Keyshia Cole above Billie Holiday —>
Keyshia Cole is captivating, she’s really a modern day Billie Holiday, but she’s a soprano and her tone is not dark like Holiday’s. Both these women sing purely from pain and it is so intimate and intense. You can feel their presence in their songs. Not many female vocalists can do this, especially today. Only the greats achieved it such as Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, and the like. When I first heard Keyshia Cole’s ‘Love’ on the radio, I almost crashed my car. Keyshia Cole is Keyshia Cole and she can’t be touched; I don’t care what anybody else says, end of story.
Ms. Cole is constantly growing. If you listen to “Love” she does not want the man to leave her. If you listen to her newest ballad “I Remember”, she’s the one leaving saying I can’t take it anymore and I hate that I still love you, but this is not good for me and I have to love myself. Those two songs show her growth. In “Love” she’s begging him to stay, but in “I Remember” she’s packing up the bags because she’s matured enough to know the relationship is not in her best interest, despite her feelings.
Ms. Cole is a women who continually grows, that is clear in her voice, songs, and lyrics. That’s what great about her, she just gets better, stronger, and deeper. She lives in the now and looks to the future. She rarely looks back. If she does it’s with the expressed purpose of learning from a past experience or to fix something that could jeopardize her future. You won’t catch Keyshia Cole living in any of her songs for long, she’s growing as we speak. By the time you hear the song on the radio, she’s grown into another one. Well done Ms. Cole.
