CANDICE HOYES SEES A ZORA'S MOON RISING ONCE AGAIN

Positioned as true a rising star, activist, producer, and Harvard graduate Candice Hoyes' spirited style is built to stun on the first strike and mesmerize on the second. Her sound is like a nexus for a family of genres meeting in graceful synchrony, balancing on an urban edge while juggling Jazz, Soul, and R&B like it was no big thing. Candice has received huge praise from institutions like  JazzFM (UK), calling her “an artist with the most eclectic and delicious voice ever." A bold claim to be sure, but not unfounded, as only an artist located in this time period could have the sufficient musical hindsight to really draw from so many influences and find ways to make them work together.

Candice's Jamaican parents instilled in her a taste and appreciation for music from an early age, and in their record collection, she found the many Feminist voices that inspired her own. Today, Candice pays homage to those voices through activism and music alike, and no song exemplifies this overlap better than her "Zora's Moon," a song inspired by feminist writer and Icon. Zora Neale Hurston.

At the One year anniversary of the song's release, the notorious New York  DJ Natasha Diggs teamed up with Candice to come up with a revitalizing remix to celebrate the song's release and reiterate its ode to Black girlhood message groovier than ever before with a snappy new Electro-Funk and House paint job.

The song is ethereal through and through, utilizing Candice's hypnotic whispering in the first half of the song as a way to entice and submerge the listener in the retro soundscape, and "submerge" is indeed the right word.  Natasha's musical alchemy turned the track into a pool of dense floaty sounds and the funky elements -outside of the crisp beat- come through in the same way as hearing music playing above your head while underwater does. It would seem that Zora's Moon remix brought a figurative rise in the tide for the song: Not only is it more enthralling now, but its dancefloor energy is also more infectious and compelling, while simultaneously holding a relaxed atmosphere perfectly capable of allowing more serene and introspective listening.

For Candice Hoyes, provocation is the name of the game, as every single so far is building up to what promises to be a monumental EP release, co-written by Grammy-award winning pianist, Sullivan Fortner, and produced by multi-instrumentalist (and also) GRAMMY-award winner,  Casey Benjamin. Not content with just her upcoming EP, Candice will also spend her 2021-22 dates taking the stage at Carnegie Hall and UK’s We Out Here Fest among many others.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Samuel Aponte is Venezuelan-born raised and based. 

I joined Rival Magazine after a few years of doing PR work for independent musicians of all stripes; understanding their struggles to be heard in a sea of constant  ADHD noise and paywalled access to platforms, I now bring a willingness to always appreciate and encourage the effort and creativity that artists put into their work . Can also find some of my writings on LADYGUNN and We Found New Music.