Category: R&B

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Her Songs is a multi-national collective featuring:

  • Dani Murcia (vocals, piano, guitar, production), a Colombian-American, Miami-born, New York-based R&B/pop/soul singer/songwriter, whose lush harmonies and haunting melodies has been influenced by the likes of JOVM mainstay Nick Hakim, Kimbra and Matt Corby. Her latest EP Breaking Light consists of stories focusing on grieving her father’s suicide and searching for beauty in pain.
  • Emily C. Browning (vocals, guitar), a Christchurch, New Zealand-based indie soul artist influenced by the likes of Emily King, Lianne La Havas and Nai Palm. Her work features conversational-style lyrics, that offer a deep perspective and insight into the human experience.
  • Francesa Hole, a French-born, London-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, known as The Naked Eye (vocals, guitar). Influenced by Nai Palm, Lianne La Havas, Maya Angelou, Joni Mitchell, D’Angelo, Bruno Major and others, Hole’s work as she describes it, are autobiographical songs about life experiences, relationships and overcoming hardships that meshes elements of jazz, soul, folk and R&B. Her latest EP Love’s Grave was released last April.
  • JOVM mainstay, Marie Dahlstrom (vocals, piano, percussion and production), a Rosklide, Denmark-born, London-based singer/songwriter, who has been largely influenced by the R&B and soul she heard in her home as a child — in particular Edwyn Collins, Womack & Womack and Gloria Gaynor were on regular rotation. Dahlstrom discovered Dwele, Dire Straits, Erykah Badu, Kirk Franklin and Fleetwood Mac in her teenage years.

    Dahlstrom first gained attention as a solo artist in her native Denmark, eventually becoming a three-time Scandinavian Soul Award winner. Since relocating to London, the Danish-born singer/songwriter she has become an internationally recognized sensation, best known for crafting a warm and ethereal synthesis of jazz, classic soul and R&B. Interestingly, after successful collaborations with Tom Misch and Alfa Mist,the Roskilde-born, London-based singer/songwriter has been busy writing the material, which would eventually comprised her long-awaited full-length debut. Slated for release latest this year, the album was recorded in Los Angeles, Copenhagen, and London and features collaborations with James Vickery, Jeremy Passion, Elijah Fox, Beau Diako and a list of others.

  • Emmavie (vocals production), a London-based singer/songwriter and producer, whose work is an amalgamation of 90s R&B and her love for digital audio experimentation. She has built up a reputation for being a highly sought-after collaborator, working with IAMNOBODI, Buddy, ROMderful, Jarreau Vandal, Alfa Mist, Nick Grant and Jay Prince. Emmavie has had her work featured on the Oprah Winfrey Network-produced series Queen Sugar. And adding to a growing profile, the London-based singer/songwriter and producer was scouted by  DJ Jazzy Jeff, who flew her out to his house in Delaware to write and record music with Mac Ayres, Robert Glasper and Redman as part of the Playlist Retreat.

Interestingly, the collective can trace their origins to a conversation that the five women shared on social media. The collective’s debut EP 2018’s Los Angeles found the quintet crafting material that meshed elements of 90s R&B with contemporary electronic production. The collective begins 2020 with “If We Try,” the first single off their forthcoming, sophomore EP Toronto, Vol. 1. Co-written by  Emmavie and Marie Dahlstrom, who share a mutual love of soul and R&B, the sultry and decidedly 90s neo-soul inspired track is centered around the quintet’s lush harmonizing, shimmering keys, a sinuous bass line and a soaring hook manages to recall Teddy Riley-like New Jack Swing, Erykah Badu, SWV, Timbaland and others. 

“‘If We Try’ is about asking the person you love for a second chance,” Her Songs’ Marie Dahlstrom explains in press notes. “Sometimes people are quick to break relationships off when things get off rough, but this son his about finding strength in vulnerability. we live in a world of instant gratification and relationships can often feel replaceable. We wanted to chance the narrative: you get so much more when you try.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: H.E.R. Performs “Slide” for Vevo

Born Gabriella Wilson, the Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter and guitarist, best known as H.E.R. (an acronym for Having Everything Revealed). Wilson first gained attention when she participated in Radio Disney’s Next Big Thing contest in 2009. By 2014, she had signed with RCA Records and released her debut single “Something to Prove” under her birth name. 

