Season 2, Episode 10: “I’ve Just Thrown out the Word Expectation” ft Adi Oasis
NARRATION: When I was pregnant, I was swimming in that normal parent to be mix of daily emotions. There was excitement at being in a completely new phase of life. The enjoyment of experiencing the power of my body growing a whole person. But then there was also fear. The fear of, ok so how am I going to make it as a musician now? I mean, so many parents told me stories about the lack of support in this culture, the costs of childcare, about the systems that fail women again and again. And on top of that, my job, being a musician, often involved jumping on planes for weeks at a time to tour. How in the world was this all going to really work? I had to face that question that women run into like a brick wall. Can I have it all? Music, work, family? It was clear that some sacrifices were coming, but which ones?
So when I first caught wind of Adi Oasis, the front woman bassist extraordinaire, rocking global tours, with soulful vocals, original songwriting and a six month old on her hip, I couldn’t wait to catch up with her and ask her how she had answered “the question” for herself.
My name is Meklit and this is Movement: music and migration, remixed.
Meklit Hadero: How are you doing this morning?
Adi Oasis: Good. Where are you?
Meklit Hadero: San Francisco.
Adi Oasis: Oh, so it's the morning for you. It's 2 p. m. here.
Meklit Hadero: Okay,
NARRATION: As soon as the interview began, we were reminded that time is a luxury that a new parent does not have.
Adi Oasis: I don't have that much time just because it is the middle of the day here and I have a, trying to work as much as possible before my nanny leaves in three hours. Yes,
Meklit Hadero: Gotchu! Let’s do it, let's dive in.
NARRATION: Adi Oasis is a New York based, French Martinquian bass player who, in the last few years, has been taking the music world by storm. You can find her on the mic, electric bass in hand, fashion forward outfit all sculptural, bopping to the rhythm while singing syncopated high notes with ease. R&B soul music to the core.
Adi is also a new mother. At the time of our conversation, her daughter was just a few weeks shy of a year old. In fact, Adi was pregnant at the time she recorded her breakout 2023 album Lotus Glow. So all of the success that has skyrocketed her musical path has gone hand in hand with motherhood.
For Adi, motherhood and stardom all at once has led to an evolution in how she relates to the multiple cultures that she calls her own. She grew up outside Paris, with a mother who was from rural southern France and a father who was from Martinique.
Meklit Hadero: So you chose to immigrate to the US by yourself at a pretty young age.
Adi Oasis: Mm hmm
Meklit Hadero: I'm wondering how, how was that for your family? Was that something they could understand?
Adi Oasis: Yes, because I started touring at 6 years old.
Meklit Hadero: Wow!
NARRATION: Adi was in a professional choir as a kid, they did television appearances and everything.
Adi Oasis: And I toured basically between 6 and 13. So, my parents were kind of used to seeing me, like, pack a suitcase. Well, when I was 6, my mom was packing it for me, obviously. But, you know, grab a suitcase and go away for music for a while. So, that built that independence in me. And then, I didn't leave saying or thinking bye, I'm leaving forever. I was going for two weeks to check it out. And after five days decided to stay.
NARRATION: That place she was staying, New York City.
Adi Oasis: I was in a car with my two friends, and we're like, I think you should just stay. Why don't you just stay? We can help you get a job. You start working as a waitress or something and just try. And I was like, you know what? Okay. Yeah. And I remember specifically it was like October. It was a beautiful day outside and I just, It's like, yeah, I'm going to try to stay. Ridiculous, how a 19 year old thinks.
Meklit Hadero: And yet,! And yet it was such a big moment. Sometimes I think about the ways that things that are huge moments for us, like we might build up things in our minds. This is going to be a huge thing. And then we prepare for it. And then it kind of comes and goes. And then these small moments happen where, like a simple sentence and like a bit of encouragement can create a whole new path for us.
Adi Oasis: Yeah. I also do believe that when things are meant to be for you, they would have been brought in another way, anyway.
Meklit Hadero: Mm
Adi Oasis: But that was the story.
NARRATION: At the time Adi moved to New York, she felt like she needed this place, this energy and culture even, in order to find herself as an artist. It was something she couldn't find in France.
Adi Oasis: The American slash New York mentality of encouragement and belief in yourself, being seen as a plus and when you're an artist, you need it.
Meklit Hadero: Yes, you do.
Adi Oasis: And when you're trying to convince yourself that you can be an artist, you need it even more.
NARRATION: That was almost twenty years ago now that Adi made that leap. She has never looked back, but just in the past year after her daughter was born, she has been thinking more about the place she left behind.
Adi Oasis: Just this weekend, I had a moment where I was like, Oh my God, I'm becoming my aunties. And that's probably being a new mom where I'm like, I need to bring my culture out. I was like, I want a giant pot of rice and beans and have it on a stove all weekend and invite my friends over. And I did that. And that's what we used to do.
