Tag: Tony Award

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Blake Morgan’s Cinematic Love Letter to New York

Blake Morgan is a New York-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and the founder and President of ECR Music Group. In his role as President of ECR Music Group, Morgan’s ideas, opinions and editorials on music and the music business have been regularly published by a number of major media outlets including The New York Times, Billboard Magazine, CNN, Newsweek, Variety, The Hill, NME, The Huffington Post, and The Guardian. He also lectures frequently at The Georgetown University Law Center, California State University, Syracuse University,NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, American University and his alma mater, Berklee College of Music. His music advocacy has taken him to Capitol Hill numerous times where, as the founder of the #IRespectMusic movement, he continues to fight for musicians rights in the digital age. As a producer, Morgan has collaborated with a who’s who of contemporary music from Lenny Kravitz to Lesley Gore. 

Since the release of 2013’s Diamonds in the Dark, Morgan has been extremely busy: he has a remarkably six-year run of sold-out shows at Rockwood Music Hall that often feature guest spots from a number of Grammy and Tony Award-winning artists, who join him for unique, on-stage collaborations; 150,000 miles of touring and sold-out shows on both sides of the Atlantic; and production work on over 20 albums by some serious A-list artists. 

Late last year, the New York-born and-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer and music biz exec released “Down Below Or Up Above” to praise from the likes of The Aquarian, Post-Punk.com, Culture Catch and my dear friends at Glamglare. “Down Below Or Up Above” will appear on Morgan’s long-awaited fifth album Violent Delights, which is slated for a May 20, 2022 release through ECR Music Group.

“My Love Is Waiting” is the rousingly anthemic, second single off Morgan’s forthcoming album. Centered around twinkling keys, atmospheric synths, an enormous arena rock friendly hook and Morgan’s plaintive vocals, “My Love Is Waiting” is a defiant and brazenly hopeful love song that’s specifically meant to get people up from their seats to dance and shout along with it. But it’s also the sort of upbeat love song, which views love as the most important force of our lives and that is very rare. Sonically, the song nods at The Police‘s “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” as well as Joe Jackson and JOVM mainstays Palace Winter. And that’s a result of old-fashioned craftsmanship paired with an uncanny knack for a well-placed razor sharp hook. 

“If I had only three minutes to play anyone anything from this new record, I’d pick these three minutes,” Morgan says in press notes. “It’s a brazen love song that dares you not to get out of your chair.” He goes on to add that the song was inspired by more than just the power pop and post-punk influences that he’s best known for. “This track has specific Easter-eggs in it connected to The Police’s ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,’ a track I’ve been mesmerized by since I was a kid. I hadn’t intended an indirect homage when we recorded it, but there’s some juicy stuff in there if you hunt for it.”

Directed by genre-defying filmmaker Alice Teeple, the accompanying video for “My Love Is Waiting” is shot in a gorgeous, cinematic black and white, and follows a dapper, black suit clad Morgan in a swooning love letter to New York that begins in Coney Island and through the subway system. Inspired by William Friedkin’s classic The French Connection and Jules Dassin’s The Naked City, the video is “classic, old-school New York cinema mixed with rock and roll,” the New York-born and-based Morgan says in press notes. “There are only two characters in it– me, and New York.”

Directly contrasting the dark, 1940s noir aura of “Down Below or Up Above,” “My Love Is Waiting” was shot in daylight, as a way to reflect the hopefulness of the accompanying song. “We wanted motion, propulsion––just like the song itself has. A modern-day music video crossed with Walter Hill’s The Warriors, full of energy, and full of hope,” Morgan continues. “We also wanted to keep to the aesthetic of the whole record, as we did with the first video: one of classic cinema, where you’re not quite sure what decade this video was shot in. Alice and I both live and breathe that stuff. It’s why we have such a short-hand vocabulary when working together.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Broadway Star Joshua Henry Releases a Joyous and Souful Single and Visual

Joshua Henry is an acclaimed New York-based actor, musician and singer/songwriter best known for his Tony-nominated roles as Flick in Brian Crawley’s Violet and Haywood Patterson in David Thompson’s The Scottsboro Boys. Henry has also starred in Gerswhin’s Porgy and Bess, Green Day’s American Idiot, Lin Manuel Miranda’s In the Heights and as Aaron Burr in the first national tour of Hamilton. Although his successes on Broadway was fueled by a lifelong passion for music and performing, Henry longed to tell his own story. “I’d been writing songs for nearly a decade, but my incredible wife, Cathryn, pushed me to not waste any time and follow that passion,” Henry recalls. “I continue to love acting, stepping into someone else’s shoes, but this year made one thing super clear to me: We don’t know what will happen tomorrow, so I had to really give it my all.”

