5 which is high for them. And I think because in addition to having a jazz foundational composition, it introduces them to some elements of African music not necessarily the afrobeats, the pop/afropop that we know today. Elements of maybe highlife, Fela’s afrobeat, even apala music. I listen a lot to Haruna Ishola (laughs). So you could hear a little bit of it even in my composition. So it did well in terms of rating. Commercially, I didn’t make a lot; I recouped my money but I didn’t make profit. So this new single is a single that is ushering in my next album which should be like an EP; like maybe 6 to 7 song EP. So, it’s called ‘Today’. It was actually one of the songs in the last album I did and I rejigged it and introduced more saxophones to it, maybe a little shorter and tweaked some of the words. And it’s getting good reception so far. And I’m happy about the reception so far.
So essentially, why do you do music? You just said your music has not really been commercially viable, and you are not actually really bothered about the commercial aspect of it. Now do you do music to make money, for fame or something beyond that?
Why I do music? Well I do music…let me give you an analogy (laughs). Some of us or some people have kids, have children. They have children because there’s something burning in them to have kids. And then they have these children and they realize it’s actually hard to raise kids. But they keep having children. So music has been like a calling to me. So my going to pursue a PhD was actually one way of running away from music because I thought well, I don’t know how easy it’s going to be making a living from music let me go do something I know once I come out I’m going to be making a living. So after I finished I still wanted to do music. So to answer your question, it’s something that chose me. It’s not something that I chose. It’s something that has been in me and it’s difficult to describe why I do music. And talking about the commercial success, I haven’t been commercially successful from music I’m not hiding that. I used to make a joke, saying that I’m like an unfaithful man who is married to a wife but still has a girlfriend. And what do I mean? My wife is mathematics and my wife makes the money and I take the money and give it to my girlfriend which is music; and musically chops all the money and still asks me for more money. So it’s like you have what you are given but at the same time where your heart is. And you are taking all your resources and you are putting it into where your heart is. But I’m actually believing this time I would be commercially successful, like I’m putting it out there. And I hope you guys are going to remember me in your prayers (lol…).
I discovered from experience that mathematics is not funny how do you combine mathematics and music; how has it been?
Okay…so far, I wouldn’t say I don’t combine both of them in practicing. I do music separately and I do mathematics separately. But I do both of them at the same time. It involves a lot of time management, both fields require intense attention. They need you to pay a lot of attention to them. Mathematics requires you to think about it every day all the time. To make good music, you have to always be in the zone. You have to always be observing things. You have to be practicising your piano; you have to be thinking of songwriting, thinking of the lyrics that would fit into stuff that you’ve written. So, I’m saying all this to say that it involves a lot of time management. What I usually do is I wake up in the morning and I meditate. It’s very important to me. And then I practice. And think of music. And then once I closed my door, I try not to think of music anymore. I go to work to my office and just focused on mathematics and not think of music until when I finished work and I’m walking back home, I think of music again. So, it’s been a struggle.
But right now I think I have a formula that works for me; wake up in the morning, do a lot of music, leave the house, shut down and focus on math and it’s been working so far.
Even though we are talking about entertainment, you are still doing both of them (music and mathematics) in a way. Why mathematics? There seem to be no relationship with both. Do you have any particular interest in mathematics?
There’s virtually relationship… But in a way, there’s mathematics in everything. If you are cooking even from measuring what to go and cook there’s mathematics…so there’s mathematics everywhere. There’s mathematics in music. Mathematics is a subject I have always been good in. when I came to the US to study I wanted to study computer science. And after two years, I switched to mathematics. And I wanted something that I’m good at in order to be doing it and doing music. Mathematics has always been something I’m good at.
How really would you describe yourself as a musician?
Hmmm interesting… I’m a singer, I’m a composer. I write my music and the lyrics. My writing process usually starts with a melody; I get the melody in my head and then I play with it on the piano. And then I try to harmonise it, then I look for lyrics, I look for words to it. So, being a composer that automatically makes me a partial producer because when I want to record my songs, at least all the songs I have done so far, I just go to the studio and I play and I sing and I get a live drummer and a bassist and will just record it together. So that kind of takes care of, at least, half of the production process. So that makes me a producer in that regard. And lately, I have been playing with the digital aspects of production also. So I will say I’m a singer, I’m a songwriter, I’m a producer, and I’m an entertainer on stage. So I guess I try to do it all. There are certain things I’m not good at. I’m not good at promoting myself; I’m not good at marketing my music (lol). But once you put me out there to perform, I can do every other thing making of the music and the performance.
What actually is your genre of music? You know we have so many genres of music now. And we have so many fusions. Going by what you have been saying you seem to have a background of jazz. So how would you encapsulate your genre of music?
You can say its afro-jazz fusion right of the sound I’m making right now. You can call it Naija-Jazz or Nai-jazz (lol). But if you want me to go with one…if you want me to coin one word for us right now I will call it Naija-Jazz. But in all seriousness, the foundational DNA of my music is jazz. I take jazz first and then I bring in everything I grew up with and everything I listen to.
What inspires your music? What inspires you to do particularly the kind of music you do?
What actually inspires me is everything like sounds. I listen to some sounds I hear, some sounds that are in my music are stuff I heard when I was seven years old and they just stuck in my head. And I find ways to put in my music. So it’s just everyday sounds, sometimes architecture actually inspires if I look at a beautiful building, I think of musically how it will go. That’s in terms of the music, in terms of the composition. But in terms of lyrics I just watch people; I watch people and I make up stories about them. And that’s how I write lyrics. Historically it’s been difficult writing songs about me even though I’m doing that now. The new album that is going to come out is going to have a lot of that about things that came out of me. Not me observing other people, observing the surroundings and wanting to write songs about it.