NARRATION: Adi’s family history is intertwined with migration. Her father left Martinique for France, just like Adi left France for the US. So she is especially tuned into the way places shape people, and how people carry those places with them. Those weekend cookouts with her aunties were a way to bring a little bit of Martinique to France, to connect Adi with the place her family came from.
Adi Oasis: There would always be like the smell of like clove and allspice with the red beans and we had this thing in the summertime where we made our own ice cream and it's like, we call it Sorbet Coco and it's coconut ice cream and it's made a shit ton of condensed milk and it's so good. Condensed milk and coconut and lime.
And we, my family had like the ice cream making machine from like, I don't know, like 18th century that you, it's like this wooden, yeah, this wooden bucket and you add the ice. And so the cousins, we had to take turns and my dad is one of 10. So when I'm talking about like churning the ice cream, it's like a line of cousins. It was just like 10 of us.
Meklit Hadero: Wow, I want to go to that party.
Adi Oasis: Yeah. I mean, we had the best time and everybody like speaking Creole very loud and my aunties like laughing super, super loud. I have one of my songs where I actually like had a hidden phone and recording them. And I used it in a song that's an homage to Martinique.
So that song is called The Water.
Meklit Hadero: Oh, yes, I love that song.
Adi Oasis: It's about my connection to the water, to the Caribbean ocean. And that's kind of what ties us together. I sing in English, French and in Creole in it
Meklit Hadero: And it flows like water between these things.
NARRATION: Early in our conversation, Adi told me that she loves raising her kid in New York and she thinks it's a great place to be a kid. But she also wants to make sure her kids live in France at some point. She wants to give her daughter the same gift of two cultures that her parents gave to her.
Adi Oasis: I'm just refusing to say that my daughter's American. She's American and French. Just like I'm, I never lived in Martinique, but I'm Martinique and like, that's very much part of my identity. And I do believe the best way to experience your identity is to live in the country, live in the place.
And I think it's a great place for her to go to school and go to class vert, which is we call like field trips, but they go on field trips for like 10 days. And like the nice countryside and it's safe, and like the food they eat in school is made in the school from scratch, and it's free. And she can like, she can do seven activities a week and it will cost me 20 euros. Anyways, I could go on and on, but there are practical reasons why I want her to live in France, I'll say in short.
Meklit Hadero: I got you. I, I'm from Ethiopia and my partner is Italian. And, so we have a child, we have a five year old and we're both musicians and we've brought him on tour. And for us also, it's very important that he not kind of default to assimilation, you know, but this takes work. You got to, you got to put some muscle into that.
Adi Oasis: or anything else, it's like language, for instance, is one of the main reasons why I want her to live in France. I want her to speak French like me. I want her to speak French. Languages are like a huge passion of mine, very close to music and I do believe they're a superpower. I believe they make people's brains more malleable. They make people more open minded, and that will be a good way for her to be close to her culture, speak her mother's language. And the best way to do that is to live there at some point. Does your child speak Italian?
Meklit Hadero: No, I mean, he speaks some, but he's doing the thing where he really refuses, you know? So I'm just, I'm prepping, you know, I'm prepping for the drop off with grandparents, you know, be like, I'll see you in a month.
Adi Oasis: That's also a very like, immigrant thing. I've heard a lot of Americans say they wouldn't do that, but I'm like, that's what we did.
Meklit Hadero: Like, I was just dropped off.
Adi Oasis: I spent entire summers with just my grandmother and cousins. And saw my dad like, bye, see you at the end of the summer. And I loved it.
Meklit Hadero: So, your daughter, is she a year or she's, she's under a year old, right? She's still a baby.
Adi Oasis: She’s almost, she’s going to be one in two weeks.
Meklit Hadero: Oh my God. Wow
Adi Oasis: Yeah. I can't believe it.
Meklit Hadero: How has it been? Like as a mama musician I want, I really changed my whole like orientation towards touring, but it's all possible. It just kind of like, you have to find ways of working through it. How is that going for you?
Adi Oasis: You know, I'll say now that I'm in the thick of it, the part that's challenging is writing, getting back to the studio more so than touring.
Meklit Hadero: Hmm.
Adi Oasis: Cuz touring is kind of this, like, I can say yes or no. And it's this built in thing. And when it's planned, you plan around it. Writing is kind of on me to make it happen, but it's like, but I could do her laundry, but the nannies, need to help. And like, and I only have the nanny two days a week. And that's why I'm like, I can't do this podcast for too long, because I'm trying to make music today. And I only have two days to myself in the week.
So it's more figuring out. And I think it's all a learning process and figuring things out. Seems like you have it figured out so offline, you'll give me some tips, please. But, touring it just It takes being organized ahead of time properly and having a village and I have these two things. Writing takes mental space and time and I'm lacking the two these days.
