NYLON - February 2009 - (Page 108) radar: singer melanie fiona is kanyeapproved, and that’s all we need to know. by nisha gopalan. photographed by alex thompson. JUST A FEW dates into Melanie Fiona’s stint opening for Kanye West on his European tour, the famously temperamental, perfectionist rapper summoned her to his dressing room for a post-performance chat. “I was, like, ‘Oh shit!’” recalls the soul-R&B singer of that ominous November day in London last year. “I was really concerned about what he was gonna say.” You see, her show that night had spiraled into a perfect storm of screw-ups: Her mic failed, the monitor went out, background tracks skipped; still, she soldiered on. West settled into a chair, leaned in, and congratulated Fiona for a show well done. “He said, ‘Man, I love what you’re doing’ and did a play-by-play of how I could enhance my show by adding a personalized intro or cover song,” she says. Having successfully dodged a bullet, she would later choose to perform Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song.” With her bright eyes, beaming smile, animated voice, and charming tendency to break out into song, you figure out very quickly that Fiona is, in fact, unrepentantly positive. Take her debut, The Bridge: Tracks like the empowerment anthem “Ay Yo” beckon a giddy call-and-response, while even love-sick cuts, such as the blogosphere-approved Duffy-meets-Mariah groove “Give It to Me Right,” ooze an uplifting “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” vibe. Ask her about the painful decline of Amy Winehouse— who’s also an AutoTune-eschewing little lady with a big, soulful voice—and Fiona will actually express enthusiasm for the exhaustive, tabloid-baiting Brit. “I love the integrity of her voice…I love everything about Amy, flaws and all,” she booms. “She’s put herself out there for the world to see.” And while discussing the massive discrepancies between her puny tour bus and Kanye’s manse on wheels, she reasons, “I think I needed to have that bus. I gotta pay my dues.” Then helpfully adds, “Note to anyone who’s in my tour bus: The back will give you the most motion sickness.” Raised modestly in Toronto by Guyanan parents, Fiona— who’s black, Indian, and Portuguese—understood from an early age that literally anything was possible with a optimistic disposition and unrelenting discipline. Says the singer: “My parents left Guyana and basically started from scratch, had tour de force a whole new identity.” Times could be tough. “My dad started off working as a janitor,” she says. And at one point, he lost his job. “But he’s come such a far way— he’s in finance now.” In addition to stoking her work ethic, her father also influenced her musically. To offset the doldrums of his day job, he’d play in a freewheeling reggae-socablues-soul band that rehearsed in the basement on weekends. Fiona would watch, mesmerized. To that end, the tracks on The Bridge—its title a nod to integrating her sundry tastes and lineage—range from old-school pop (“Please Don’t Go (Cry Baby)”) to R&B (“It Kills Me”) to soul (“Walk on By”) to reggae (“Sad Songs”), with a debt to music pioneers such as Sam Cooke and Lauryn Hill. That combination initially scared off record-company execs who told her she should stick to one sound. “There are definitely people out there who said, ‘I don’t understand it. I don’t get it,’” she remarks. “They wanted to put me in a box.” But Fiona is, after all, her father’s daughter, so she persevered. While searching for a label, she wrote a tune for herself called “Dem Haters,” then turned it over to Rihanna’s producers who dug the catchy dis (the cut appears on the latter’s second CD, 2006’s A Girl Like Me). This yielded Fiona more exposure and, of course, some plump dividends. “This is a business as well,” she notes. By 2007, that bullishness of hers had started to pay off: Steve Rifkind, the CEO of SRC/Universal Motown, heard her studio recordings, was immediately smitten, and signed her up. It was sheer luck that got her the Kanye gig a year later: Her management knew the rapper, and he liked what he heard. The next thing Fiona knew, she was chilling backstage with Yeezy on the other side of the Atlantic, playing Connect Four. “I lost,” she says. Ah, but did she purposely throw the match? “No. He had me. He was using some Jedi mind tricks!” Sounds relaxing. “Actually,” she says, “the tour was the most overwhelming experience. “I think I psyched myself out more because of what it meant to go to Europe…trying to attract that new fanbase.” Nowadays she’s getting used to the itinerant life. “I spend as much time in one city as I do in another. I can’t stay in one place: This is promotion, this is getting out there, this is meeting people.” Oh, surely there’s a downside…like no time for a personal life? “I’m seeing the world,” she demurs. “That’s who I’m in love with right now.” 108 stylist: elle werlin. hair: cesar ramirez/kenbarboza.com. makeup: jj using m.a.c cosmetics. shot at mr. west. top by guilty brotherhood, shorts and bow tie by d&g.
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