Interview with the Blackberry Poets

One of my favorite things about Oberlin is our phenomenal campus band scene. If you’re looking for a community of musicians and songwriters who love to collaborate, I don’t think you’ll find a better place.

I recently had the opportunity to interview Cyril Amanfo '22 and Max Addae '21, who formed their band The Blackberry Poets when they were students at Oberlin. Now based in NYC, they continue to write and record music in anticipation of their first full-length album release in 2024. At the end of our interview, you'll find a link to their latest single, an original Christmas song called The Gift.

I always like to start with a band’s origin story. How did The Blackberry Poets come to be? How did you begin writing and playing music together? 

Cyril: The story goes back to 2020. Myself, Max, and Mark Ligonde, who was a part of our band at that time, worked together on a show called Olympus. It was my senior capstone, so I wrote the script, but we all wrote the music together. There was a point where we all just kind of said, we should do this full time. It was interesting because we were all at home and isolated, and it was a cool way to connect. I would think of a song and send it over, then somebody would add something and send it back my way. It always felt so real and easy and natural, to where it transcended the fact that we were in three different places.

So the origins of the band were entirely virtual? You'd never played music together in person before you became a band?

Max: We didn’t play in person together until March of 2021, about a year after we started making music. It was The Black Renaissance show. 

Cyril: Yes, The Black Renaissance show hosted by OCBMG [Oberlin College Black Musicians' Guild], in Wilder Bowl. We had just gotten back to campus in January; we rehearsed a bit and did that show. And that really showed us – this works.

Max: Yes, the chemistry was there!

Did you know each other before the production of Olympus? Or was it that project that brought you together?

Cyril: Max and I met my freshman year, in 2019. We were working on a show called The Brothers Size directed by Ti Ames. And then we did another show that I wrote, called Equilibrium. We were also both in a cappella groups, moving in adjacent circles. But up to that point we had never actually gotten down to it and gotten together [musically]. The first thing we ever recorded was a cover of Crazy by Gnarls Barkley, which is the first time we'd ever sung in the same room. And it was so much fun. I don't know where that cover is. I don't know if you'll ever hear it. 

Max: On some hard drive somewhere! I’d forgotten about that. 

Cyril: That was the first thing we ever recorded together. And at that point, we thought, yeah, this really works. It gels. And it helped solidify the friendship that in turn helped solidify the music.

Max: And then as far as when Mark came into the picture… later in 2020, when we were all at home and isolated, I had this vision of a Black Artist Showcase, to create a platform to showcase the work and artistry of Black artists and students at Oberlin, and Cyril and Mark were both part of that show. Through that, we connected those threads and that became the trio for both Olympus and the Blackberry Poets.

How did the Blackberry Poets name come to be – did one of you choose it, or did you come up with it together? 

Cyril: It was definitely me. I wanted to emphasize the idea of poetry in our name. I write the songs and lyrics and I'm very big on the poetic nature of what we do and how it's not just sounds and music -- every song is a story. I was trying to find a way to infuse that within the name of the band, and also find something that didn't sound too “boy band.” “Blackberry Poets” came to me. I liked the colors and the imagery that it captured. We just ran with it. 

Let’s talk a bit about how your creative work at Oberlin with TIMARA and Theater has influenced your musical creation process. To take it a step further, I just realized that you both double-majored in a science as well – TIMARA and Computer Science for Max, and Theater and Neuroscience for Cyril. How does all of that show up in your music?

Max: For me, TIMARA played a really huge part, both on the practical side, like getting accustomed to recording software and production tools, as well as on the aesthetic or creative side, to Cyril’s point about building stories and creating worlds with sound. That was a really formative part of TIMARA for me, personally. It definitely has a huge role in how I produce for The Blackberry Poets.

Cyril: Theater at Oberlin taught me the importance of trusting your own creation. I think there's a lot of space specifically at Oberlin to just go and try things. Not just theater but neuroscience too -- just come up with an idea, research it, try it, experiment to see what happens. The experimenting brain alongside the “just have the freedom to create” brain led me to be more confident in creating music and writing songs.

How about faculty? Want to give any shout-outs to faculty who you feel were particularly good mentors?

Cyril: Caroline Jackson Smith in Africana Studies and Theater. The quote that she gave me freshman year was, “If you're not finding the roles that you want to be in, just go create them.” I was like, okay! And I went on to write a lot of plays and write a lot of music and do a lot of different things. She's definitely been instrumental in my creation process. La Tanya Hall in the conservatory has been inspirational in making sure that I can actually sing songs. [laughs] The discipline it requires… yeah, she's been super monumental for me as well. 

