Jalen N’Gonda is a master of classic soul and R&B sounds and hails from the city of Silver Spring, MD. He’s got an EP on the way this year and today we have the premiere of a new single from the artist titled “I Guess That Makes Me A Loser.” The song, like much of N’Gonda’s output is based on a classic soul template, with enough modern production and style to discern itself from music of decades past.
“Musically, ‘I Guess That Makes Me a Loser’ was inspired by the Dap-Tone sound and the song ‘The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game’ by the Marvelettes,” said N’Gonda. The lyrics were inspired by the mini-series Leaving. The series was about an affair between a middle-aged woman and a young man around 30 years her junior. It was a scandal and it ended so badly. So I started writing after watching that.”
While N’Gonda was born on the East Coast of the United States, he moved to the United Kingdom in 2014. There, he studied music at the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts, expanding upon the love for soul he developed after his dad introduced him to the music at the age of 11. His EP is titled Talking About Mary and it follows on the heels of sold-out shows in London and Geneva as well as appearances at venerable music festivals like the Newport Folk Festival. Anyone who was devastated by the losses of Sharon Jones in 2016 and Charles Bradley in 2017 will find comfort that young musicians like N’Gonda are being guided by the classic sounds of 60s and 70s soul and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
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