An Oral History on Music, Identity, Belonging and Healing
By Mark de Clive-Lowe
“Throughout my travels, music that speaks truth to humanity has always captured my heart and imagination and the way in which music brought me deep into communities rich with roots, ancestry and cultural stories has been profound. I’ve bonded with friends new and old through music in dozens of countries, oftentimes even using our shared love for music to bridge language barriers.”
A collage featuring the discography of Mark de Clive-Lowe. Since 1996, he has released numerous albums, remixes, EPs, singles and collaborations - this is a selection of 25 of them from his first solo album ‘First Thoughts’ recorded and released in New Zealand (NZ) in 1996, through to 2019’s Heritage albums and CHURCH Sessions.
“de Clive-Lowe’s notion of truth on Heritage ultimately reaches beyond the individual, beyond his lineage and into the cultural moment we’re currently living.”
It All Began with a Sea-Passage.
Mark de Clive-Lowe’s (MdCL) family origin story begins with his father’s sea-passage by boat from New Zealand at the age of 23 in 1954. He was to teach English for three months at a private school in post-atomic-holocaust Hiroshima. His three-month trip turned into twenty years, living in Japan and meeting the woman who would become his wife, Toshiko, and having three sons with her.
Mark provides a retrospective of his experiences growing up as a bi-cultural youth in New Zealand, a country still coming to terms with its post-colonial story. He reflects on his search for belonging as half-Japanese, where there were no others with whom he could identify, and how his path as a musician helped him find a sense of community, belonging and healing.
His quest has fueled a career as an innovative, avante-garde musician and producer, who has worked with some of the greats in jazz, R&B/Soul,Dance and Electronic music. He himself is considered one of the greats by artists like Questlove, and a pioneer of the broken beat sound or Bruk sound, originating in the United Kingdom in the 1990’s, but also with its origin is jazz fusion, soul, funk, house, drum and bass; and techno.
For Mark, music has been a salve to his spirit, on his journey for belonging, community and healing, and in turn, he has shared those gifts with the world. Here is his story.