Concert Preview: Priscilla Renea at Cats Cradle

By carolinianweb on May 14, 2018 • ( 0 )

Photo courtesy of Priscilla Renea

Krysten Heberly
Editor-in-Chief

If you’ve dialed through the radio, searching for the perfect summer song to soundtrack your drive to the beach, you’ve likely heard the work of Priscilla Renea. Though you may not have specifically heard of her by name, you have definitely heard her work.

She has been the mastermind behind hits such as Fifth Harmony’s ‘Worth It’, Pitbull’s ‘Timber’, Chris Brown’s ‘Don’t Wake Me Up’ and many more. Now, after a hearty career of songwriting, Renea is rightfully stepping out as a solo artist, and will be coming to the Cats Cradle Back Room on May 18 as part of a tour for her new album, ‘Coloured’.

The album will be officially released on June 22, though a few singles have already been released on Spotify.

Renea describes her new album as “a gumbo of pop, dirt road country and urban, mixed together with a keen sense of contemporary politics and millennial perspective.”

It is this combination of styles and influences that makes her style so particularly unique. The singles she has released already are packed with earth-shaking vocals and lyrics which somehow feel both incredibly personal and completely universal.

Combined with music that can be defined as a fusion between country, pop and blues, this album is a powerful sentiment from Renea which catapults her in the public eye from just a songwriter with powerful lyrics, to a fierce performer with a powerhouse voice.

Much of the album reflects her experiences growing up in rural Florida, an experience which is filled with the ups and downs of falling in love, and the tensions and trauma of growing up in a racially divided south.

This influence is evident throughout her singles which have been released already. From the chilling ballad ‘Family Tree’ which personifies the complicated emotions surrounding family to the bubbly pop-country jam “Gentle Hands” which centers around the ideal man, this album provides a powerful introduction to the Priscilla Renea of the past, present and future.

In April, the album helped land Priscilla Renea onto Rolling Stone’s list of ‘Country Artists You Need to Know: April 2018’, and rightfully so. Recorded in Nashville, the album has that familiar twang embedded in every chord, yet it has this freshness which country-pop has been in desperate need of for quite some time.

Tickets for Priscilla Renea’s show are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.