The 14-track album sneaks in an array of genres, from soul and disco to house and R&B, with aplomb.
They spent the next year and a half in the studio working on their self-titled debut EP, which came out in December 2014, and followed up this year with the full-length record Begin. “But we didn't really think it would spark that fast, and then, when it took off, we were like, 'Oh, shoot.' “ “People thought we were a little more developed than we were,” Goodman says. Except there was one problem: They didn't have any other songs. Once they released “Treat Me Like Fire,” blogs, publicists, and fans started hounding the rising duo for more. Rapper Childish Gambino reached out to Hervey and Goodman, inviting them to open for him during his set at South By Southwest, and by the summer of 2013, they'd signed a deal with Polydor Records. It took a few weeks for the internet to catch on, and once World Star Hip-Hop reposted the music video in January, the song took off.Įmails with offers to manage the band flooded in, and blogs around the world penned posts about the song. Hervey says they “didn't have a plan or anything,” but they didn't need one. “We didn't even know what those things were really.”Īfter six months of toiling on the track, the pair, which includes producer Lucas Goodman, uploaded “Treat Me Like Fire” in November 2012 to the internet, adding a music video to YouTube a month later. “If you asked either of us if we thought of having a bridge or a pre-chorus or whatever, we didn't,” says Lion Babe's singer Jillian Hervey, whose mother is actress Vanessa Williams.
LION BABE BEGIN GENRES PROFESSIONAL
“Treat Me Like Fire” was less professional and premeditated than you'd think. Lyrically simple, it's an instrumentally dense song that somehow manages to be chill and dance-inducing at the same time. So starts “Treat Me Like Fire,” the electronic-R&B duo Lion Babe's first official release, which, to date, has been listened to almost 6 million times on Spotify. A pattern emerges as the voices trade lines, repeating one another four times until the entire chorus - “Treat me like / Fire/ Into the pain” / - has been sung. In the distance, a deep, smoky voice coos the opening line, only to be echoed by a second voice - this one younger, sharper - a few seconds later. Ten seconds in, a clapping effect emerges on the sonic landscape, followed by a bassline that pulsates like a heartbeat.
More often, though, the cracks in their songwriting and sonics come off as welcome decoration, and their why-the-hell-not bravado is hugely refreshing.The song opens with a trickling keyboard melody, coated with a thick layer of analog fuzz that makes the tune sound old, and as if it were cascading through your speakers from a faraway place. At times, their subgenre-flipping can be ungainly - the cheerleading chant “Impossible” is awkwardly glued together, and Hervey’s dissonant harmonies sometimes obscure her hooks. “On the Rocks” nods to the style of late-’80s R&B (it even cribs its breakdown from Janet Jackson‘s “Nasty”), but perpetually mutates its groove with freaky dub effects the new single “Where Do We Go” is laser-beams-and-mirrorballs Eurodisco, with elaborate horn fanfares swirling out of pointillistic drum programming “Whole” alternately stacks up layer upon layer of Hervey’s voice, strips it bare in the mix and slices it down to an unnerving ululation. Lion Babe have a playful, experimental streak, and they stretch themselves stylistically at every turn. Meet Lion Babe, the Soul and R&B Duo Poised to Take Over in 2015 Goodman, who also records under the name Astro Raw, is a crate-digging beats-and-pieces producer who takes a lot of his cues from the likes of J Dilla and Flying Lotus, and Hervey’s understated, simmering timbre and phrasing - and her willingness to cast the spotlight on her voice’s crinkles and gnarls - owe more than a little to Erykah Badu. Still, they’re a young enough act that their artistic inspirations are very clear on Begin. Hervey and Goodman know a lot about projecting charisma: she’s the daughter of Vanessa Williams, he’s the son of rock fashionista Ray Goodman.
LION BABE BEGIN GENRES MAC
Halsey, Tinashe, Lion Babe and Dej Loaf to Front MAC Cosmetics Future Forward Campaign (Exclusive)