Haley Smalls explains why her new album is 'an amalgamation of genres'
The R&B singer opens up on The Block about her new release and upcoming tour
Haley Smalls has always liked to experiment with different genres, fusing together sounds from pop and R&B. On her latest album, Timelines, she expands her sound even further, mixing sultry R&B with hip-hop, Caribbean music and more for a project that feels timeless.
"I try to be very diverse when it comes to my music," she told host Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe in an interview on The Block.
Smalls opened up about the process of making her new album, getting prepped for her upcoming tour and her advice for other independent artists in their interview. You can read an excerpt of their conversation below and hear the full interview above.
[Your] album is called Timelines. So let's talk about the genres first of all, because I feel like in this present day and in the way that people release music, you can kind of be more adventurous with genre.
Yeah.
Of course, you've been in the label system and they try to put you in a box, and they want you to sound like this and you've got to look like this, and you've got to fit into this very, very small box. So genres and time, I'm interested about that. So talk to me about that.
Yeah. I think with this project there's kind of an amalgamation of genres, there's kind of a little bit of dance vibes, and then there's hip-hop vibes, and then there's R&B vibes and there's Caribbean vibes, but the way that they're mixing together is very seamless. And that is 100 per cent thanks to [my producer] Mega, because he was just doing his thing on the production.
But I love how it kind of just mixes those things [together] because I try to be very diverse when it comes to my music, because I know, especially nowadays, people's palettes for music [are] very diverse. It's not like back in the day when you would go to HMV.
Yes.
People's music collections were not as diverse.
But they couldn't be because a CD costs like $20, right? It's kind of one of those things, [it's] a rock and a hard place.
Yes.
On one side, you cherish what you had a little bit more and it wasn't as much. And now it feels like because there's so much and it's so easily accessible, it's like air: you don't necessarily cherish it and interact with it in this really sort of intimate [way]. It's a different tactile vibe.
One hundred per cent. It is. And it's like a double-edged sword, because there's good and bad to both. But yeah, it's cool because I think that's why my musical taste is diverse as well. So I want to be able to kind of give as much as I can because some people may like [one genre] better than this, right? And you can't please everybody.
Yeah.
But I just do what I like, hoping that my diversity translates to the people that hear it.
"Disconnected," the track we just heard, that's more of an R&B vibe. How would you describe "Frozen"?
"Frozen" is, I would say, a mixture. It's a modern sound, but it's got that throwback hip-hop vibe.
Alright, well, I'm excited to hear this next facet of your sound.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. To hear the full interview, listen to The Block on CBC Music.