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By Selina Thompson

Take one male soul singer from Suffolk; add funky grooves, powerful vocals plus laid back tones and the result is Nate James. He’s a 25-year-old funkster whose voice earns him comparisons with Stevie Wonder and Maxwell, while his image of well-groomed afro and psychedelic street wear completes the traditional soul artist ingredients.

Inside the glamorous setting of an East-End bar, Nate tells me about the music he calls ‘old skool meets new skool’: “I’m a lover of the classic soul sound. You know, Al Green, Marvin, Stevie, Luther… I was brought up on that music. It’s not to necessarily reproduce that sound, but to kind of bring it more up to date. Old skool meets new skool is just taking those old flavours and adding my own 2005 take to it.” The new single ‘Set the Tone’ is certainly evidence of this with its generous slice of jazzy backbeats and soulful vocals that are helping to put groove back on the agenda of R&B playlists. A rhythmic backdrop against heartfelt lyrics to a domineering girlfriend is strengthened by the catchy hook. ‘Baby, I set the tone’, and reinforces his decision to release the track as first single. He says enthusiastically: “It’s a personal song to me about me in a past relationship and it’s just a nice groove for a hit single. I’m not saying it’s a number one, but it’s a track that I loved writing. I love performing it and the feedback I get back from it is great.”

Already impressing crowds and industry peers with his live performances, Nate demonstrates a ball of energy and charisma on stage that usually takes new artists a long time to master. “I love it! You know, I’m one of those people who at the end of the day thinks, if you’ve got a gift or you feel you can do something with all your heart then do it rather than mime. When you perform to an R&B crowd, like the one last night (for BBC 1Xtra’s R&B Sensations), it's not like they’re easily shocked, but I think that song ‘I'll Decline’ made them think, ‘What the hell?’, and they liked it cause it was cool - a bit Lenny Kravitz if you wanna put it in a category.”

The ‘big ball of creative energy’ grew up in the sleepy town of Woodbridge in Suffolk and found amusement in his parents’ collection of soul records. This, together with gospel influences from regular visits to the States with his American father, gave Nate the singing buzz. Recalling those childhood memories he says, “My American family are very devout church goers and we would go whenever we went to visit them. The whole feeling of gospel over there and the vibe of being in that situation with the gospel choir – it’s electric! So I think musically, that’s probably where it came from - my urge to perform, to feel that adrenaline and to feel a part of something big!”

Describing himself as the ‘creative wild card’ of his family over here, Nate continued his passion for music throughout his teens, before joining the male R&B group Notorious in 2000. “I was in a five piece boy group. Not a boy band – an R&B group with Paris from Fame Academy and three other guys – Chris, Gary and Jermaine,” he states. “I had a brilliant time for two years. We were signed to Warner Bros but never got to release anything ’cause of record label politics. Those days in the band taught me a lot about the industry and I left the group on very good terms.” Indeed, Jermaine sings backing vocals for Nate and says they’re all still ‘really tight’.

The progression into solo territory since the split saw Nate come into contact with UK soul legend Terrance Trent D’arby, Craig David and Roachford: “I’ve learnt a lot from Roachford. He’s my idol and it’s nice to meet people like him who have been there, seen it, done it and got the T-shirt, and he’s still going,” he says proudly. Using these mentors for guidance, Nate’s craving for soul, combined with his nurtured songwriting talent, led him to create 60 songs in the latter part of 2004 - spawning two albums, the first of which is to be his debut release in May. He reminisces: “There was so much material there, we thought rather than just pick one, why don’t we try and get two (albums) and they’re great.” Currently in talks with record labels for a possible signing, Nate feels that the near-finished production of the albums not only reflects his creative energy, but will also feed the industry’s demand for instant hits. Laying out the strategy he says: “I just thought, ‘well they might want three singles – let me just give them an album!’ Then they can see all of what I’m about. Even with the next single after ‘Set the Tone’, we’re not sure which one it’s gonna be yet, and luckily we’re in a position where we can choose and from hearing the album everyone can see what direction I’m going in.”

