Scrolling through my Facebook news feed I stumbled across a video of a 21-year-old big haired young women with an ever bigger voice, performing a cover of John Legends’ hit song “All of Me”. While the visual presentation caught my eye, it was this young woman’s voice that kept me glued to my screen. Immediately after the first note left her lips I knew that she would take me on magical musicial journey for the remaining four minutes. That young woman was Kiah Victoria and that video was the Motown 1960s inspired Postmodern Jukebox’s viral hit back in May of 2014.
Over the next two years, I followed the New York University’s Tisch School of the Art alumna and her work rather intimately. Why so? After achieving successes such as performing in Broadway’s hit production The Lion King and scoring a guest appearance in Jay Z’s short film Picasso Baby, I did not want Kiah to lose her undeniable sense of artistic purity. Call me selfish!
While her 2013 release Gravitate was a well constructed body work I couldn’t help but get lost in the EPs complexities. Whereas in her new EP Everybody the underlying sonic vision is much more simple. Everybody features the songs “I Ain’t Goin Nowhere“, “Cold War”, “Hollow”, and “Titivating“; with the breakout track being “Cold War”.
Everybody opens with Kiah taking the listener straight to church on “I Ain’t Goin Nowhere”. The inspirational nature of the songs lyrics speaks true to the Maryland native’s very public set back in relation to NBC’s vocal competition show The Voice. In spite of that setback, Kiah has managed to bounce back stronger than ever. The multiple layers of vocals adds to the richness of the track. The deep soul and traditional Gospel references seamlessly blends together. “I Ain’t Goin Nowhere” is arguably the most commercial track on the EP.
Followed by “Cold War”, this was quite a deceptive track. The soft delivery of Kiah’s vocals paired with the delicate stroke of the piano keys suggests that it was going to be your everyday run of the mill R&B track but was far from that. As the song builds so does the emotion in her delivery, the influence of Gospel is also presented on “Cold War” but the difference being the vocal technique demonstrated by Kiah. The choice to keep in the extended breathes gave me chills. Adding to the enunciation of each word, Kiah’s breathing technique almost instantaneously transferred her raw emotion to the listener.
“Hollow” is more than just a song, it is Kiah’s public service announcement to the world. The song is divided into multiple breaks of singing and speaking. This technique is fairly popular among spoken word artist including Kiah’s dear friend Amy Leon. Of all the tracks on Everybody, “Hollow” is certainly far more R&B than anything else. The reverb effect placed on vocal helps to echo the songs message.
“Titivating” seems to be a direct response to my initial fears of conformity. Labeled as electronic because of the synthesizer keys but I wouldn’t argue with someone if they mistook it for haunted pop. The spotlight on the tom-tom drum with the minimalist integration of the synth keys I could easily see the transference of genres.
All in all, Everybody is a cohesive, concise and straightforward look into what Kiah Victoria has to offer. My only issues with Everybody was that I didn’t want it to end! I’m looking forward to the visuals to each track.
Keep up with Kiah Victoria! Check her out on Facebook, Twitter and/or Instagram. Everybody is available for download on all major e-music stores including iTunes and for stream on Spotify.
*Header credit => Kiah Victoria photographed by Alberto Vargas
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