GoodLuck

GoodLuck and Ice Prince have teamed up on a new single for the summer titled ‘June’. Image: Supplied

Exclusive: GoodLuck on hot new single ‘June’ featuring Nigeria’s Ice Prince

In an exclusive interview with The South African, GoodLuck’s Jules Harding chats about the band’s latest single, ‘June’, and more.

GoodLuck

GoodLuck and Ice Prince have teamed up on a new single for the summer titled ‘June’. Image: Supplied

South African electro group GoodLuck released their new single June featuring Nigerian rapper Ice Prince on Wednesday 1 June. The South African spoke to GoodLuck frontwoman Jules Harding on the multi-genre single, the group’s collaboration with Cape Town-based singer-songwriter Craig Lucas and upcoming collaborations.

ALSO READ: GoodLuck and Ice Prince count down to summer in hot single ‘June’ [listen]

South Africa has just officially entered winter but it seems you’re chasing summer with your new single ‘June’, what else inspired the track?

“I think at the moment, it’s relevant everywhere in the world. The reason I think that is like, we’ve all been through two years of just chaos and difficulty and challenge. And whether you need a vacation in the literal sense, go on a summer holiday, or whether you need a vacation in your mind, or whether you just need a break.”

“This song is just giving everyone permission to go, okay. We’re over the last two years, we’re looking to the future now, you know, put it all behind us. Let’s just get out. “

“Whether you’re in South Africa, where it’s a bit chilly, or whether you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, where it’s obviously getting warmer, the song can mean something to you wherever you are.”

Ice Prince is one of the biggest rappers in Africa, how did the collaboration come about?

“So it’s a cool story. We were working on the song for a couple of years actually. It’s one of those tracks… It wore a lot of different clothes. We were never happy with it. You know, We were like, it was not sounding right and the story wasn’t getting across in the way we wanted to. Then we hit a few walls as a band with the song.”

“We took it to a different producer that Ben was collaborating with called Greg Abrams, and even with Greg, we hit a wall with him too. At that point, we were like it needs something and at that point, Ben, who is our producer just started taking it on this like Nigerian path with this afrobeat flavour. We were like, this is cool, this is fresh.”

So, I played it for a friend of ours who is a friend of his (Ice Prince), just to get her opinion on the song and she was like, I think this is great. And I think I know the perfect artists that I want to jump on and she sent it to him. Within literally like 24 hours, he agreed to do the song and so it was like crazy.”

“Next thing he’s on it and he’s singing and within like a week we had pretty much the finished track.”

LISTEN TO ‘JUNE’ HERE 

The track is a fusion between afrobeats, pop and reggae, does GoodLuck hope to explore other genres in the future? 

“I’m currently working on collabs across South Africa with some of my favourite artists or, you know, just being very passionate about the different kinds of African electronic music.  I listened to it for a long time. I think it’s just been because we’ve been focusing on our own releases.”

“I mean, we’ve always been diverse, but we’ve always had a certain kind of electronic sound. You know, we haven’t caught the time off, but in the last few months. 

“ I’ve just been all over the show, [we have] collabs coming out with Sun-El Musician, Heavy K, MFR Souls and that’s just like the beginning. 

“ We’re all about songs, you know, we’re basically writing the best song we can and at the moment, it’s just really inspiring to bring that home to Africa and see who else we can collab and connect with to make more of that kind of song.”

Over the years, you’ve collaborated with several local artists including Shekhinah, Matthew Gold, Kyle Watson… What is the importance of collaborating with local artists?

“We’ve had a very long career and over that time span, we’ve collaborated internationally and locally, you know, [We have] writing sessions, a lot of writing sessions in Europe, and we tour every year. And then coming back to South Africa, you know, just working with people that inspire us that we resonate with, I think it’s been really key.”

“There isn’t one artist that we have, that we’ve worked with, we haven’t had a great vibe with. So I think more than where they’re from. It’s more kind of like who they are and the people that we’ve connected within the industry. So far, everyone has just been so much on our page and so likeable and so easy to work with, you know, we don’t work with divas, we’re real.”

“So we work with people that are very real, that are not complicated and difficult and make life hard.”

We’re halfway into the year and the band has already performed a few times in Cape Town and in other parts of the country, how has it felt to reconnect with audiences again?

“It’s been amazing. There’s definitely another level of energy, and appreciation for live shows. I think people were quite tired at the end of 2019, whether they knew it or not. There was so much happening all the time, and life was so intense.”

“We were also doing a lot of shows, I think we did 98 flights, more shows in 2019, and coming out of that space into a real kind of very sparse…It has just increased the level of appreciation that the audience has for music and for live music and what that means and how important that is to release off your bad vibes.”

“So it seems like everyone is just in a really cool space. And it’s nice as an artist to be able to actually see that and feel that.”

I want to get into your collaboration with Craig Lucas, ‘Better’. The song is a beautiful song about leaning on others in difficult times and being a better person. What was the significance of collaborating with Craig Lucas on the song?

“Working with an artist, like Craig was extraordinary. He’s such an incredibly humble and beautiful person, he’s been through a lot and he’s so willing to wear his heart on his sleeve so when he came in to start the process of writing, he wanted to tell the story about how much his friends meant to him, going through an upbringing in a difficult part of South Africa.”

“Growing up in Elsie’s River [Cape Town]…It’s a tricky area, there’s a lot of hardship that one has to deal with every day, knowing how important his friends were to get through some of those hardships, which is kind of a message he wanted to get across.”

“And it just came falling out, I just connected with him. We all go through difficult times everyone you know, but there is relatability in that. No matter how hard it gets, you need to reach out to the people that love you and care for you because they exist. 

“Everyone has someone who loves and cares for them, you know? And if you just have one person like, it can get better.”

LISTEN TO ‘BETTER’ HERE 

ALSO READ: GoodLuck releases music video for chart-topping ‘Bird of Paradise’ [watch]

Up Close’ came out last year and it seems the band is gaining a bit of momentum with a few singles this year. Can your fans expect an album release soon?

“We’ve released so much music since our last album that doesn’t have an album to sit on. We want to compile all the best songs that we’ve released and add a whole bunch more and put them on an album.”

“We haven’t started exactly pinning when that will be because I think the nature of the music industry at the moment is singles focused. Yeah, so we’ve been focusing on getting a song out. But I think the crazy thing is, people maybe don’t realize, but at the moment, it’s taking as much effort into a single release that you put into an album.”

“So like, every time you release a song, it feels like you’re releasing an album. We will definitely put out an album at some stage.” 

“We’ve got loads of new music that we are we’re working on and they will all have a house in a beautiful album at some point.”

ALSO READ: ‘Up Close’ and personal: GoodLuck on their unplugged soundscape journey