Henry’s Theron “Neff-U” Feemster-produced debut EP Guarantee is slated for a February 12, 2021 release through S-Curve Records/BMG and the effort will reportedly showcase the voice that won accolades on Broadway paired with thoughtful, intelligent storytelling-based songs that thematically touch upon vulnerability, love and hope. Written during pandemic-related lockdowns, the New York-based actor, musician and singer/songwriter found that the inspiration and creative process of art became intertwined. As his wife took on nursing shirts caring for COVID patients in the earliest days of the pandemic, Henry would sneak into the music room in the family’s apartment to record vocals. “It was an amazing exercise in watching something grow through constraints — to know what’s possible if you have the right people supporting you,” he says.

Small. intimate, daily events like walking through Central Park, a conversation over breakfast, time with his wife and son proved to be deeply influential on the EP’s material and on Henry’s songwriting. “In the past I’ve been a really private person, but they gave me freedom to break my chest open, to get into conversations about self-discovery and vulnerability,” he explains.

“This EP is full of my heart, but I also want people to jump and groove to it, to feel it cerebrally, spiritually and bodily,” Henry adds. ‘There was a blank canvas that took me back to when I was seven years old, just writing from my heart, with nothing to lose.” The EP’s lead single “Hold Me” is centered around a warm, neo-soul production featuring a rubbery and propulsive bass line, soul clap-led percussion and a spectral backing vocal paired with Henry’s plaintive yet regal falsetto. Unlike most contemporary pop songs, you’ll hear on the radio right now, “Hold Me” is full of a pure ebullient joy that feels like a great gospel tune — and as a result it gives the material a wholesome air.

And while the song may be an infectious, joyful delight, the song is intelligently underpinned by a very deep understanding of romantic relationships: Satisfying and truly adult love requires an immense vulnerability of us. But when it comes to the relentless and uncompromising pursuit of a lifelong there’s a deeper fear of rejection of the much-needed love and support you may need to continue, and of having to make a choice between love and your dream.

The recently released video manages to simultaneously evoke the infectious joy of its accompanying single while also being an intimate look into the loving relationships of a young artist with a big dream.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays Clipping. Release a Menacing and Uneasy New Single

Over the past six years or so, I’ve spilled quite a bit of virtual ink covering the Los Angeles-based hip-hop trio and JOVM mainstay act Clipping. When the act — production duo Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson and frontperson Daveed Diggs — formed in the pervious decade, they never expected to achieve much in the way of critical or commercial success: their earliest releases were built around Snipes’ and Hutson’s sparse and abrasive productions featuring industrial clang, clink and clatter and samples of field recordings paired with Diggs’ rapid-fire narrative driven flow,  full of surrealistically brutal and violent imagery and swaggering braggadocio.

Sub Pop Records signed the Los Angeles-based trio and released 2014’s clpping. an effort that received attention across the blogosphere, including here. Shortly after clppng., Diggs went on to star in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit musical Hamilton, winning a Tony Award for his dual roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette. Although the act was on a hiatus for a bit, they reconvened for 2016’s critically applauded, Sci-Fi dystopian concept album Splendor & Misery, an effort that was clearly futuristic and yet accurately described our frightening and bizarre present.

The JOVM mainstay’s third album, lat year’s There Existed an Addiction to Blood found the acclaimed trio interpreting a rap splinter set through their own singular lens  — horrorcoe, a purposefully absurdist and significant sub-genre that flourished for a handful of years around the mid 1990s. Some of its pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung, Gravediggaz, which featured The RZA — and it included seminal releases from Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and pretty much most of Memphis cassette tape rap. The album’s material is also partially inspired by Ganja & Hess, the 1973 vampire cult classic, regarded as one of the highlights of the Blaxploitation era — with the title derived from the film. 

