Otep Says She Liked the Freedom of Nu Metal
Otep Shamaya, vocalist of the nu metal band Otep, has always been candid about her experiences as a woman in the metal scene. And now, as nu metal has a recent resurgence in popularity, she says she’s been a fan of the genre’s expansiveness despite how redundant it eventually became.
In an interview with Ghost Cult, she explained how the genre wasn’t just a melding of rap and rock, but rather it was more than the sum of its parts.
“The great thing about nu metal, it wasn’t just a fusion of rap and metal, like RUN-DMC and Aerosmith; it wasn’t just that. ‘Cause ‘Walk This Way’ was kind of one of the first, and then Anthrax and I think Public Enemy did it back in the ’80s. And then Korn was probably the biggest influence in that world at first because they brought in funk and they brought in punk and metal and rap and whatever else Jonathan [Davis] was doing on the microphone, which is amazing, singing. You have the Deftones, which early on were considered emo, mainly because of Chino’s [Moreno] screams and stuff. But the Deftones have a DJ, and not a lot of people know that, but that’s because they brought that in.”
“There was no taboo in that time period, which was really great, during the formation of nu metal. It was about, ‘What are your influences?’ and ‘Bring them in.’ And whenever we were writing the first record, my drummer Mark Bistany, he could play anything—The guy could play jazz and still can; he’s having a little health problems right now, but he still can play. But he would sit down; he would just start a beat, start playing hip-hop, or he would play a metal beat or he’d play whatever, and then if I was in the room and it inspired me, I’d start either singing, rapping, screaming over it, whatever, and then the bass player would jump in, guitar player would come in, and there was never any…
“The only rules were there are no rules; just bring in whatever inspires you. And so our bass player was at the time was inspired by Meshuggah and Hatebreed and all these bands like that, and he was bringing those influences in, the guitar player was inspired by pretty much everything; he could play blues, rock, metal, whatever. And he had played on some hip-hop records in the past, as did the drummer [Mark]; he’d played on some beats for hip-hop producers.
“So we were just doing whatever, and there wasn’t anything taboo, and that’s what made it so liberating. The genre itself started to cannibalize itself, and it became suffocating in a lot of ways. And some good music came out of it; I’m not denying it. But then they started denying what we did as something that was authentic or genuine. And I never walked away from it—I never walked away from the moniker, and I still don’t. It gave me a 20-year-plus career in this business and nine albums.”
While Otep’s take on nu metal might feel cheesy to folks who lived through the genre’s birth, gen Z would disagree, as new bands take influence from the genre and classic bands like Otep, Slipknot, and System of a Down.
Otep’s The God Slayer came out last month via Cleopatra. The album offers a mix of original tracks and covers of contemporary artists.
