Meant to be experienced with your 5 senses, he 5-track project (100% created by women as she made everything with her female producer Kendis) sees her balancing genres and reflecting on her challenges as a multi-dimensional woman of colour while understanding the power of being fully yourself:
What can we expect from this debut EP?
I don’t like to influence my listeners by what the EP means to me personally. In my opinion, music is an ultra-subjective journey. Two people listening to the same sound will not necessarily feel the same emotions.
All I can say is that before you hit the play button, keep an open mind, don’t think in boxes and completely let go of your emotions. As different as it may seem, this is not a project with only one music genre but with many so expect to be surprised.
How important was it for you to surround yourself with a female producer?
I must say that it was not prepared or chosen. Before Kendis, I worked with other producers, and it was with her that I discovered myself the most as an artist. Having Kendis, a female producer, in this process is clearly a strength. In the music industry, it’s much harder for a woman to make it in than a man. Since there are only a few of us, it’s always a blessing to join forces and stand up as an artist in this very male-dominated environment.
I quickly felt comfortable and safe which allowed me to clearly let go of the brakes on my creativity. Kendis is not only a producer but also a talented DJ, so she has the codes of an artist too. What I like about the way we work is that we are not afraid to mix genres and go beyond just music.
What’s your favorite track on the Cinq EP and why?
I love them all because CINQ is a project in its whole. They all complete each other. But if I had to make only one choice, I would say GUAPA. Not for a musical reason but more for the story behind it. It was the first sound where I discovered my artistic touch, my voice and that I was proud of, it was the track that sounded like me the most and it’s also the very first sound we did with Kendis.
How can we experience this EP with the 5 senses? Can you expand on that?
To understand where I wanted to go with the 5 senses in CINQ, you have to understand what an emotion is. An emotion, like a feeling, causes sensations. It is understood that a sensation is mainly related to the sense but can be generated by feelings such as the feeling of having a lump in the stomach for example, which is caused by stress, itself considered as an emotion.
I do think that music is a transfer of sounds but also energy, messages and through that we feel something, the emotion. It has an internal manifestation and generates an external reaction.
In CINQ, we used the singing voice but also breathing, claps, sounds, to tap into the senses. CINQ is an emotional journey where you experience anger, sadness, loneliness, nostalgia, love and euphoria. All these emotions are translated in the songs through different music genres. For example, Trauma is a song that is more rock and powerful that can refer to anger.
