With new singles and an upcoming Thanksgiving weekend show, Les Creatif’s Dante Cope opened up about its music for Local Spins on WYCE, which also debuted new tracks by West Michigan artists.
Creating Their Own Vibe: Les Creatif plays Billy’s Lounge on Nov. 26. (Courtesy Photo)
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For Dante Cope, music essentially is genre-less – which could be why he describes Grand Rapids’ Les Creatif as a funk-rock-based melding of styles: “Sly & the Family Stone meets ‘Stankonia’-era Outkast.”
“At its core, it’s basically like funk music. We all have different backgrounds, different musical tastes so each song that comes to the table, we all kind of add a little different flavor to it,” he said.
“Music today I feel is genre-less. You can start in one genre and kind of add elements of others to kind of create your own vibe. I view music as a feeling.”
That feeling over the past few years has manifested itself with inventive, boundary-expanding singles and B-sides, along with all-encompassing live performances by the Les Creatif ensemble that Cope describes as “wild.”
Music as a ‘Feeling’: Dante Cope (Courtesy Photo)
The funky collective marks the latest musical adventure for Brandon Copeland, aka Dante Cope, who started his career as a hip hop producer in Jackson, Mich., before moving to the Grand Rapids area in 2003 to attend Grand Valley State University.
The saxophonist, keyboard player, guitarist and emcee released his first Dante Cope solo album in 2012, eventually bringing musicians Hugo Claudin and Plymouth Williams along for his live sets.
Since then, the group has expanded, with the current lineup also featuring Justin Golinski, Dawn Elizabeth Hays and Nathan Mabie, with Les Creatif adding special guests to the mix for different projects.
The band recently released the second in a series of “triads” – A-side/B-side singles that feature instrumental, a cappella and full-band versions of the songs. For this week’s edition of Local Spins on WYCE, Cope showcased “Revolution” from the new “Remember the Revolution,” as well as the track, “OMG (Go Spell),” released early this year.
Watch a video for Les Creatif’s single, “New Day,” with Dawn Elizabeth here, and scroll down to listen to the full radio show podcast.
VIDEO: Les Creatif, “New Day”
Encouraged by his mother, who taught piano, Cope, now 36, grew up as an avid fan of Stevie Wonder. “I always wanted to create music like that,” he recalled.
With Les Creatif, the creative process has resulted in a series of themed releases, with the latest tracks recorded in Cope’s home studio or at the West Michigan Center for Arts and Technology. The ensemble has added different voices to its projects, such as Helen Lyle on “Remember” and Mystur Love for earlier singles.
“Music is communal, so features are just an extension of the energy of the song,” offered Cope. “Helen Lyle has a sad, yearning quality to her voice which was perfect for ‘Remember.’ Mystur Love has a classic R&B sound that was needed to make the ‘T.I.T.’ singles more sultry.”
Transitioning to Film: Dante Cope performing this summer at Sullivan Field. (Photo/Local Spins)
With visual art a key component for each release, Cope also envisions transitioning Les Creatif’s music to film in the coming year.
“That has always been the goal … transitioning from just making the music to making something that you can actually watch,” he said. “The music is going to be released in sort of like episodes, almost like a TV series.”
Before that, however, Les Creatif will play Billy’s Lounge in Grand Rapids on Nov. 26, along with the Latin alternative music collective Cabildo. The Friday night show aims to spotlight the wide-ranging spectacle that is Les Creatif; get details here.
“It’s going to be wild,” insisted Cope. “We go through a range of emotions. There’ll be stuff you can dance to, stuff you can rock out to, stuff you can mosh to. We do it all.”
Beyond spotlighting Les Creatif, this week’s edition of Local Spins on WYCE – which features local and regional music at 11 a.m. Fridays on WYCE (88.1 FM) and online at wyce.org – also unfurled new music from The Bootstrap Boys, Chris Collins, Helen Lyle (this week’s musician’s pick by Cope), The Good Old Days, Stormy Chromer, Edison Kitt and The Verve Pipe, as well as tracks by Samuel Nalangira and Barrel Bones. Listen to the radio show here.
PODCAST: Local Spins on WYCE (11/19/21)
VIDEO: Dante Cope & Dayz, “Anti-American”
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