Post by: Montrez Rambo
Where to begin? Um, I just must say wow. I am impressed. Niia picked a hell of a way to make a debut and the right artist to feature.The song Sideline is a slow 70s themed soul ballad written from the perspective of two women dealing with the same relationship issue, the same lover but in two different ways and then have an encounter other. The songs lyrics are raw, complimented by the drama of the violin, coupled with the sparse and methodically placed piano keys.
What brings it all together was the all or nothing vocals from both women. I didn't have the highest expectations from Niia as Jazmine is no slouch of a vocalist. Jazmine, despite have a dense and dark voice, has been shown to be not only a vocal chameleon, able to change her timbre and tessitura to suit a song, but one of the most energetic mezzo-sopranos of recent years, with seeming never ending stamina between the Eb5-F5 region of her voice.
So how did Niia fair beside Jazmine? Not bad, not bad at all! She went toe to toe and note for note with Jazmine in all the upper middle parts. She even had a solid E5/F5 and had a surprise A5 thrown in at 2:47.
Still though, Jazmine came out swinging, changing her tone to match the light and haunting sound of Niia only to drop the key to the lower third octave with some rap-singing. She then exploded into upper middle belts peaking at E5, before she and Nia tag teamed a slew of E5s and D5s.
From 3:00 on, let's all have a funeral for the wigs that were lost due to the snatching caused by those harmonies. Niia showed quite the capable upper middle as well as upper register as she ascended to a G5 at the 3:08 mark. Jazmine wasn't making it easy for her either with those runs but Niia kept pace and then some.
Niia left such a good first impression on me, her album has been added to my very long review list.
Overall, both women worked together to make a wonderful song. Check out the video below:
V/R
Disqus@Marilyn Monhoe
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