album Leigh-Anne - 'No Hard Feelings'

[Danai G]

On 9/5/2024 at 10:16 AM, ChooseyLover said:

She lacks huge amounts of artistic identity for me. I guess it's a predictable outcome after being in a group for a decade... Only Jade has a proper vision of who she wants to be as an artist.

 

I hope she finds something to stick to because everything she's put out is good, really.

I think that Leigh-Anne has found her aeshetic and sound, after the EP. 

[tbhmatt]

I really thought she'd be gearing up to release a new single by now. I'm sure she said she'd release before her tour in October? Hopefully she doesn't keep us waiting for too long 

[Danai G]

On 9/7/2024 at 7:45 PM, tbhmatt said:

I really thought she'd be gearing up to release a new single by now. I'm sure she said she'd release before her tour in October? Hopefully she doesn't keep us waiting for too long 

Truth be said, it's odd that she hasn't started the promotion of her new era. There is silence from her and her team which concerns me a little. I need her to have better promotion and go full forces but that's not up to her only. 

[orange22]

Nature can still go #1

 

[The Slayer]

 

[Danai G]

14 hours ago, The Slayer said:

 

So happy to see that and what a great interview. As much as I want Leigh-Anne to succeed more, I need to remind to myself that it's going to be an easy journey, especially if she was so overlooked by Mixers. I am happy to see that she is happy with the music she makes and I am looking forward until the next single. 

[Cbreezy]

I really want her to win. Even if it's in a relative/niche way. And I really do think it's possible with a combination of savvy moves e.g. undeniable material, proper promotion, and collabs with acts bigger than her for streaming purposes (I don't get why between Warner and TAP this isn't more of a thing), 

 

She's such a conundrum because the talent is unquestionably there. The issue is that the material has been patchy (only My Love has been top-tier) and she (herself) is quite vanilla personality-wise.

 

The vanilla thing becomes more of an issue when considering that her "nice" girl-next-door presentation works against her when she's trying to position herself in a more flavor-filled, cool, slick, and culturally spiced lane. More times than not, to pull that off there needs to be a decipherable personality, relatability, and outspokenness (broad examples, but the likes of Rihanna and Cardi have aced this, and even her own bandmate Jade in her own way).

 

Then you have acts like my faves Bey and Janet (who are way more chilled, lo-fi, and even critiqued for being robotic and vanilla), but one thing that no one can dispute is the beasts they transform into in their music and on-stage. It works as a fair trade-off for the audience (i.e. it's fine to be vanilla because you give us the spice where it matters). Leigh's music isn't hitting like that and her performances aren't sure-fire either. E.g. there isn't a single My Love performance that replicates the fire she gave in the video with the benefits of cuts and edits.

 

There are also some aspects that are just beyond correction/not her fault. And I really empathize with her. For instance, she's a new artist but technically isn't. The GP like shiny new things and unfortunately she doesn't really qualify as "new-new" given her decade-long stretch in Little Mix. Most people that have any kind of brand awareness of her, likely have their minds made up on whether they like her/care about her or not. For those unaware, she then finds herself flung into competition for attention with the likes of Tyla (who are 10 years younger and thus more of interest to labels, radio, and streaming playlisters etc). 

 

Leigh is leaning more Urban and I can say from a POC perspective the offline convos I've personally had with other POCs have been really insightful about the issues she's facing in that regard. They see her as the "mixed girl from Little Mix" - a group who never made music "for them" and thus her efforts to market herself "to them" now feels a hollow and a case of too little too late even though they like the odd song from the group. There's also a slightly suspicious eyebrow raise from some in a  "why now?" capacity. I hate to say this too, because it's a much more layered and arguably tricky topic than there's time to unpack here, but (in being frank) I've heard many Black people flat-out say that she doesn't present as Black especially not enough to centralize her sound or promotional efforts in that direction. Again, that's tricky terrain and a complicated topic as is (because what is..."Black"? It's not a monolith). But ultimately it's the feedback from the audience she's attempting to target/centralize. 

