Yonas Michael drops ‘Black Swan Theory’
Interviewed by: Heynok Elias & Aida Bee
Written by: Dagem Lemma & Aida Bee
Formerly known as Y-O of hip-hop duo U-N-I, emcee and artist Yonas Michael has reinvented himself once again with his latest project, The Black Swan Theory. Originally hailing from Seattle, Washington, Yonas was raised by an Eritrean father and African-American mother in a household that exposed him to different genres of r&b and soul. After relocating to Inglewood, California, Yonas fully immersed himself in music and started U-N-I with fellow emcee Thurzday in 2006. Since then, Yonas has released solo projects including the highly acclaimed Lost in Hollywood (2011) and The Mixtape before the Black Swan Theory. Yonas sits down with HabeshaLA to discuss his latest project, what it means to be an artist, and his Black Swan collective movement.
Habesha LA: So, why don’t you introduce yourself first?
Yonas Michael: Ok, well, my name is Yonas Michael. I’m originally from Seattle, Washington, but made my way to sunny LA late ’96. That was the start of my falling in love with music.
HLA: Tell us about your latest project that you’re working on.
Yonas Michael: The latest project is my second solo album—Black Swan Theory. It’s about 15 songs. It’s a full-length LP. New risks, up-and-coming producers such as Boulevard who is a brother of mine. He’s the first producer I’ve found who’s made a whole album with me. Then there are other up-and-coming producers, young kids from Inglewood, called the Triads.
HLA: No relation to the gang, right?
Yonas Michael: No. No relation [laughs]. So yeah, this is my second album, you know? I’m excited. The title, Black Swan, comes from a business term that represents like a boom, a shout to the consumer, or your clan, whatever you want to call it.
The term Black Swan represents somebody who’s a risk taker. Someone who goes against all odds, someone that’s going to be told no many times, that always strives for that ‘Yes!’. We are creating a Black Swan Movement. We are calling it a collective. We are calling it a Black Swan Collective, where we are just taking people that we think can revolutionize anything that they touch, whether you’re a writer or a painter, or you’re an engineer or a physician. That’s what the Black Swan represents.
The music theory, I believe, is going to be rationalized in hindsight once they hear the music. A month or two after it releases, you’ll have to rewind and play it back. It’s something that’s probably going to progress for a year or two and you can always go back to and take a little bit from.
HLA: When do you think you’ll be dropping Black Swan?
Yonas Michael: The theory is, we are going to call it, the Red Riding Hood Theory—leaving bread crumbs. Then I’m going to start releasing a song from the album starting from January. The beauty of it, we make our own rules, having no label overhead above us. We are just going to drop a song every month and build up the demand so my fans really want me to put out the whole album as a whole. It’s going to be an organic release of just music, periodically, throughout the month, starting in January. It’s exciting.
HLA: Is this something that you want to consistently stay with, or do you have thoughts of ever joining another label?
Yonas Michael: I definitely want to go to the big league. I’m doing this to make a push because I love it, but I have a family. I want to make sure my kids’ kids’ kids’ kids can live off the legacy forever and not have to wake up and clock-in and clock-out. Wake up and do what you want and not have to worry about making ends meet, because I laid down the foundation for people who are family. I’m all about family. Just let family live off what I left behind.
HLA: I was interested in hearing about the dynamic of being part of a group versus being a solo artist. Like that transition… how has that affected you creatively as an artist?
Yonas Michael: One thing—in a group, you always have to agree. If you don’t agree, then there’s a little tension, and then you can clash a lot. Sometimes there were times where I didn’t want to do something but for the sake of it and my brother [Thurzday] wanted to do that, so I’ll do it and vice versa. I wanted to go left, he doesn’t want to, but for the sake of it, we’ll go left. It was a challenge.
HLA: What advice would you give other independent artists in terms of today’s trends? What do you see as being important?
Yonas Michael: One, the most important thing is, within music, always speak from your soul. Don’t get caught up in what’s on the radio and thinking you have to make music like that. The road is much bigger than just the radio-show that we listen to in the morning or afternoon.
Two, learn the business of it. Don’t just be the artist and lock yourself away in the studio making great music, which is fine. Make sure you have a nice, solid team around you.
If you want to be successful in it, it is more than just making a nice song and then sharing it with people. If you want to touch the world, you got to have some type of infrastructure and knowledge behind the music: how to release it and how to market it and brand it. I would say, learn the fundamentals on letting the music be reached by the world.
HLA: What are some of the biggest lessons you have learned so far in your career?
Yonas Michael: Have patience. Don’t always expect everyone to recognize greatness in a month or in a year. You have to keep watering the flowers, watch it grow, and have patience.
HLA: Did you have a “Black Swan” moment in your career where you felt like you took a big risk?
Yonas Michael: I think that all started when I decided to split and go solo. I had no clue what Black Swan was. I was going to make an album called Black Swan Theory, but at that moment, that day, when I woke up I was … I, just, knew this was something I had to do. I don’t know why, but my mind, my conscious, my soul, was telling me, ‘you gotta do this, man.’
It was the hardest decision that I was about to make. You’re going to get attacked. ‘Are you selfish?’ or ‘You just broke up this and that.’ or … and I accepted all of that. I just went for it, head up, chest down. It’s like anything comes my way from this point on, I’m going to go to the positive energy and conquer. That started in 2011.
When we split, I started from ground zero. I had to make my way back up. I just accepted it again and called Bobby [my now manager]. I said, ‘Are you ready to manage me and accept all the obstacles?’
But, it worked. In that moment, it slowly started to build like a snowball. I felt like it started from ground zero, again. It’s a humbling feeling.
HLA: How would you describe your latest project? Is there a theme, or an inspiration from your life or in the album?
Yonas Michael: Yeah. My daughter is a huge inspiration of this album. She, for sure, has a special place in that album. She actual opened me up to release a lot of personal stuff on the record. I’m very personal. If you can listen to You and I music everything was broad. I never really let my fans in on who was Yonas Michael. The album is very personal, it’s humbling, it’s sexy, it’s edgy, it’s open and it’s honest. It has a lot of soulful sounds in it.
HLA: What has been influencing you over the past year or two?
Yonas Michael: The streets, my ear in the streets, hearing people’s stories, the media. I take pieces from my whole surrounding and I just make music up to link rather than to be a narrator of what’s going on. It’s like everything else, let’s focus on happiness. Let’s focus on the good, because when we’re sitting under a cloud, it’s not really, it’s not helping you. You aren’t helping the people around you, so my whole thing is uplifting and keeping my ears to the streets and how people feel and what the people want. ***