Max: All of the TIMARA faculty, really, and especially my main faculty mentor, Eli Stein. He was a huge mentor for me as far as just building my production and overall sound design chops. And then Aurie Hsu, who was one of the first people to really help get my foot in the TIMARA door. The whole department has been a really supportive community for me.

Cyril: It’s hard to find faculty at Oberlin who aren't going to support the crazy things you want to do. From people like Justin Emeka to Charles Peterson to Gunnar Kwakye -- regardless of the department, people are going to be like, yes, go do that crazy thing, and we'll be here clapping for you when you do it.

Did you both know when you got to Oberlin that you wanted to double major in two fairly different things? Or did you sort of figure that out along the way?

Max: I definitely knew I wanted to do some combination of computer science and music, especially figuring out what the overlap in those fields could mean for me as an artist. TIMARA came a little later in my Oberlin journey. I started off just in the College with Computer Science and Musical Studies. I took some TIMARA classes and found that it was a really nice home for me to explore how my computer science skills could merge into my artistic style. That was where I found a niche for myself, but I think I knew all along that I really wanted to merge my artistic side and my technical side and see where that overlap could provide some value for me.  

Cyril: I definitely came in undecided. In high school, I did it all -- I really liked theater and I really had an affinity for science. And I thought, how do I make these things work together? I think the misconception of my application process was thinking that I had to make them work together. Because when I got to Oberlin it was like, if that's what you want to do, just do it. The best advice I got from my first-year advisor was to just take classes that sound interesting to you, take the classes that fit your passions, the things you would actually enjoy being in the classroom for and learning about. And through that, you're going to figure out what the right things are. I always think back to my first semester in Oberlin -- I didn't take a single theater or neuroscience class. And then I graduated with majors in both of them. 

Max: With honors!

Let's talk about these amazing vocal arrangements that are a trademark of all of your songs.  You guys both did a cappella and Max, you were the musical director of the Obertones. I assume all of that plays a role, but I'd love to hear more about your process of creating these 12-, 14-, even 16-part harmonies. Do you actually write them down first, or do you just sing them one part at a time as they come into your head, like magic?

Max: Growing up, I listened to a lot of choral music and I was in a lot of different advanced choirs. So that is something that has a very permanent spot in my brain, and how I think about music and hear certain lines. In terms of my process, it honestly is very organic. I just kind of listen to a section on loop, sing whatever comes to mind, and build and stack ideas from there. I try to tell a story with each of those lines and how they evolve over time. Working with the Obertones and [other a cappella groups], I just really try to get a sense of how to evolve ideas over time, in support of both the lead vocal and the message of the song. It's definitely a layered, sometimes nonsensical process. I just try to follow the spirit and do what it tells me to do. 

Quick follow-up question -- with unlimited free tracks at your disposal, how do you know when you're done with an arrangement?

Max: I actually don't know. I actually never know. It's when Cyril says stop – that’s when I know. Just yesterday, we were working on a song and I was adding some subtle layers in, and Cyril was like, “Are you still adding tracks? I don't know if you need to, but you do your thing.” [laughs] 

Cyril: I just let his brain do what it does. But I can also be the one who says, okay, when have we done too much? There’s always something we're going to think of later, but at some point we just need to release the song.

Between the harmonies and the instruments, some of your songs have more than 30 tracks on the recording, but there are only two of you – how will you recreate these songs when playing live?

Cyril: That is a great question, and it actually brings me to another faculty shout-out. When we were doing Olympus, Professor Courtney-Savali Andrews came to us and said, “These arrangements are so great. Now, how do you expect to do them?” [laughs] And we were like, that's so true. I think for us, a big part of our musical journey and storytelling is the merging of two minds. And when it comes to these very layered tracks, Max's brain works very fast and very efficiently and it’s all great, so we just keep adding parts. When we think about how to do this live, I think there are two options. We could have a computer ready to play the rest of the tracks. But what we really hope to do is to have a five- or six-person choir to help implement some of those visions that we have on the recordings. We always talk about The Blackberry Poets as a collective. We're always going to bring in a drummer and a bass player; on our upcoming album there are some guest vocalists. We’re blessed to know a lot of really great singers and musicians and the door’s always open to anyone who wants to come and help us build this world out. We know a lot of talented people but so many of them don’t talk about [their talent]. Let’s use whatever platform we have, regardless of whether the platform's on the ground or six feet up. How can we help you come onto this platform and really step into what you can do?

I got a little bit ahead of myself jumping right to asking about the vocal arrangements -- I haven’t yet asked about your basic songwriting process.