With horror films, sequels are perfunctory. As the insufferable film bro Randy explains in Scream 2, “There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to create a successful sequel. Number one: the body count is always bigger. Number two: the death scenes are always much more elaborate—more blood, more gore. Carnage candy. And number three: never, ever, under any circumstances, assume the killer is dead.” Slated for an October 23, 2020 Clipping. will be releasing the highly anticipated follow-up to There Existed an Addiction to Blood, Visions of Bodies Being Burned — and much like any sequel, the JOVM mainstay act’s fourth album finds them returning with a higher body count, more elaborate, bloodier, gorier kills and of course, unrelenting monsters that just won’t stay dead. Sure, the album in a simplistic sense may be seen by many as a sequel but in reality it’s the second half of a planned diptych: as it turns out  in the years following Splendor & Misery, the trio was incredibly prolific, writing too many songs for just one album. Before There Existed an Addiction to Blood’s release, Clipping. and Sub Pop divided the material into albums, specifically designed to be released only months apart. 

The COVID-19 pandemic and multiple cancelled tours forced the delay of Visions of Bodies Being Burned’s release until this upcoming October. The 16 song album draws from Ernest Dickerson, Clive Barker and Shirley Jackson as much as it does from Three 6 Mafia, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and Brotha Lynch Hung. And while they have a uniquely abrasive, angular and messy interpretation of the style, their intention is to lovingly twist beloved and familiar tropes to fit their own politics, centered around monstrosity, fear, the absurd and the uncanny and the struggle for an antiracist, anti-patriarchal, anti-colonial world. 

VoBBB’s first single “Say The Name” is centered around a hook that features Scarface’s evocative lyric from “Mind Playing Tricks on Me” — “Candlesticks in the dark, visions of bodies being burned” — chopped and screwed and paired with industrial clang and clatter, wobbling, twitter and woofer rocking low end, arpeggiated synths and Diggs’ surrealistic and gory lyrics. And while full of fantastic imagery of demons in the flames, hell spawn and more, bullet holes and more, the song evokes a slow-burning, menace and horror that feels familiar — the sort of horror of seeing a man snuffed out in public on video with replays from different angles and commentary like a key play in a ballgame. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays clipping and Shabazz Palaces Team Up on a Trippy and Swaggering New Single

I’ve written quite a bit about the Los Angeles-based hip-hop trio Clipping over the past few years of this site’s nine-plus year history. And as you may recall, the act — production duo Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson and frontperson Daveed Diggs — initially released material without the expectation of receiving commercial or critical success: their earliest releases were built around Snipes’ and Hutson’s sparse and abrasive productions featuring industrial clang, clink and clatter and samples of field recordings paired with Diggs’ rapid-fire narrative driven flow, which is full of surrealistically brutal and violent imagery and swaggering braggadocio.

Sub Pop Records signed the Los Angeles-based trio and released 2014’s clpping. an effort that received attention across the blogosphere, including here. When Diggs went on to star in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit musical Hamilton, winning a Tony Award for his dual roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette, the act was on an informal hiatus. But during that time, the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays reconvened to write and record 2016’s critically applauded effort Splendor & Misery, a Sci-Fi dystopian concept album that is futuristic and yet describes our increasingly frightening and bizarre present.

Clipping’s latest full-length, There Existed an Addiction to Blood was released last month, and the album which features guest spots from Ed Balloon, La Chat, Counterfeit Madison and Pedestrian Deposit and a list of others interpreting horrorcore, a purposefully absurdist and significant sub-genre of hip hop pioneered by Brotha Lynch Hung, Gravediggaz, which featured The RZA and featured seminal releases from Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and pretty much most of Memphis cassette tape rap during the mid 1990s. And while drawing from the horrorcore movement of the mid 90s, the album is also partially inspired by Ganja & Hess, the 1973 vampire cult classic, regarded as one of the highlights of the Blaxploitation era — the title is derived from the film and the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays sampled part of the score on the album.