 

Add the usual anti-Black racism, ageism, and sexism into the mix and it quickly becomes clear that it's going to be VERY hard for her to cut through.

 

Not impossible, though. 

IMO, she needs to work her arguable woes into wins. She comes from a Pop background. Lean into that. IMO, her music should literally be solo versions of Touch, Sweet Melody, LM5, My Love. Pop music with Urban sprinkles. She's a UK artist in the UK market. That deep R&B ish she's pushing on her EP just doesn't have a lane there and she (based on convos with fellow POCs) just won't be the person to change that. So, she should work with what's she's got (a Pop fanbase) and grow from there.

 

She also needs pay more attention to cultural nuance especially if she's trying to target the Urban audience. Again, as a POC, one critique I heard alot about My Love was the oddness of her making a big song and dance about centralizing her heritage in her music...only to jet to Nigeria to film a Wakanda-style video with a Nigerian artist...all the while being Jamaican. (I know ancestry, everyone's from the motherland etc, but..yeah).

 

I personally don't care and think it's borderline people being nitpicky, but it is food for thought. The line between Afrobeats and Caribbean Dancehall etc is actually pretty thin and I do wonder whether centralizing her own actual Jamaican culture on a slightly retooled My Love would have earned her more authenticity points. Because even POCs that I know liked the song did a little bit of an eyeroll with the seeming hodge-podge homogenization of "Blackness" from her lens. Again, I don't care or particularly agree, but these are the things that ought to be dialed into by her and her team. 

 

Lastly, I'm sorry but there is nothing noble about sounding breathy/pitchy every other performance. Mainly because of the desire to sing/dance at the same time.  We know she can sing very well and I admire her desire to hone her craft live, but it would serve her well to prerecord her vocals and focus on the slayage of the performance. The GP is not that plugged into ish, they largely go by what you show them. So, if she brought the fierceness of the My Love video (choreo and all) to every performance, she would quickly garner a reputation for being a stage slayer. Cheryl Cole (who is significantly less talented) actually perfected this from a UK perspective. Hell, even my fave Bey is a wiz at prerecords to the extent even stans are often bamboozled. But beyond not clocking, they don't care because they are so slayed by what they are seeing.

 

Again, lean into your strengths!

 

This was WAY longer than intended, but IMO a must. Mainly because I'm sure artist teams see alot of what we say. So hopefully it helps in some kind of way. 

[Danai G]

On 9/11/2024 at 2:33 PM, Cbreezy said:

I really want her to win. Even if it's in a relative/niche way. And I really do think it's possible with a combination of savvy moves e.g. undeniable material, proper promotion, and collabs with acts bigger than her for streaming purposes (I don't get why between Warner and TAP this isn't more of a thing), 

 

She's such a conundrum because the talent is unquestionably there. The issue is that the material has been patchy (only My Love has been top-tier) and she (herself) is quite vanilla personality-wise.

 

The vanilla thing becomes more of an issue when considering that her "nice" girl-next-door presentation works against her when she's trying to position herself in a more flavor-filled, cool, slick, and culturally spiced lane. More times than not, to pull that off there needs to be a decipherable personality, relatability, and outspokenness (broad examples, but the likes of Rihanna and Cardi have aced this, and even her own bandmate Jade in her own way).

 

Then you have acts like my faves Bey and Janet (who are way more chilled, lo-fi, and even critiqued for being robotic and vanilla), but one thing that no one can dispute is the beasts they transform into in their music and on-stage. It works as a fair trade-off for the audience (i.e. it's fine to be vanilla because you give us the spice where it matters). Leigh's music isn't hitting like that and her performances aren't sure-fire either. E.g. there isn't a single My Love performance that replicates the fire she gave in the video with the benefits of cuts and edits.

 

There are also some aspects that are just beyond correction/not her fault. And I really empathize with her. For instance, she's a new artist but technically isn't. The GP like shiny new things and unfortunately she doesn't really qualify as "new-new" given her decade-long stretch in Little Mix. Most people that have any kind of brand awareness of her, likely have their minds made up on whether they like her/care about her or not. For those unaware, she then finds herself flung into competition for attention with the likes of Tyla (who are 10 years younger and thus more of interest to labels, radio, and streaming playlisters etc). 

