Sinkane Owes Songwriting Shift to Purchase Experience
Discussing Sinkane’s 8th album We Belong, Ahmed Gallab MM ’22 says Purchase helped him become a more confident songwriter.
“We Belong, is the eighth studio album from Sinkane, a band led by multi-instrumentalist Ahmed Gallab. And like much of Sinkane’s previous releases, it resists genre. It’s pop. It’s funk. It’s electronic. It blends the gritty punk newness of a 70s and 80s New York with the steady, foundational soul of the rhythms of his native Sudan.”
On Pursuing a Master’s Degree at Purchase
“When I went back to music school, even though I was doing a master’s program, I took all of the undergrad theory classes that I could take. I was a complete sponge. It made me understand how much I already knew, but also bridged the gap of the things that I didn’t know to get to where I wanted to go.
“I took different independent studies on Afrobeat music, Afro-Cuban music, and Afro-Brazilian music, and really understood the science behind [those styles.] You learn music theory, and then you learn how Beethoven and Bach and Mozart all broke those rules and created what they created. And then you learn how jazz music essentially did the same thing.
“It made me so much more confident as a songwriter, because I knew I finally had the tools, and knew how to implement them.”
Read the full Q+A at billboard.com