Back in 2016, Wilson re-emerged with her current solo project, H.E.R., releasing her debut EP H.E.R. Volume 1, a seven song collection of slow-burning, post-breakup material, which managed to sound both vulnerable and self-assured. RCA Records initially released the effort that September to limited promotion — but the album effort eventually landed at #28 on Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop charts thanks in part to social media co-signs from Alicia Keys and Bryson Tiller, as well as an attention grabbing cover of Drake’s “Jungle.” Wilson followed-up with 2017’s  similarly styled H.E.R. Volume 2, which debuted at #22 on Billboard’s R&B/hip-hop charts. 

Continuing the rapidly growing buzz surrounding her, the EPs were soon combined and released as H.E.R. with six additional tracks, including “Best Part,” a #32 R&B/hip-hop hit, previously heard on Daniel Caesar’s Freudian. 

Last year H.E.R. teamed up with pop superstar Khalid for “This Way,” which appeared on the Superfly Soundtrack. That August, Wilson released her third EP, I Used to Know Her: The Prelude, which landed at the top of R&B/hip-hop charts, thanks to the success of “Could’ve Been,” a duet with Bryson Tiller. By the end of the year, Wilson received five Grammy nominations — Album of the year and Best R&B album for H.E.R., Best R&B Performance for “Best Part,” Best R&B Song for “Focus,” and Best New Artist, winning Grammies for Best R&B Album and Performance. 

Since the Grammy Awards, she has collaborated with a diverse and eclectic array of artists including Chris Brown on “Come Together,” Jess Glynne on “Thursday,” Ed Sheehan on “I Don’t Want Your Money” and YBN Cordae on “Racks,” “21” and “Slide.” Some of that material was released on the compilation album I Used to Know Her while others were released as stand-alone singles or the albums of her collaborators. She’s also been nominated for five more Grammy Awards at the forthcoming 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, including Best Album and and Record with I Used to Know Her and Song of the Year for “Hard Place.”  

Recently Vevo invited the Grammy Award singer/songwriter and guitarist for a live session that included the two-step inducing “Slide” Featuring a shimmering and strutting neo-soul/classic soul arrangement and an infectious hook, the song is a perfect vehicle for Wilson’s sultry and self-assured vocals and some ambitious yet accessible songwriting. 

singer/songwriters by William Ruben Helms

EP Stream: Zaia’s “Reset EP”

Zaia is an up-and-coming, 21-year-old Atlanta, GA-born and based singer/songwriter, who has received attention across the blogosphere including the likes of HillyDilly and ThisSongIsSick and others over the past couple of years for a bold, genre-bending sound that draws from hip-hop, R&B, neo-soul, soul and 70s funk — and has been compared to Kid Cudi and Childish Gambino. Building upon a growing profile, the up-and-coming Atlanta-born and-based artist released two critically applauded singles this year “Waste My Time” and “Blue,” which has amassed over 1,000,000 Spotify streams. He was also featured on the cover of Spotify’s Mellow Bars playlist. 

Zaia’s debut EP Reset, which features the aforementioned “My Time” and “Blue” was officially released today and the material thematically explores the vast, complex and frequently contradictory range of emotions that accompany a particularly bitter, emotional breakup with the aim of supporting others going through similar experiences. “I wrote Reset as a way to vent about the mental reset I had to go through after a long-term relationship. I went from feeling really happy to really depressed for a long period of time,” Zaia explains in press notes. “I think everyone goes through some sort of ‘reset’ after something deeply affects the way they feel and think about things. I tried to represent the moodiness of the emotions we experience with each different track, that’s why they all have different energies in the production.”  

“Counseling,” Reset’s slow-burning and brooding neo-soul inspired opening track is centered around an atmospheric arrangement of shimmering and arpeggiated Rhodes piano, a sinuous bass line and Zaia’s plaintive vocals expressing bitterness, denial and frustration — all of which he wants to desperately wants to escape from, but can’t. And while the song’s narrator briefly admits that he’s kind of fucked up — he’s selfish and a bit off, he says — he doesn’t think that therapy or counseling session with a judgmental professional will help him much. Nor does he seem to want to look very deeply into himself. Give me booze, give me drugs, let try to forget everything that’s ever happened, he seems to say.  Admittedly, sometimes that’s a pretty damn good option. “Blue,” the EP’s second track is a brooding and atmospheric track that’s one part shoegazing JOVM mainstays The Veldt, one part contemporary pop and one part old-school blues, as it captures a narrator, who can’t seem to get over and move on from the breakup — and in some way is haunted (and tortured) by the ghosts of that relationship. “Waste My Time,” is a track that owes a sonic debt to hip-hop and neo-soul as it’s centered around a sultry bass line, boom-bap-like drums while the Atlanta-based alternates between a sing-songy/rhyming and traditional vocal delivery. But unlike the other songs, it’s a sort of angry tell-off to a lover/love-interest. “On the Run” is a Quiet Storm-inspired bit of neo-soul that sounds like one-part sultry come-on, one-part reconciliation, one part desperate plea — but with an underlying tacit sense that the song’s narrator recognizes that going back to his lover may be a bit fucked up. “Grace,” the feverish psych soul meets hip-hop finale radiates an uneasy peace and acceptance with the narrator’s situation. 