 

Leigh is leaning more Urban and I can say from a POC perspective the offline convos I've personally had with other POCs have been really insightful about the issues she's facing in that regard. They see her as the "mixed girl from Little Mix" - a group who never made music "for them" and thus her efforts to market herself "to them" now feels a hollow and a case of too little too late even though they like the odd song from the group. There's also a slightly suspicious eyebrow raise from some in a  "why now?" capacity. I hate to say this too, because it's a much more layered and arguably tricky topic than there's time to unpack here, but (in being frank) I've heard many Black people flat-out say that she doesn't present as Black especially not enough to centralize her sound or promotional efforts in that direction. Again, that's tricky terrain and a complicated topic as is (because what is..."Black"? It's not a monolith). But ultimately it's the feedback from the audience she's attempting to target/centralize. 

 

Add the usual anti-Black racism, ageism, and sexism into the mix and it quickly becomes clear that it's going to be VERY hard for her to cut through.

 

Not impossible, though. 

IMO, she needs to work her arguable woes into wins. She comes from a Pop background. Lean into that. IMO, her music should literally be solo versions of Touch, Sweet Melody, LM5, My Love. Pop music with Urban sprinkles. She's a UK artist in the UK market. That deep R&B ish she's pushing on her EP just doesn't have a lane there and she (based on convos with fellow POCs) just won't be the person to change that. So, she should work with what's she's got (a Pop fanbase) and grow from there.

 

She also needs pay more attention to cultural nuance especially if she's trying to target the Urban audience. Again, as a POC, one critique I heard alot about My Love was the oddness of her making a big song and dance about centralizing her heritage in her music...only to jet to Nigeria to film a Wakanda-style video with a Nigerian artist...all the while being Jamaican. (I know ancestry, everyone's from the motherland etc, but..yeah).

 

I personally don't care and think it's borderline people being nitpicky, but it is food for thought. The line between Afrobeats and Caribbean Dancehall etc is actually pretty thin and I do wonder whether centralizing her own actual Jamaican culture on a slightly retooled My Love would have earned her more authenticity points. Because even POCs that I know liked the song did a little bit of an eyeroll with the seeming hodge-podge homogenization of "Blackness" from her lens. Again, I don't care or particularly agree, but these are the things that ought to be dialed into by her and her team. 

 

Lastly, I'm sorry but there is nothing noble about sounding breathy/pitchy every other performance. Mainly because of the desire to sing/dance at the same time.  We know she can sing very well and I admire her desire to hone her craft live, but it would serve her well to prerecord her vocals and focus on the slayage of the performance. The GP is not that plugged into ish, they largely go by what you show them. So, if she brought the fierceness of the My Love video (choreo and all) to every performance, she would quickly garner a reputation for being a stage slayer. Cheryl Cole (who is significantly less talented) actually perfected this from a UK perspective. Hell, even my fave Bey is a wiz at prerecords to the extent even stans are often bamboozled. But beyond not clocking, they don't care because they are so slayed by what they are seeing.

 

Again, lean into your strengths!

 

This was WAY longer than intended, but IMO a must. Mainly because I'm sure artist teams see alot of what we say. So hopefully it helps in some kind of way. 

That was actually very interesting to read. I was already curious to see how POC react to her. Yeah, unfortunately it's going to be a hard path for Leigh-Anne to make a big impact as a solo artist. She was never that popular in Little Mix due to her colour and now POC don't perceive her as theirs, if you know what I mean. She needs to find a way to appear to the general public and that will only happen with the right material and promotion. I am baffled by lack of action by TAP and Warner. Considering how much effort TAP had pu into promoting Dua Lipa, I expected something better. It certainly didn't help that her debut single was not the best, it was a good song, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't groundbreaking either. And not to mention that My Love clashed with the release of her memoir (till this day, I think it wasn't very clever to release a memoir so early. Especially with so little promotion). 

