Everyone’s summer needs a soundtrack. Something that encourages daytime drinking and makes you feel good about wearing sandals to the office. It is my humble opinion that London-born singer-songwriter Lianne La Havas has delivered just that, in the form of Unstoppable. Have you listened to it? Go listen now, I’ll wait. Isn’t it perfect? I told you so.
I first heard of La Havas, 25, in 2012, when the BBC nominated her as a Sound of 2012. A brown girl from London with a guitar? I was already on board before I heard her sing. And then I heard Forget, with its catchy drawn-out chorus (“Forgee-eee-et! All the words that made you break my heart”) and had to hear more.
La Havas’s voice is full of smoke: it is textured with high and low notes, and the blend creates a rich, playful, intimate sound. She sounds at once familiar and mysterious: “I’m glad that it’s just my heart that he stole/And left my dignity alone,” she sings on Age, a song about an older lover. Her songs suggest she is out in the world, taking life in in big gulps – nothing is out of her reach; there is no experience she won’t chase down. That feeling is present in abundance in the video for Unstoppable, a masterclass in #carefreeblackgirl vibes – just watch as La Havas’s afro jumps along as she engages in euphoric interpretive dance through an empty house.
To my ear, her songs sound like possibility – and that voice, soaring and spectacular, makes me love her even more. “There is nothing else left holding us down/but it’s just gravitational/we are unstoppable.” That’s a solid summer motto right there.