Interestingly, back in 2017 clipping was commissioned to create a song for a This American Life episode about Afrofuturism. The end result was “The Deep,” a dark sci-fi tale about the underwater-dwelling descendants of African women thrown off slave ships, based on the mythology created by Detroit-based electronic group Drexciya. The song earned the JOVM mainstays a Hugo Award nomination last year — and they constructed a sound installation based on the single at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Sub Pop will be releasing “The Deep” on vinyl and as a digital download globally on November 29. Both the vinyl and digital versions include two previously unreleased tracks “Drownt” and “Aquacode Databreaks,” a collaboration with fellow JOVM mainstays Shabazz Palaces. Centered around an abrasive, industrial-leaning production featuring clang and clatter and glistening synth arpeggios, the track features two of hip-hop’s most dexterous and dense lyricists creating a fantastical world full of blinged out mermaids flossing. dancing — and most importantly being defiantly, boldly black as fuck. 

Interestingly, the 12″ single comes on the heels of the release of The Deep, a novella by two-time Astounding Award-nominated author Rivers Solomon with clipping credited as co-authors,. inspired by the title track and published by Saga Press. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Clipping. Return with an Eerie and Historically Inspired Visual for “Blood of the Fang”

I’ve written quite a bit about the Los Angeles-based hip-hop trio Clipping over the past few years of this site’s nine-plays year history. And as you may recall, the act — production duo Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson and frontperson Daveed Diggs — never expected to achieve much in the way of critical or commercial success: their earliest releases were built around Snipes’ and Hutson’s sparse and abrasive productions featuring industrial clang, clink and clatter and samples of field recordings paired with Diggs’ rapid-fire narrative driven flow, which is full of surrealistically brutal and violent imagery and swaggering braggadocio.

Sub Pop Records signed the Los Angeles-based trio and released 2014’s clpping. an effort that received attention across the blogosphere, including here. When Diggs went on to star in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit musical Hamilton, winning a Tony Award for his dual roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette, the act was on an informal hiatus. But during that time, the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays reconvened to write and record 2016’s critically applauded effort Splendor & Misery, a Sci-Fi dystopian concept album that is futuristic and yet describes our increasingly frightening and bizarre present.

Clipping.’s  latest full-length effort, There Existed an Addiction to Blood is slated for an October 18, 2019 release, and the album, which features guest spots from Ed Balloon, La Chat, Counterfeit Madison and Pedestrian Deposit among a list of others, finds the acclaimed act interpreting another rap splinter sect through their own singular lens — in this case, horrorcore, a purposefully absurdist and significant sub-genre that flourished for a brief few moments in the mid 1990s. Some of its pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung, Gravediggaz, which featured The RZA — and it included seminal releases from Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and pretty much most of Memphis cassette tape rap.

Interestingly, There Existed an Addiction to Blood is partially inspired by Ganja & Hess, the 1973 vampire cult classic, regarded as one of the highlights of the Blaxploitation era — the title is derived from the film and the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays sampled part of the score on the album. (More on that later.) Over the past month or so, I’ve written about two of the forthcoming album’s previously released singles: the menacing and cinematic “Nothing Is Safe,” a track that loving employs the tropes of gangsta rap and horror films in a way that recalls Geto Boys’ hallucinogenic “My Mind Playing Tricks On Me.” — and “La Mala Ordina,” a collaborative track featuring guest spots from The Rita, Benny The Butcher and Elcamino that’s full of mayhem, copious gore paired with boom bap-like beats that’s part Mobb Deep’s “Get It Twisted“ and part DMX.

There Existed an Addition to Blood’s third and latest single “Blood of the Fang”  is built around a chopped up sample from Sam Waymon’s score to the 1973 blaxploitation vampire film Ganja and Hess paired with a production featuring stuttering beats, wobbling low end and fluttering synths. Lyrically, Diggs conjures an alternate history of black political and social struggle in the 60s and 70s, name-dropping a who’s who of radical activists  — and then reimagining them as a sort of undead superhero team continuing the necessary fight against systems of oppression and racism.  Whereas the album’s two previously released singles were full of menace and mayhem, “Blood of the Fang” is full of fitting righteous (and necessary) fury.

