You Need to Know: Kendra Morris
Every Tuesday, You Need to Know spotlights a rising artist that we know will blow up big. Listen now. Thank us later. This week: Soul singer Kendra Morris.
Full disclosure: Late last year, I was asked to dress up as a Hasidic Jew for a new video by a soul singer named Kendra Morris. I didn't know her name, but I agreed to help out my friend who was directing the video.
I ended up listening to the song nonstop for the next week.
The New York-based singer released her last EP in 2010, but "Concrete Waves," the debut single from her upcoming album on Wax Poetics, is going to be everywhere soon. Morris is a jazz-loving chanteuse you imagine lying on a piano in a cocktail dress; a sultry vocalist cooing and teasing her way through a track; a tough street singer unafraid to hide a resolute New York attitude (check her "Concrete Waves" DJ Premier remix), like Adele or Amy Winehouse writing from a Bowery flophouse.
The "Concrete Waves" video, directed by Nick Sasso, went viral late last year. It's easy to see why (Note: not because of my 0.1 second cameo to my chagrin). Besides the ominous music-meets-soulful vocals vibe, the video, featuring Morris as a stalker victim, is composed of hundreds of first-person shots. It's a unique twist on the first-person video, and one worthy of your five minutes.
Morris' full-length is set for release this summer, but get up on the singer now before hearing her name from everyone else.
Kendra Morris - "Concrete Waves"
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