 

As for her performances, I agree that Leigh-Anne should find a way to combine dancing and singing better. She truly is a fantastic artist, she can dance, she can sing but she needs to rely on backing vocals too from time to time in order to sound more smooth. Dancing clearly affects her breaths, so she can present a killer performance with good dance moves and good vocals while relying on playback too. She has become more confident in her solo performances so it's clear that she's getting there. 

 

On 9/11/2024 at 2:33 PM, Cbreezy said:

They see her as the "mixed girl from Little Mix" - a group who never made music "for them" and thus her efforts to market herself "to them" now feels a hollow and a case of too little too late even though they like the odd song from the group. There's also a slightly suspicious eyebrow raise from some in a  "why now?" capacity. I hate to say this too, because it's a much more layered and arguably tricky topic than there's time to unpack here, but (in being frank) I've heard many Black people flat-out say that she doesn't present as Black especially not enough to centralize her sound or promotional efforts in that direction. 

I am not a POC but I'll try to explain this: why now? The problem is that since Little Mix were a UK/European oriented group, they would have to appeal to a white audience. I am sure that Leigh-Anne would have loved to incorporate aspects of her culture in the music but I suspect labels wouldn't like it. Unfortunately management teams can be extremely tight and strict and it has been proven many times that artists don't have always freedom. Leigh-Anne has emphasized that after going solo, she can make the type of music she wants to. This is why she is trying to distance herself from the typical little mix songs. When she was in Little Mix, she couldn't explore her artistic identity as Leigh-Anne and (like the rest of the members) she had to adapt to the group.

 

I understand why POC have not warmed up to her just yet. It's very logical. Which is why Leigh-Anne needs to find creative ways to cultivate her fanbase. 

[Cbreezy]

51 minutes ago, Danai G said:

I am not a POC but I'll try to explain this: why now? The problem is that since Little Mix were a UK/European oriented group, they would have to appeal to a white audience. I am sure that Leigh-Anne would have loved to incorporate aspects of her culture in the music but I suspect labels wouldn't like it. Unfortunately management teams can be extremely tight and strict and it has been proven many times that artists don't have always freedom. Leigh-Anne has emphasized that after going solo, she can make the type of music she wants to. This is why she is trying to distance herself from the typical little mix songs. When she was in Little Mix, she couldn't explore her artistic identity as Leigh-Anne and (like the rest of the members) she had to adapt to the group.

 

I understand why POC have not warmed up to her just yet. It's very logical. Which is why Leigh-Anne needs to find creative ways to cultivate her fanbase. 

I totally agree! It

 

I feel so bad for Leigh, the Alexandra Burke's, Leona Lewis' and so many of the other POC UK Pop acts of the 00s and 10s. 

 

There was a very careful, deliberate, and - if you ask me - racially-motivated effort by handlers to keep them in the Pop/Caucasian lane....despite the irony of their own Blackness. 

 

IMO, it would have been totally fine to have the Leighs, Alex's, and Leona's have a centrally Pop /Caucasian audience while still allowing them to have a brand presence in the Urban space. Even if it meant simply the occasional red-carpet appearance at the MOBO Awards, BET Awards, and similar. But it was as if there was a concerted effort (on the handler's part) to keep them away.

 

It literally was not until Leigh hosted the MOBOs after LM that I realized that I don't think she'd ever been to the show before that point. Similarly, I have SOOOOOO many POC friends who RAN to vote for Alexandra to win the X Factor (it's literally considered a huge moment in the community) only for label/management to make zero effort to give her any visibility in that space. They modelled Leona after Mariah and Whitney but negated to realize that those icons had BOTH the Pop and Urban lane's attention, respect, and interest. 

 

It's like teams of that time would cut their nose to spite their face, cus IMO they stood to make way more money covering ALL bases. But IMO the sentiment presented as: Pop and the Pop audience are premium/supreme. Everything else was presumed beneath it. 

 

With Leigh now, you can tell she's hustling hard to get a footing in these spaces and places, networking etc, but it's ridiculously delayed and sadly not by much fault of her own.