While further establishing the Atlanta-based artist’s genre-bending sound, his debut EP also reveals an artist, who has an uncanny and downright unerring knack for pairing an infectious hook with earnest, lived-in songwriting that accurately captures the confusing and contradictory emotions and thoughts of an embittering breakup.

The recently released accompanying visual EP is set to specifically tell the story of the song’s narrator, his bitter breakup and gradual (and perhaps begrudging) acceptance of his plight.  “The reason I wanted to make the music video this way is because each song goes together to tell a story, or this rollercoaster of events. Visually we brought that to life, like a reenactment of the entire experience,” Zaia says. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Bedstudy’s Shimmering and Woozy Take on Electro Pop

Founded in 2016 by founding members David Plakon (production) and Peter Baldwin (vocals), along with newest member Ranson Vorpahl (drums), the Brooklyn-based electro R&B/electro soul act Bedstudy can trace their origins to when the act’s founding duo met at Plakon’s Florida studio, where Baldwin was working on his debut album. After independently moving to Brooklyn, Baldwin and Plakon reconnected at a Tall Juan show at Berlin Under A and decided they should start a band together.

Within their first year together, the duo quickly wrote and released four singles, including “Arms Away,” which Paper Magazine called “gorgeously woozy.” Vorphal joined the band in 2017 to complete the band’s lineup. The newly constituted trio  then spent another year writing and revising their sound before signing to Grand Jury Music, who will be releasing their highly-anticipated EP dot wave on February 15, 2019. Primarily recorded at David Plakon’s Crown Heights home studio with some additional sessions at Braund Studios and Black Rock Studios, the effort reportedly finds the act expanding upon the sound that first won them attention. Interestingly, the EP’s latest single “12” is centered around twinkling keys, a sinuous bass line, thumping drumming and Baldwin’s plaintive vocals, the track is a shimmering and woozy take on contemporary electro pop that brings to mind JOVM mainstays Beacon and No Kind of Rider’s Savage Coast but with a decidedly hip-hop swagger. 

Directed and edited by Tess Lafia, starring Riley Cedar and Sebastian Borberg and featuring animation by David Herrera, the recently released video for “12” features some incredibly hallucinogenic visuals that nod at several different decades at once that to my eyes evoke a trip that’s disorientating and woozy. 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

 

Alexis Evans is a young, up-and-coming Bordeaux, France-born soul singer/songwriter and guitarist. He discovered traditionally black music and soul music as a child and learned to play the guitar from his father, an English-born, French-based musician. At the young age of 17, Evans released his debut “Jumping to the Westside” which was awarded the Cognac Blues Passions prize — and as a result, he wound up performing in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis. With the release of 2016’s full-length debut Girl Bait, the young, French singer/songwriter built up a national and international profile with live sets at RDV Erdre Nantes, Rhino Jazz St. Etienne, Lyon Ninkasi, Club Nubia Paris, Festivals Relache Bordeaux, Jazz a Vienne and festival stops across the England, Wales, Estonia and Switzerland.

From album single “Keep the Good Time (On Your Mind)” I can see why.  Evans and his backing band specialize in a warmly familiar take on the classic soul sound — it’s part Muscle Shoals, part Northern Soul, part Daptone Records, centered around Evans effortless, soulful beyond his youthful vocals, big, rousing hooks and a muscular, power ballad-like arrangement. The guy can flat out sang and play that soul like it was 1963.

Evans recently signed to renowned Italian soul label Record Kicks Records, who will be releasing his sophomore album sometime next year. I’m personally looking forward to hearing more from this young, exceptional talent.

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Up-and-Coming Danish Artist Selma Judith Releases Vulnerable Visuals for Intimate, Debut Single “Kind Of Lonely”

Selma Judith is a heavily tattooed Copenhagen-Denmark-based harpist, who was best known for collaborating with The National’s Arron and Bryce Dessner, Vera, and MØ among others; however, with the release of her debut single”Kind Of Lonely,” the Danish harpist has revealed that she specializes in a delicate, woozy yet swooning and heartfelt electro R&B, centered around a production of stuttering beats, Selma Judith’s self-assured and sultry vocals, ethereal synths and a sinuous, Quiet Storm-like hook. As the up-and-coming artist says of the song, “Sometimes you love someone ‘despite of…’, instead of ‘because of…’. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the emotions we feel for the person are any weaker – it can be quite the contrary. This kind of relationship can reach wuthering heights, but although the view might be grand and beautiful, the fall is further down. The thin air up in these clouds is addictive, but in the long run, it can really damage you.”