So sometimes she sleeps 12 hours and sometimes she wakes up after three. And last night I had these grand plans of sitting in my little home studio and starting to work. And she woke up at 9:30 and was like, girl, I'm not going back to sleep. You're going to stay with me. So that's the most challenging part for now.
Meklit Hadero: Yes. Was that unexpected for you?
Adi Oasis: I had no expectations. I've just thrown out the word expectation out the window when I got pregnant and released an album at the same time. And I thought that that would be the last thing I would do. And it turned out to be the most successful move, which is, wasn't a move. It just, what's happened. So,
Meklit Hadero: Right.
Adi Oasis: Lesson learned, just manifest and then receive when it comes. Cause we can't decide how it's going to show up.
Meklit Hadero: It reminds me of what you said earlier about when something happens in a certain way, even if it didn't happen in that way, it would have, the universe would have found a way for these things to manifest, to happen.
Adi Oasis: That's true. Especially when you have a child, tell me if you feel that way, but don't you feel like he was already meant to be? And like,
Meklit Hadero: Oh, I felt like he was with me for years before he even showed up. You know what I mean? Like, I'm like, he was around. He was like, when, like, come on.
Adi Oasis: Yeah. It's almost like they ring a doorbell like, Hey, ready?
NARRATION: We left the conversation there, so Adi could try and squeeze in an hour of creative time before the nanny left. I'll be curious to hear the next record, and hear how she wrote her way through this chapter of her life.
Adi Oasis: You'll have to invite me back and I will let you know how I figured it out. But I, my baby is not even one. So I'm figuring it out.
Meklit Hadero: Thank you for your time, for your spirit, for your music.
Adi Oasis: Oh, thank you. Thanks for inviting me. It's an honor.
NARRATION: You can hear Adi's latest full length album "Lotus Glow" wherever you listen. She also has a bumpin' new single out called, very appropriately, "Multiply."
Adi had to cut our time short, and I could have talked to her for much longer. But in the end, I was happy that she had laid down that boundary and taken the time for herself to write. I knew how much she needed it. Like knew in my gut and heart and soul and experience how precious those supported hours in a week are. Motherhood and musicianship might be its own creative practice, but it is not easy.
For me, the baby years that Adi is experiencing coincided with the pandemic and the total shutdown of music. Fate let me evade the “can i have it all” question for a while. Don’t get me wrong, life was relentless with sacrifices a plenty. Start the day before dawn, playing, snuggling, facetiming with family, then 9 to 5 workday, cook dinner, more play, put the boy to bed, work several more bleary hours, try to sleep despite 5 to 7 nightly wake ups get up at 5:30 and do it all again. But music was not calling during those particularly pressurized times.
For every Mama musician they handle these times differently. One sister told me, she kept the bassinet on stage at her feet while she was singing. Another told me that grandparent drops off were her only solution. I heard one story of a mama who would wake up at 3 AM just to have time to write songs.
For Adi, she had her boundaries. Which I respect. She cut our conversation short so she could have time for herself to write. Motherhood and musicianship might be its own creative practice, but it is not easy.
Now that my kid is 5 years old, I've had a few years to ponder and even live that question, can I have it all? And the answer so far, is a resounding no. Because what does “having it all” mean anyways? Does it mean a compartmentalized existence where you keep living your pre baby self from 9 to 5 and then return to your present life at 5:01 PM? No.
Lately, I’ve been thinking it’s entirely the wrong question. Because the question itself implies a main character energy that stops and starts with me and that will just never be how I live my life ever again. I am part of a unit. Can I tour for months like I used to? No. And do I want to? No. Can I be in the studio till 2 am? No. But here’s the thing, my child sits on stage with me at sound checks, takes turns at the instruments of my bandmates and plays singing games with them. He is at home in a green room, on an airplane. He was in the studio while I recorded my last two albums. We write songs together before bedtime.
And here’s the beauty, my child knows my life. He knows my songs. And he is part of my grown up world. Yes, I’m doing it without parentalizing him, or making him responsible for anything. But he also isn’t shut out. And “having it all”, those are the wrong words for that gift. I think it's more like, he’s part of the whole, all of it. I have wholeness.
Movement is produced by Ian Coss and myself, Meklit Hadero. Our senior editor is Megan Tan. Our co-creator and podcast godmother is Julie Caine. Our broadcast partner is The World. We are supported by the Mellon Foundation and distributed by PRX.
If you enjoyed this story, consider sending it to a friend, or leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts. Believe me, this stuff really does help people find the show. And if you happen to be curious about my albums, or performances, you can learn more at meklitmusic.com. Movement will be back with new episodes every other Tuesday through the fall.