DRAMA’s Debut Album Is a Nod To Uncomplicated R&B
As someone who spent her teen years during the nineties, the so-called “golden era of R&B,” I find myself struggling today to find an album I can play on repeat. DRAMA delivers exactly that with Dance Without Me, their debut album released last February 2020. It’s a follow-up to two EPs: Gallows (2016) and Lies After Love (2018).
I’ve been searching for that easy listening fix, a balance of hip-hop and R&B. I get it from artists like Blood Orange, Childish Gambino, and Frank Ocean, yet they’re more what I like to call my “playlist artists”—I select their strongest tracks, then migrate them.
DRAMA takes this effort off my shoulders. With them, I feel compelled to stick with the direction they’re taking me through.
The first thing that got me hooked on DRAMA is the beautiful, vulnerable vocals of its singer, Via Rosa. In 2018, I watched her live and she sounded exactly like their recordings—a testament to her talent.
The other half of DRAMA is producer Na’el Shehade whose experience in music production and engineering shows a man who is confident enough to do his job, yet not distract from the vocals and songwriting of Via Rosa.
In Dance Without Me, DRAMA’s songs are given their own space to shine. You can actually decipher the words and not rely on having to google them.
In “Hold On,” they tread identity and insecurity, “How could somebody let go. Of somebody this fine? They must not know what they like.”
“Years” acknowledges relationships that are imperfect, yet enduring: “Even when you tell lies… I’ll be here for you, for years to come.”
DRAMA explores emotions, yet doesn’t wallow in it. Props must be given to Shehade’s skill as a producer. He emulates the effortlessness of R&B, then updates it with various musical styles so you don’t get stuck in the past.
The album’s musical range takes you through sitting solemnly in a piano bar with “7:04 AM,” mellow nightlife via “Forever and A Day,” to eighties, Stranger Things-reminiscent riffs in “Good For Nothing.”
This is the strength of DRAMA: they’re not trying to sound like anything. Their music feels sincere, as if saying, “this is what we like, hopefully you’ll like it."
It’s exactly what music needs today: less drama, more listening.