Directed by Masha Koppel, the recently released video was shot in single take and captures Selma Judith in an incredibly simple, intimate, vulnerable fashion  — a young woman in her apartment, playing with her cat, singing along to her song before moving to her bathroom to undress and shower, before ending with her casually smoke a cigarette out of her window.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstay Meshell Ndegeocello Releases Tender and Joyful Cover of Ralph Tresvant’s “Sensitivity”

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, I’ve written quite a bit about the critically applauded, JOVM mainstay Meshell Ndegeocello– and as you may recall, the singer/songwriter, rapper and bassist was born Michelle Lynn Johnson in Berlin, Germany and was raised in Washington, DC.  When she turned 17, she adopted the name Meshell Ndegeocello, with the surname, as she has explained meaning “free like a bird in Swahili.”

In the late 80s, Ndedgeocello gigged around DC’s go-go circuit, playing with a number of local acts including Prophecy, Little Bennie and the Masters, and Rare Essence before unsuccessfully trying out for Living Colour’s bassist spot, after Muzz Skillings left the band. Deciding to go solo, Ndegeocello eventually caught the attention of Madonna, who signed the singer/songwriter, rapper and bassist to her Maverick Records. Most readers will remember her commercially successful collaborative coverof Van Morrison‘s “Wild Night,” with John Mellencamp, a single that peaked at #3 on the BillboardCharts in 1994 and “If That’s Your Boyfriend (He Wasn’t Last Night)” peaked at #73 later that year. Adding to a rapidly rising profile, she collaborated with the legendary Herbie Hancock on a track for Red Hot Organization’s AIDS awareness, tribute compilation Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, which was named Time Magazine‘s “Album of the Year.”  Her coverof Bill Withers‘ “Who Is He (And What Is He to You)” was a #1 Dance Hit in 1996 and was briefly featured in the major motion picture Jerry Maguire, and she landed Dance Top 20 hits with “Earth,” “Leviticus: Faggot,” and “Stay.” Along with that she collaborated with Madonna, playing bass on “I’d Rather Be Your Lover,” and contributing a verse at the last minute, after Tupac Shakur had criminal charges filed against him. Ndegeocello has also collaborated with Chaka Khan, rapping  on “Never Miss the Water,” a single that landed #1 on Billboard‘s Dance Club Charts and peaked at #36 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Chart. Additionally, Ndegeocello has collaborated with the likes of Basement Jaxx,Indigo Girls, Scritti Politti,The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Rolling Stones, Alanis Morrissetteand Zap Mama.

Throughout her lengthy career, Ndegeocello has managed the rare feet of achieving commercial success while arguably being one of the most uncompromising and iconoclastic artists of the past 25 years — all while being credited as being at the forefront of the neo-soul sound, thanks in part to a genre defying and difficult to pigeonhole sound that draws from hip-hop, classic soul, jazz, rock, reggae and singer/songwriter pop. Over the past few years, Ndegeocello has been rather busy — she wrote and composed a musical influenced by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, titled Can I Get a Witness?: The Gospel of James Baldwin and released a gorgeous tribute album to the legendary Nina Simone, which featured collaborations with fellow JOVM mainstay Cody ChesnuTT and others.

Ventriloquism, Ndegeocello’s later album was released earlier this year, and the album finds the renowned singer/songwriter and bassist covering songs by  TLC, Janet Jackson, Tina Tuner, Prince and others, who have been influential to her and her work — but with her unique take. As the renowned singer/songwriter and bassist explains in press notes, “Early on in my career, I was told to make the same kind of album again and again, and when I didn’t do that, I lost support. There isn’t much diversity within genres, which are ghettoizing themselves, and I liked the idea of turning hits I loved into something even just a little less familiar or formulaic. It was an opportunity to pay a new kind of tribute.” Ventriloquism’s first single was a coverof Force MD‘s smash hit “Tender Love,” that found Ndegeocello turning the slow-burning, 80s piano ballad into a folksy, Harvest-era Neil Young/Fleetwood Mac track, complete with shuffling drumming, twinkling Fender Rhodes and harmonica. Though she eschews some of the song’s cheesiness, which makes it endearing in its own right, Ndegeocello’s cover retains the song’s earnestness — pointing out that a well-written pop song can reach for something downright timeless. 

