Photo c/o artist’s myspace page

I originally found out about N’Digo Rose, the stage name of pianist Tony Hicks, from his brief stint with the Cornel West Theory. However, his solo material is just as worthy of quality listening time. His singing & playing styles are certainly inspired by the likes of Stevie Wonder and other funky 70s artists, but he’s also not afraid to add some experimental touches to his recordings. It’s a very lively sound that’s further enhanced by three background vocalists known as the Nekkid UndastandN.

Hicks took some time out to talk to us about his unique stage name, the reason he kept a boot on his piano and his creative process.

Find him online: http://www.myspace.com/ndigorose011279

See him next: Saturday, Aug. 25, 8:00 p.m., Ras Restaurant & Lounge (4309 Georgia Avenue)

How long have you been playing the piano?

I have been playing since I was fifteen. Yeah, I was a late bloomer.

True, I guess a lot of people do start that as kids and give it up.

Most people do. A lot of the cats that I ask, they’re like, “I’ve been playing forever. Since I was old enough to sit up straight.” But my parents, a) they were broke and b) they didn’t force stuff on us. But we had an old piano. Somebody gave it to us and it was in the house. I’d never even thought about playing it until we left D.C. when I was late 14, about to turn 15. We moved from D.C. to Fort Washington, MD. I’m not sure if you’ve ever been out that way, but there’s a vast difference from being able to jump on the metro within a couple of blocks to literally, unless you’ve got a car, nothing. So, there’s nothing to do, eventually I started sitting there and messing with the piano. It’s not like I was going anywhere and my oldest brother played the piano and the little brother always follows after the oldest brother. Everything he did, I wanted to do. It didn’t really hit me until I was fifteen in the house, messing around.

How did you come up with the name N’Digo Rose?

I would like to tell you some grandiose, deeply enlightening story about how I came up with that name, like there was a lightning strike and then a great epiphany. But honestly, I was sitting around one day and — I’m a huge Stevie Wonder fan — and the thought process was literally as simple as this. I was sitting around thinking about Stevie Wonder and I thought, “I know damn well his name ain’t Stevie Wonder” and I said, “I gotta get a stage name, man! That’d be cool to have.” So, I started thinking and thinking and thinking and I thought, “Well, what is something that you never have seen before?” And so after a bunch of bad, really godawful names which I will spare you the details of, I came up with that one because I was like, “Well, I’ve never seen one of those before, so I’ll go with that.” So, that’s the story. It’s as boring as it could possibly be.

It’s brainstorming! Is that also the process for coming up with your songs?

Since I was a kid, I would hum different things randomly. My mother tells me that when I was about eight, I would hum. And I had an established fear of the dark when I was a kid. So, whenever I had to go in the dark, I would sing. I guess that either helped me a) feel a little bit better or b) if it didn’t help me feel better, at least I wanted somebody to know that I was in the dark and if anything happened, they could hear me, hopefully. So, I always had different little random melodies hit me. Before, I didn’t think much about it because I’m a little kid. I wasn’t going to write those songs as a little kid. They kept coming and kept coming and I kept singing them, unconsciously. Then, I started again a little older — I think about twelve or thirteen-ish. I had gotten completely away from singing, because I thought singing was for punks and that guys just don’t sing, which is the stupidest thing ever. So, I got really heavy into hip-hop. It was the ‘80s and you only see these rappers, they were dominating everywhere, so that was my thing. Then, I got to be twelve or thirteen and I got back to it and said, “I want to write some kind of song at this point.” And all those random melodies began to come into play at that time. So honestly, it’s just a random thing. I can be walking around at work and the rain will hit the window a certain way and the rhythm of that will cause me to start thinking about something.

How frequently do you play with the Cornel West Theory?

It’s been awhile now. I haven’t played with them in maybe about a year and some change. But for awhile I was playing with them pretty regularly. It’s my brother’s band and he was trying to do a livened version of hip-hop with instrumentation and things like that. And of course, if anyone knows how hard it is to get a keyboard player to play with you for nothing, it’s me. So, I figured I’d save him the trouble of having to go through what I go through and just go ahead and play. So, that’s all that was.

I noticed when I saw you play with them awhile back that you keep a boot on the keyboard. What’s the story of the boot on the keyboard?

That kind of took on a life of its own, actually, but it started honestly because — it’s typically the right boot — the reason being I wanted to be able to feel the sustain pedal. It’s kind of hard to feel and I kept stomping on it and that pole is not really in there securely and it’s fallen out on me so many times onstage, I can’t even remember. I got so used to doing what I call “chomping” on the piano because there’s no way to sustain it because the pole would always fall out. So, I started taking my boot off and I didn’t want to leave it down there and trip over it. It would probably not be the best look performance-wise. So, I just started throwing it on top of the Rhodes because there’s so much space on a Rhodes. I figured I’d just throw it up there and then it kind of took on a life of its own.

In addition to your own stage name, you’ve come up with stage names for other people as well, right? I know you came up with JosaFeen Wells.

Yeah, yeah. She and I have been singing together for at least ten years, probably more. I never push my own thing onto other people. I let them do their own thing. But the girls that sing background, I started calling them the Nekkid UndastandN because I came up with that name one day. And I was like, “Well, you can’t just be normal. You can’t just be Michelle Jenkins and part of the Nekkid UndastandN,”. So we had to come up with something. Ginger already had Ginger Blue as her name already so that was fantastic. She sings bass soprano. And then Deborah Bond, that was her name originally and then that was her stage name. So, Carla [Elliott] didn’t have a name and I kept thinking and I kept thinking and I think I must have been at work at some ungodly hour of the morning and The Outlaw Josey Wales is on and I’m like, “That’s it.” But I didn’t want to go with Josey Wales because obviously that was clearly taken. I wanted to make it more feminine but definitely hard edged and bad ass at the same time. So, I chose JosaFeen instead of Josey. And she wears it well.

What’s the preview for what we can expect at your show?


I’d say the game plan is first and foremost to be as funky as possible. Funky, funky, funky, funky, funky. That is my foremost goal along with good musicianship and trying to master that. Hopefully, we will be as tight as we possibly can be. It will have been two years, so I’m excited and I’m nervous all at the same time.