Meet the rising star of home-grown experimental R&B - the UK Kelela
Hometown: Sandhurst, Berkshire.
The lineup: Rubee Rayne (vocals, music).
The background: Forgive us, but when we saw that she was from Berkshire, we thought Rubee Rayne was going to offer a slightly embarrassing, colloquial suburbanite take on US rap, sort of Alison G, when actually she's a credible Brit-exponent of ethereal R&B. More than credible. Creditable. Verging on incredible. Almost veering towards FKA Twigs territory, in fact. She does rap occasionally, but mostly she does the breathy vocal thing, soft and sibilant, which is fine by us, especially because it matches the sultry but skewed sonics. File next to Kelela et al. Her musical heroes include Kanye (808s era, we're guessing) and Kid Cudi, Drake and Pharrell, R&B's dream(y) boys, which is also fine by us, especially because she appears to have picked up some production tricks from them. Most everything in her songs is slow, by which we mean sloooow: smeary and bleary, chopped and screwed. The pace is ace.
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Now 23, she is originally from Nigeria and moved here in 2001. That's the extent of our knowledge of her background, until 2009 when she acquired her first publishing deal and worked with a variety of producers such as Gavin (Fugees, Killers) Monaghan. Then she opened for Pixie Lott at Shoreditch House and performed at Radio 1's Big Weekend in 2011 and released an EP called Forever Golden that we haven't yet found online. Maybe she'll send it to us once she reads this? Then again, she might be too big for us now - her new single Breathe has been playlisted on Radio 1 and is positioning her as the first likely breakthrough artist of electronic soul from these shores. And if Breathe doesn't do it for her, she's got other tracks just as good up her sleeve, such as Youth (although it may have already come out as part of that EP), which manages to include a highly prescient - or at least relevant - allusion to Pete Seeger in the declaration, "This is my land." It's a song that "reaches out to the misfits of society", she explains on her "blogumentary". Another track Cocaine, with its hazy arrangement, posits her as the chopped and screwed Sandé, although she should have left the line, "A drug dealer's way better than you" as a devastating aside instead of repeating it countless times and reducing its impact as a result. That, we'd change. Apart from that, this is near-faultless.
The buzz: "Listening to this must be what it's like for women when they listen to the Weeknd."
The truth: If Emeli Sandé had worked with DJ Screw…
Most likely to: Breathe.
Least likely to: Bawl.
What to buy: Breathe is out now.
File next to: FKA Twigs, Kelela, Kid A, Jhené Aiko.
Links: http://ift.tt/1g1SsaM.
Thursday's new band: Ave Luna.
by Paul Lester via Music: Electronic music | theguardian.com
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