Tanika Charles
Reasons To Stay
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Canadian soul artist Tanika Charles has quietly established a career that delivers consistently good records. She appears every two or three years, drops an album of little gems and then pops off, eats her fruits and vegetables and minds her own business until the next time. On this album, her fourth, she serves up the same ‘60s soul music with a modern production sheen that has been her calling card her since her 2017 debut Soul Run.
Reasons To Stay ditches the slight forays into other fields of her previous album Papillon de Nuit: The Night Butterfly (2022) and becomes much more straight ahead in its pursuit of its goal. There are no guest spots from up-and-coming emcees—just the sound of an artist reveling in the freedom to express herself in the most fitting way possible.
Charles once again shows the versatility and quality of her voice throughout, whether it’s on the jaunty “Having A Time” or one of the standout tracks “How Long Will It Take,” where she depresses her delivery to suit the subject matter. And the subject matter is predominantly affairs of the heart in its manifold iterations. The lyrics that accompany the tales of love gone awry are straightforward and unshrouded in mystery—we are left in no doubt about how she feels.
Charles is at her best when the music has a heavier feel. The jaunty upbeat songs work, but she really comes into her own when the music goes a little harder. The two songs that sit next to each other near the end of the album are cases in point. Both “Don’t Let Go” with its memorable bassline and “Talk To Me Nice” with her sultry delivery are given greater heft by the instrumentation and production used. She rises to the occasion perfectly.
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One other thing the album has in its favor is its running time. Too often albums come bloated and overstuffed with material, here Charles is a musical assassin—she comes in, gets the work done and leaves without any fuss. With three-minute songs the par, she says what needs to be said and exits at the perfect time.
Four albums deep into her career and Charles is carving a fertile furrow that is deserving of far more attention than it currently gets. Let’s hope Reasons To Stay broadens her exposure even further.
Notable Tracks: “Consistency” | “Don’t Let Go” | “How Long Will It Take” | “Talk To Me Nice”
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