Cyril: The songwriting process is both long and very short. The inspiration will hit from somewhere or something, a conversation we've had, or just an idea, or “Oh, we want to do a Christmas song. Okay, let’s see what we can do about that.” To start, I’ll either come up with a title or come up with chords. When it starts with a title, I'll figure out how to build the song around that central idea. When it starts with chords, I’ll say okay, these sound cool, now how do I add them? And then I will sit here for 45 minutes to maybe an hour and a half and crank out the song. When I'm writing songs, I literally stop doing everything else. If a song comes to me, that is what I play until the song is done. Max has seen me write raps in like 30 minutes, just here with my guitar, hyper-focused. And then we get to really sit down and put it to tracks and flesh it out more. I try to incorporate recurring themes. I want to be circular, so by the end of the song it's like, oh, he said that same thing in three different ways. Oh, this means something different in the bridge than it does in verse one. Look how the chorus evolves based on what you hear in the verses. I think about all these different things and try to make sure that there’s a cyclical component but also a story that takes you somewhere.

I see the theater influence in there.

Max: Yes! Knowing Cyril as a playwright, it’s poetic in nature, both how he writes plays and how he writes songs. That synergy is really beautiful. Watching this man write songs is an experience. If it were up to me, I would be heavy on Thesaurus.com, or Rhymezone.com. But Cyril is just spewing them out so naturally, looking up in the air like, “Okay, so that word and then that word. Yep.” It’s just so natural and quick and easy for him.

Let’s talk about Christmas music. Your new single, The Gift, is an original Christmas song. And I think one of the first songs you ever recorded together was a cover of Little Drummer Boy. Did you both come to the band with a love of Christmas music, or did that develop out of the band?

Cyril: I love the season of Christmas. Christmas is one of my favorite holidays, and Christmas music is so unique in the sense that it's warm, it's homey. You know the debates about when you should listen to Christmas music? Year-round is the only correct answer. [laughs] We both have a passion for Christmas music. We study other artists, listening for the kind of joy and space that you have when working within a canon but making it original. With The Gift, we're working within the Christmas canon, so you get the things you’d expect from a Christmas song, but we've also made it our own and made it original. We’ve talked for a long time about doing a full Christmas album. We just haven’t gotten around to it yet.

What's next for The Blackberry Poets? Any shows planned for New York? Maybe a national tour? 

Cyril: Trying to go up, trying to do, trying to build more and more and more and more. First things first, an album -- the long-awaited, three years in the making, debut album -- the goal is to release it in 2024. Really just trying to share some of the songs we’ve written from the beginning of our band to just a few weeks ago. This upcoming album is a mix of a lot of different things and really delves into who we are, as individuals, as a duo, as a partnership bringing in other artists and other talented individuals that we know and making this a project that showcases what we can do. And there will be an album release show when that happens. We’ll see what happens after that! But the first priority is to finish this album.

Do you all have any advice to offer current students who are thinking about starting out on a similar path to the one you are on right now?

Max: I would say just go ahead. As Cyril said before, just start, just try something and see where it goes. A big takeaway for me is that there are so many resources online, TikTok, YouTube, et cetera, that can teach you how to get started in production. So don’t be afraid -- take advantage of those resources and learn as much as you can, both within school and outside of school, and just try things. The first thing you make probably will be, you know, bad. [laughs] But a lot of the process is to iteratively grow and evolve and come to a place where you really feel like yourself represented through that medium. It is a long process, but it's so worthwhile. Just don't be afraid to try and start.  

Cyril: Oberlin is a breeding ground for creativity. Go to shows, play the ‘Sco. When Cover Band Showcase comes around, play that. Play in Tappan Square. We played at Ben Franklin, one of our first big, real setlist shows. There are so many places to just get outside and play and sing and interact. Join the choirs, whether it's Gospel Choir or Musical Union or whatever it might be. Know that you're not starting in a vacuum. You're starting with layered support, on a campus that literally breathes this type of energy and supports this type of creativity. You have ample opportunities to get involved and get together with people and make things happen. 

Max: That's so true. Going back to the Black Artists Showcase in 2020, a big part of that inspiration was that in a lot of ways the key to my survival was the creative, collaborative nature of that world, and I was really craving some way to recreate that and bask in that, even while we were all physically separated. And so, doing whatever you can to maintain or build that community around you to support your growth is monumental. It’s how you build your sense of artistry and learn from other artists and just find people who you artistically and personally vibe with.

Many thanks to you both! 

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The Blackberry Poets are on all major streaming services. You’ll find their latest single, The Gift, on Spotify, Apple Music, and many others.