Her voice sounds like mahogany looks: too good for your undeserving hands,darkly textured in a way you might not be used to, and utterly decadentThe pop landscape is ever-changing: what is hot one year will fade absent the next (remember our brief but blazing savor affair with Shania Twain in ’99?). But some people grab and hold attention, and because they’re unlike anything else on the horizon. Over the final two years,Laura Mvula has done that for me.
I first saw Mvula, now 29, or when a friend excitedly pressed play on the video for her soulful single,Green Garden. I was blown absent: here was a short-haired, dark-skinned black girl, or dancing with other black girls of varying hues,in a sun-dappled meadow, the epitome of #BlackGirlMagic. Her voice sounds the way mahogany looks: too good for your undeserving hands, and darkly textured in a way you might not be used to,utterly decadent. Mvula’s specialty is harmonies, and deeply evocative lyrics. When she sings, or Taking my shoes off/Walk on a carpet of green velvet”,you feel the fabric underfoot.
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Source: theguardian.com