Directed by multidisciplinary artist Lars Jan, the recently released video for “Blood of the Fang” is inspired by a famous of Huey Newtown — co-founder of The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense — handcuffed to a hospital gurney while being treated for a gunshot wound in the stomach after a gun battle with Oakland police in October 1967. The video set in an eerie hospital operating room, features the members of Clipping. performing a series of bloody surgical procedures.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Clipping.’s Menacing “La Mala Ordina”

Over the past few years of this site’s nine-plus year history, I’ve written quite a bit about the Los Angeles-based industrial hip hop/experimental hip hop trio Clipping. The act, which is comprised of production duo Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson and emcee Daveed Diggs never expected to achieve anything near critical or commercial success: their earliest releases were centered around Snipes’ and Hutson’s sparse and abrasive productions featuring industrial clang, clink and clatter and samples of field recordings paired with Diggs’ rapid-fire, narrative-drigven flow, full of surrealistic, brutally violent imagery and swaggering braggadocio. 

Their full-length debut, 2013’s Midcity caught the attention of Sub Pop Records, who over the past decade have developed a reputation for releasing the work of a diverse array of artists including Debo Band, Shabazz Palaces, GOAT, Daughn Gibson. Sub Pop signed the Los Angeles-based trio and released 2014’s clipping. an effort that received attention across the blogosphere, including here. 

When Diggs went on to star in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit musical Hamilton,winning a Tony Award for his dual roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette, the act was on an informal hiatus. But during that time, the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays reconvened to write and record 2016’s critically applauded effort Splendor & Misery, a Sci-Fi dystopian concept album that is futuristic and yet describes our increasingly frightening and bizarre present.

Clipping’s fourth album (and third through Sub Pop), There Existed an Addiction to Blood is slated for an October 18, 2019 release, and the album, which features guest spots from Ed Balloon, La Chat, Counterfeit Madison and Pedestrian Deposit finds the acclaimed act interpreting another rap splinter sect through their own singular lens — in this case, horrorcore, a purposefully absurdist and significant sub-genre that flourished for a brief   few moments in the mid 1990s. Some of its pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung, Gravediggaz, which featured The RZA — and it included seminal releases from Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and pretty much most of Memphis cassette tape rap. Interestingly, There Existed an Addiction to Blood is partially inspired by Ganja & Hess, the 1973 vampire cult classic, regarded as one of the highlights of the Blaxploitation era — the title is derived from the film and the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays sampled part of the score on the album.

Last month, I wrote about the menacing and cinematic “Nothing Is Safe.” Centered around plinking, anxiety-inducing keys and arpeggiated synths, the eerie, horror movie-like production allows enough space for Diggs’ complex, multi-syllabic and dense flow to comfortably unfurl and narrate a tense, paranoiac dread-filled tale about a trap house under siege by a rival gang. Diggs’ narrative is so descriptive and hyper realistic that you can fear the horror of the narrator as he sees his homey get gunned down, feel the bullets whiz past you and hear the chandelier smash into the floor. In this universe, death is a constant, inescapable and malevolent force. And while lovingly employing the tropes of gangsta rap and horror films, complete with doomed and fatalistic characters and scenarios, the track finds the trio expanding upon their sound in a way that nods at Geto Boys’ hallucinogenic “My Mind Playing Tricks On Me.” “La Mala Ordina,” There Existed an Addiction to Blood’s latest single features Diggs, The Rita, Benny The Butcher and Elcamino spitting rhymes full of mayhem, copious gore, street gangsta shit and hustling over a sparse and menacing production featuring twinkling and arpeggiated keys, buzzing bass synths and tweeter and woofer rocking boom bap beats. Sonically and lyrically, the track is part Mobb Deep (at the moment, I’m reminded of “Get It Twisted”) part DMX (uh, everything he’s ever really done). part horror film and it may arguably be the most menacing, mayhem and viciousness-filled hip hop song I’ve come across all year. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Lyric Video: Clipping’s Eerie New Single “Nothing Is Safe”

