Melanie Fiona on the power of saying yes and launching a comeback
In an interview on The Block, the Grammy-winning singer shares the stories behind her new EP
R&B singer Melanie Fiona has been making waves in music since the early 2000s: she racked up millions of listens with her early hits such as "It Kills Me" and "4AM," collaborated with J. Cole and Snoop Dogg and won two Grammys and a Juno.
Her most recent full-length release was 2012's soulful album The MF Life, but this year she began her comeback by releasing "Say Yes" and "I Choose You," two new singles from her upcoming EP.
"I always knew I wanted this to be the first song that I would come back with after so long and not putting out music," Fiona told The Block's Angeline Tetteh-Wayoe about "Say Yes."
"It was very important for me to step out [with] two feet down and say, 'I'm not scared to be in real music, real art, live,'" she added.
In her interview with The Block, Fiona talked about getting back into music, jamming in the studio with SiR and Thundercat, and getting vulnerable in order to live her best life.
You can hear the full interview above and read an excerpt below.
You just heard new music from multi-platinum-selling R&B/soul vocalist Melanie Fiona. [The song] is called "Say Yes." We talked about the inspiration about that song, about having the courage to let love in. That's a big one if you're an avoidant like myself. But while this song was playing, you pointed out who is on it. So everybody needs to hear, not just me.
So the truth is, is that this song in its entirety is seven minutes long. So this song was just truly one of the most magical moments, I think, of my creative process as an artist to date in my career. Andre Harris, the producer of this song, who also is responsible for amazing songs from Michael Jackson, [Musiq] Soulchild, Glenn Lewis, you know, Floetry ... he's an incredible producer. [He] gathered myself [and] SiR, in one room one night with Thundercat, Charlie Burrell and Chris Dave, some of the most incredible musicians. And I felt like I was a fly on the wall, because watching these guys jam, [I thought these] musicians are some of the most fascinating people on the planet.
I got shivers when you said that because when you watch them and they just look at each other —
Yeah, they know where to go. And so in the full version of the song, it goes into these different transitions of communication and you think it's going to end and then they start another groove. And I wanted them to be featured. Like I didn't need to be riffing and doing all these things at the end of this song. It was about the art. It was about the vibe. It was about getting lost in this meditative kind of [space].
Transcendent.
It's like a trance you're in when you're listening to this song. I don't even know. Like, I get lost every time I listen to it. So this song, I always knew I wanted this to be the first song that I would come back with after so long and not putting out music. It was very important for me to step out [with] two feet down and say, "I'm not scared to be in real music, real art, live." The song is fully live. There's no post-production of synths or anything. This is all live and what you hear. It was not chopped and screwed. [It sounds] like it was the jam [session].
And then we wrote to it, SiR and I wrote to it, about the time in my life when my now-husband and I were dating and we were doing this dance of, "This could be so wonderful, but we're both so scared." And through my healing journey, I was ready to just be the most vulnerable. If I was going to have the love of my life and the love that I wanted, I knew it would have to come fully transparent and fully vulnerable. And so that's what "Say Yes" is about.
But the project, the EP that I'm going to put out is called Say Yes. And for that, it's about affirming to anyone, whether it's love or anything, that you have to be willing to say yes to get to the life that is waiting for you. Everything incredible I've ever done with my life has come from saying yes. And so many people focus on saying no. But when you do the work, you are truly prepared to say yes and know that you will be okay wherever you land. But you have to be willing to take the risk. And so that's what I want people to take away, when I talk about using my voice to heal, when I talk about using this art to create and raise vibration, this is what I'm talking about. Say yes. I want it to affirm their lives. That's why I'm so proud of this particular project [and] this song.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length. To hear the full interview, listen to The Block on CBC Music.