See Naples And Die!

“It was really exciting. It was like, ‘Yes, I’ve finally arrived!’. But the thing is, it’s so different to how it looks on TV. It’s quite a small room with a tiny audience. There’s two stages and it’s really weird because you have all these cameras and lights. There’s way more cameras and lights than you’d have in a normal studio. At least that’s the impression I got anyway.”

Karen Ramirez is talking about a musical milestone – her debut appearance on Top Of The Pops. She’s been on twice now with ‘Looking For Love’, a sparkling sun-drenched number with a Latin twist. Distant Dreams is the source, a debut long player that’s best described as a cavernous melting pot of funky grooves, languid trip-hop, spirited Latin rhythms and the smoky ambience of jazz.

Distant Dreams is a summer album, ‘Looking For Love’ a big glass of fizzy lemonade. With a modest giggle, Karen proudly announces that on her second visit to the TOTP broom cupboard she’d edged into the Top 10. So, who was no.1?

“Well, the first time I was on, it was the football song, ‘Three Lions’. The last time it was Billie,” she replies, laughing, before breaking into song: “Because we want to/ Because we want to!’.”

Karen Ramirez spent her childhood listening to music. Her father is a percussionist, her mother teaches piano. Before Karen’s birth, both worked as London-based dancers before taking their family to Trinidad when Karen was six. They were happy days.

“When I was back in Trinidad,” recalls Karen, “I used to wake up to the sound of my mother playing all these classical scales, Beethoven and other stuff. At night she used to get all these jazz musicians playing in the front room and I’d hear all these great stories about touring around Europe, y’know, Paris, Germany . . . wherever. It became a sort of obsession for me, y’know, the idea of touring around Europe.”

It’s fitting, then, that Karen’s debut was recorded in sunny Naples, an experience she found most agreeable.

“It was fantastic,” she expounds. “The studio I was in, for example, was so homely. Whenever we’d stop for lunch or whatever, we’d have pizza and pasta . . . y’know, the food’s different. As well as that, the people who are around you are different. They’re a very emotional and passionate people who argue all the time. When I’d get fed up, I’d just walk outside and the sea was there in front of me. Then there’s the hot climate . . . it makes a world of difference. It’s a whole different world.”

Eating? Arguing? It doesn’t sound like the most idyllic recording environment in the world. Couldn’t she have made the same album in London?

“Mmm, no! I think I could have made an album that was just as good but very different,” she muses. “I think there’s a different vibe in Naples. It’s a very unusual place, an amazing place. As for the arguing, I think it’s just that the Italians I was working with, Souled Out, were just very passionate about what they did. they’d be arguing amongst themselves, and when I’d ask what the matter was, they’d just laugh and say that they were discussing the football or whatever.”

Later this month, Karen Ramirez will support the godfather of soul, James Brown, in Dublin’s Point Theatre. Needless to say, she’s rather excited about the prospect.

“That’s going to be really, really cool,” she expounds. “I’m really looking forward to it. I mean, it’s James Brown! I really want to meet him and do a duet with him.”

• James Brown, Karen Ramirez and Roni Size play the Point Theatre on Fri 21st August.