Over the past few years, I’ve written quite a bit about the acclaimed Los Angeles-based industrial hip hop/experimental hip hop trio Clipping. And as you may recall, the act which is comprised of production duo Jonathan Snipes and William Hutson, along with emcee Daveed Diggs never expected to achieve anything near commercial success — their earliest releases were centered round Snipes’ and Hutson’s sparse, abrasive productions featuring industrial clang, clink and clatter and samples of field recordings paired with Diggs dexterous rapid fire, narrative-driven flow, full of surrealistic, brutally violent imagery and swaggering braggadocio. And with the release of their full-length debut Midcity, the album caught the attention of renowned indie label Sub Pop Records, who over the past decade have developed a reputation for releasing the work of a diverse array of artists including Debo Band, Shabazz Palaces, GOAT, Daughn Gibson and others, as well as the Los Angeles-based hip-hop trio’s 2014 sophomore effort clppng, an effort that received attention across the blogosphere, including this site.

When Diggs went on to star in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s smash-hit musical Hamilton, winning a Tony for his dual roles of Thomas Jefferson and Marquis de Lafayette, the act was on an informal hiatus. But during that time, the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays reconvened to write and record 2016’s critically applauded effort Splendor & Misery, a Sci-Fi dystopian concept album that is both futuristic and yet describes our increasingly frightening and bizarre present. 

Clipping’s fourth album (and third through Sub Pop), There Existed an Addiction to Blood is slated for an October 18, 2019 release, and the album, which features guest spots from Ed Balloon, La Chat, Counterfeit Madison and Pedestrian Deposit finds the acclaimed act interpreting another rap splinter sect through their own singular lens — in this case, horror core, a purposefully absurdist and significant sub-genre that flourished for a brief   few moments in the mid 1990s. Some of its pioneers included Brotha Lynch Hung, Gravediggaz, which featured The RZA — and it included seminal releases from Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony and pretty much most of Memphis cassette tape rap. Interestingly, There Existed an Addiction to Blood is partially inspired by Ganja & Hess, the 1973 vampire cult classic, regarded as one of the highlights of the Blaxploitation era — the title is derived from the film and the members of the acclaimed JOVM mainstays sampled part of the score on the album. 

There Existed an Addiction to Blood’s latest single is the menacing and cinematic, “Nothing Is Safe.” Centered around plinking and anxiety-inducing keys and arpeggiated synths, the sparse and eerie horror movie-like production is spacious enough for Daveed Diggs complex, multi-syllabic and dense flow to comfortably unfurl and narrate a tense, paranoiac dread-filled story about a trap house being shot at by a rival gang. Diggs’ narrative is so descriptive and hyper realistic that you can fear the horror of the narrator as he sees his homey get gunned down, feel the bullets whiz past you and hear the chandelier smash into the floor. In this universe, death is a constant, inescapable and malevolent force. And while lovingly employing the tropes of gangsta rap and horror films, complete with doomed and fatalistic characters and scenarios, the track finds the trio expanding upon their sound in a way that nods at Geto Boys’ hallucinogenic “My Mind Playing Tricks On Me.” 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Up-and-coming, Los Angeles, CA-based alternative R&B/electro pop artist Brooke Aulani has already worked with an impressive array of music industry heavyweights as a student at USC’s Popular Music Program including — multi-Grammy Award-winning producer and Grammy Foundation Chairman Emeritus Jimmy Jam and Grammy-nominated artist Daniel Bedingfield, who has praised the young artist’s vocal range and stage presence, saying in press notes “Brooke has the power to take a room of people and make them focus on her, and draw them into where she wants to be. Whatever she sings, I’m blown away.” Aulani has also opened for Tony Award-winning actress Kristin Chenoweth at USC’s annual Widney Gala, performed for Chaka Khan, sang accompaniment for David Foster and has been a backup vocalist for the legendary John Fogerty.

“Shame,” the second single off the Los Angeles-based artist’s debut EP will likely cement her already burgeoning local and regional reputation for a sound that possesses elements of contemporary and old school R&B, soul and experimental pop — and for her effortlessly soulful and sultry, pop-belter vocals. In fact, “Shame” pairs Aulani’s vocals with a slickly modern and seductive production consisting of bluesy guitar chords played with subtle reverb, skittering drum programming and swirling electronics in a song about lust, dishonesty and betrayal going both ways in a sexually charged and confusing relationship — a relationship that the song’s narrator has a difficult time leaving.