So far, Nate has earned much praise from the underground for his soul fusions, although many are still confused that it comes from a Suffolk lad. “When people hear soul and they can’t put a face to the name then they assume it must be some dude from the States. I mean one guy said to me he thought my single was Eric Benet’s new single which I was like, ‘WOW!’ That’s a serious compliment right there. The video for ‘Set the Tone’ was filmed in the States, but apart from that, I don’t think I sound American!”

Describing the untitled debut album as ‘a big mish-mash of me’, Nate developed his vision of delivering pure contemporary soul to the mainstream by teaming up with several producers on the chosen material. The project has allowed the creative freedom to experiment with different soul styles as Nate reflects: “They’ve all got their own take on me from where they’ve heard my voice, know what I can do and pushed me further in different directions. That’s been great for me ’cause I’m very much a person who likes to learn.” The different directions have also made way for a few tracks to cater for the dominating UK pop palette – something which Nate included so that the hard sell for soul doesn’t completely go over mainstream heads. “At the end of the day, if I do just pure soul then it might be a bit hard as an artist in the UK ’cause it’s very pop orientated. The first album’s very soul/funk, up-tempo grooves like ‘Set the Tone’ and mid-tempo stuff. The second album is more chilled out soul, more ‘bedroom’ music if you like. So I’ve been told,” he laughs.

Quick to run through potential hit singles and favourites on the album, Nate says: “The album is a mixture of songs; there’s some nice soul and funk songs on there. ‘Shake Out’ is one which I did with a guy called Peter Vetesse (produced Annie Lennox’s ‘Walk on Broken Glass’). It’s very psychedelic funk, just one of those songs that says ‘don’t hold back what you feel inside!’ It relates to those people who just sit in bars not wanting to dance. I always think, ‘well, if you haven’t come here to dance then what you doing here?’” He continues: “‘Universal’ – that’s based on me. You see, I have this slight problem that when I go out and I see a really beautiful girl, I’m kind of a shy guy,” (a bit hard to believe during the interview). The girl doesn’t come over ’cause she maybe thinks I’m with someone, so the song is just saying I’m not picky and I’m not fussy! If I think you’re beautiful let’s do it! I’m a universal guy – I like all kinds of women. So it’s just saying that I’m up for anything basically.”

Perhaps an advert for some good looking totty? Not that Nate has trouble when it comes to finding potential female collaborators as he also informs me of a possible team up with soul beauties Terri Walker (“That’s my soul sister right there”) and Kele Le Roc (“I love Kele, just her whole style and personality and her massive smile”) for two tracks on the album. These duets will undoubtedly kick start a much anticipated trend for UK artists to join forces and feed off each other; something which Nate is keen to do. He continues: “Like the Band Aid situation it’d be great to get the soul artists of the UK coming together on a track - that would be quite cool. I’m very much for UK. I think the American’s do it well but I think it’s about time that we… not so much stepped up the game, but raised the bar a little bit and started saying… you can do this, so can we.”

But is the UK really ready for a male soul artist? After all, the music scene is still more receptive to its female R&B counterparts. Nate gives his perspective: “I think anytime is the right time to break into the UK scene, especially if you’ve got a song which people are on ’cause it helps. I’m really glad that we did the groundwork on the new single last year because we got the underground crowd. You know, the 1Xtra listeners, the Kiss FM listeners and Choice listeners have been kicking that song for a long time. And I for one want to push it out there into the commercial market.”

So on with the new single and the quest to make soul cool again! He ends our time with this to say: “Nothing’s guaranteed in this industry or in this world, so if I can be up there with the Marvin’s and the Stevie’s in 20 years time, then I’ll be a very pleased man. But for now, I’m just living for the moment and the longer I can do it for and people appreciate it, the better.”