Nio, a now 23-year-old second generation Irishman from the ragga/garage/hip hop hotspot of North West London, is the latest in a long line of cultural remixers. He soaks up the music around him, shakes it up and sprays it back out through the filter of his own talent and experience into dazzling new aural murals.
But who is Nio and how did he get here? According to his mum, the first notable thing he did in music was to sing 'Happy Birthday' to himself on his first birthday. He grew up loving soul music from Michael Jackson to Mariah Carey, then later got into hip hop and drum n bass. His love of soul rather than rock is one for the "nature versus nurture" debate. While Nio was instinctively drawn to black music, his school and environment soaked him in it bone-deep, leaving him with the dress sense (diamond studded earrings), vocabulary ("you get me?") and musical tastes of young multicultural North West London.
Nio and school proved an unfortunate mix. Like loads of his contemporaries, by the time he was 15, he was a "little puffhead" and had completely lost interest in doing any work. A female friend of his used to do some singing; she was the person to take him into a recording studio for the first time. Spliff, reckons Nio, unlocked his creativity. While he'd been known at school as "that white boy who can sing" and used to MC at parties, spliff "helped me write differently, it helped me think about things differently. I'd think about things proper deeply and it made me try and express in the music what I was feeling. That influenced my writing and my music, basically, so I think it was a good thing." Check the hallucinatory textures of Nio's tunes for proof.
Having bunked off school for that first excursion to a studio in Harlesden, Nio found himself doing it all the time, earning grief from his parents but a mentor in Ronald Amanze, a local reggae producer and manager of Phoebe One. Against a background of his dad telling him to "get off my arse and get a proper job," Nio slowly picked his way undeterred through the smoky urban underground, passing his tunes around and getting his name known until he made the right connection.
He came across many with big plans, promising him the world, saying the right things to jump on the bandwagon, which lead to all kinds of contracts including a deal with Mercury Records, and later the ultimate in what Nio thought was the right deal for him. The summer of 2002 found him signing to The Echo Label, including Moloko and Feeder as his label mates. He signed to Echo on the basis that they where about long term success, not a quick fix product with the emphasis on their music going against the grain in a very harsh music world driven by money and pressured for little venture and massive gain..
They were achieving success by not messing with the artists creativity. So a string of innovative low key 12 releases followed Mash Upand Rago , then later in August 2003 the commercial release Do You Think Youre Special? which entered high into the national charts but Nio felt something wasnt right.
He soon realised that the label were going bankrupt and that they were suffering from lack of understanding of his music. Despite Nios success performing live on Channel 4 to millions of viewers, touring around the UK on a 50K tour bus, getting chased down the road by girls screaming for his autograph, and being a talent that stood miles out from anywhere they would place him, this became too much .
looking back they didnt have a clue where I was coming from, all they knew was that they had signed an 18 year old with an amazing soul voice, who writes, and produces his own stuff, but I dont think they really knew what to do with me
So in the late summer of 2004 Nio walked out of his deal
Passion sometimes overlooks pain and with that in mind Nio knew he had to not to let this drag him down, as much as this came as a struggle.
Honing his production and computer skills he spent a long time writing and recording in his bedroom studio and produced many a song learning and achieving something amazing .
After a couple more underground releases that caused a stir on the pirates, including the 1xtra number one Music Aint Dead produced by Sticky and No Strings produced by Nio himself, featuring rapper Baby Blue and versions with members of Roll Deep, he started exploring other areas of his music.
He found solace singing with a gospel group linked with the London Community Gospel choir where he bowled over all who were there to witness his passionate performance and was praised by founder of LCGC Harris Meade as being a rare talent with a stunning range. He moved on performing accousticly in various London hotspots including 10 rooms and Hammersmith Apollo to name a few showing people he can really sing live.
The thing that Nio has always been proud of, is the fact that while he's met a lot of people doing watered down R&B or copying something that has already been done, his is something original, real and worthwhile.
"I wrote a song called I Do Me which has now become like my anthem" Nio confesses, "I didnt realise how powerful the message was, but I realised what I had written was so autobiographical, and every time I was singing it, it kinda just drummed it into my head even more, everyone that hears it has just gets drawn to it like a magnet. This is a song about self expression and the nature of him all along just being himself. I wrote it about my journey of self expression through my life, people can say what they want, but I am me and no one can change me but myself."
I Do Me is a quirky electro style slow jam, melding low drawn cello churns, a magical key change with one of the biggest hooks around and a vocal performance that catches you off guard displaying just how powerful his range is.
His insurmountable drive led him to hooking up with Statik a quirky producer that was working on an album project Nio was to be featured on, and I Do Me (the Statik refix) was born after Nio setting him some accapellas to work with.
The track saw Nio as the first male to venture into the grime and rnb collaboration that has been causing a stir in the mainstream, and then was to follow a stroke of genius hooking up with Jammer and Skepta two prominent grime Mcs on the refix version, and on another big boy tune called I Just Wanna F*** featured on Statiks Connected album released autumn 2005.
Like flower heads getting chopped off by gardeners cutting down weeds, Nios growing back stronger and more beautiful than ever before.
In the last few years Nio has been collaborating with some of the edgiest producers including Maximum Risk(Brandy), Sticky(MsDynamite), Kay-Gee (All Saints) Wonder(Dizzee rascal), JonECash, SWITCH/Y£$ Productions(M.I.A), MANON DAVE (US TV SERIES HEROES), which has had everyone that has witnessed his unique material blown away.
2006 saw a massive turn in Nio's career when he hooked up with legendary music icon Liam Howlett the man behind the infamous notoriusly contraversial band The Prodigy who are known for massive tracks like "Firestarter" and "Smack My Bitch Up" and have been sampled over and over again throughout history...to work on some groundbreakingly fresh new tracks.
....as if this wasnt enough and showing how Nio can travel right to the other end of the spectrum, he has also been writing and recording with acts like the Sugababes, All Saints, Che'nelle (Capitol Records USA) to name a few and working with legendary pop producer Johnny Douglas (George Micheal, Gabrielle, etc)....which has him as one of the UK's most saught after songwriters....ghostwriting for some of the biggest names in music....
Whilst in between writing hit records he is recording songs for his mixtape "Pimp My Song UK" where he takes your favourite song and pimps them out NiO style!!!
"i decided in between writing for other people and my own stuff... i wanted to put out the best of all the bootleg tracks ive done over the years and include new ones onto one release...so people can hold more than a feature or a single in their hands and say this is a Nio CD.........really its just so people are aware of what i can do....and as a kind of sideline joke bootleg project where i can be raw and say stuff in the in the way i want in a different way to what i would want to put on my first album... "
Keep your ears peeled for NiO's music coming soon to a speaker near you...!
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