Nicki Richards

Nicki Richards is the real deal - a world class singer, songwriter, producer, arranger and performer who brings the sizzle and the thrill back to that rarified realm known as "music beyond category." Born into a household rich in jazz and the gospel of the Primitive Baptist Church, yet raised on the radio of the ..70s and ..80s - when airwaves overflowed with amazing R&B, rock, pop and dance music - diva Richards delivers a dizzyingly eclectic musical palette to your eardrums. Every composition is hers and she arranged them all in her living room laboratory of beat banks, keyboards, computers and microphones. ......... Nicki Richards' long-awaited new album is simply titled, Nicki - 17 songs for the 17 years she's been away since her 1991 debut Naked (To the World). It's 76 mind-blowing minutes of the hippest trip in the galaxies aboard Starship Nicki, with guest stars bassists Marcus Miller, Will Lee and Victor Bailey, pianist Joe Sample, the legendary Tower of Power Horns, gargantuan drummer Dennis Chambers, harmonica maverick Gregoire Maret, guitarists Ciro, Sherrod Barnes and Monte Pittman, a sprawling A-list of singers that includes Lisa Fischer, Cindy Mizelle and Nicki's mom Donna Blackmon, and Nicki's rock steady co-producer, mentor and drummer, Mr. Lenny White (of Return to Forever and Twennynine fame). "SHOCK-A-LOCK-A!" ............. Her sophomore CD reflects not only the sounds of her most lasting influences, but how their timeless masterpieces assisted Nicki in sculpting signature statements all her own. To listen to "I Have Loved You Always" is to imagine Stevie Wonder reconstructing Joni Mitchell's "Two Grey Rooms" while ensconced somewhere deep in the Spanish countryside. Listening to "That Ain't Right" puts you in the mind of Prince teasing, "Dig if you will the picture of Sly Stone having his way with Percy Mayfield's 'Please Send Me Someone to Love.'" The ego strokin’ “Say What” finds Nicki recalling nightclub glory days over the beat of Taana Gardner’s bedrock “Heartbeat” groove with a mid-song break straight out of Miles Davis’ “So What.” And if you fantasized about what Nicki's CD opener "Let's Dance" might taste like, it would be Tom Browne's "Funkin' for Jamaica" and George Duke's "Reach For It" blended over Krush Groove'd ice with an extract of the GAP Band's supremely chocolaty "Shake." Sip at your own New York funk-fortified risk!