The album’s latest single is a cover of Ralph Tresvant’s “Sensitivity,” that briefly nods at Sting’s “Englishman in New York,” as it’s centered around loose, bluesy guitar chords, shuffling drumming and a New Orleans brass band-like bridge — and while retaining the song’s sultry nature, Ndegeocello manages to pull out and further emphasize the song’s tenderness.  Much like its predecessor, the new single continues Ndegeocello’s commentary on society’s narrow expectations on what music created by and performed by black artists should sound like and be like. 

Directed by the Cass Bird, the recently released video for “Sensitivity ” was specifically released in conjunction with the end of Pride Month — and in our dark and uncertain age, the video is a much-needed burst of joy and humanity, as the video was specifically cast to focus on faces, body types and identities that are less conventional, less celebrated and often misunderstood, capturing these people at their most vital, most joyful and most human — whether dancing, tenderly embracing, kissing and loving. Certainly, the world would be a much better place if there was more love and more gentle and human moments. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Biig Piig is an up-coming 20 year-old, London-based pop artist, who has lived a rather nomadic life in a wide array of cultures as she was born in Spain, moved to Ireland, where she spent several years before finally settling in London, where she eventually joined the Nine8 Collective, a London-based crew of 27 creatives, who collaborate and support each other through a number of different artistic disciplines. As a solo artist, the British-based singer/songwriter has received attention for material that assimilates the sort of life experiences — she once worked as a poker dealer and as a tequila bar waitress — that gives her work an intriguing blend of maturity and youthful naivete. In fact, her stage name reportedly came about after drunkenly reading the name off a pizza menu and relating it to a sense of self-acceptance. “The more I called myself it, the more it made sense. I’m just a mess really. Still cute tho,” the up-and-coming London-based artist jokes in press notes.

Biig Piig’s latest single, the Dylantheinfamous-produced “Flirt” is the first official single from her forthcoming debut EP, Big Fan Of The Sesh, and it features the up-and-coming pop artist’s coquettish and jazz-inflected vocals over a dusty, soulful yet minimalist J. Dilla, Madlib-like production consisting of twinkling keys and boom bap beats but underneath the surface is a song with a narrator, quietly suffering through the feelings of anxiety, uncertainty and overthinking that typically happens when you’ve started to like someone but don’t quite know what you want to happen — or if you even want it to happen. And while capturing a fairly universal experience, Biig Pigg gives the song subtle yet detailed bits of realistic and intimate psychological detail that makes it seem as though the song was inspired by her own experiences. Interestingly, the EP is conceived as the first of a trilogy of audio-visual stories mixing the deeply personal with the universal, centered around a main character, a young woman named Fran — and the material generally focuses on that first doomed, major relationship, losing yourself in city life but somehow managing to come out o the other side.  “I’d hope,” says Biig Piig, “that anyone that feels they’re in a situation like that would find some solidarity in some of the tracks; understanding that you don’t owe anyone anything, and if you’re in a cycle that makes you unhappy, best believe you can change it compadre.”

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based Electro R&B Artist Tolliver Releases Surreal and Symbolic Visuals for Atmospheric EP Single “I Gotchu”

Born to a Baptist pastor father and a gospel singing mother, Tolliver is a Chicago, IL-born, Los Angeles, CA-based electro R&B artist, who began his music carer playing in a number of Stax Records-inspired acts, including the renowned Black Diet, an act that received best new band nods from a number of publications and filmed a nationally syndicated PBS special at the end of 2014. 

Supporting himself as a Mormon gay porn editor, Tolliver’s solo work thematically focuses on release and recovery, breakdowns and getting high; in fact, his solo debut EP Rave Deep was about late night partying, anonymous sex and juking — and his upcoming EP Rites finds the Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based artist focusing on the sacred and the profane, and the guilt-filled torments of a man, who had a religious childhood that is currently living in a sin-filled, ungodly present. 

Rites’ latest single “I Gotchu” will further cement Tolliver’s growing reputation for collaborating with and creating a genre-bending sound with the atmospheric and moody single nodding at gospel, neo-soul and jazz centered around deeply confessional lyrics sung with Tolliver’s aching vocals, expressing guilt, shame, and vulnerability within the turn of a phrase.

While feeling like a feverish dream, the video hints at larger religious themes with the first portion of the video shot in inky and moody blacks and dark colors before ending in brilliant light, creating the sensation of redemption.