Rita Ora - Ora
- Written by Milen Jonas
Lets be honest, there aren’t many fierce female British singers around at the moment.
Although the likes of Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen and most recently Adele put the UK firmly on the map with their stellar success, Rita Ora has a voice with a red hot image to match. So much so that media across the world can’t help but compare her to her Roc Nation label mate and international pop superstar Rihanna.
The former Sylvia Young Theatre School pupil first came to our attention when she auditioned on the BBC television show Eurovision: Your Country Needs You. She quickly dropped out of the competition when she decided to go down a different musical route and got snapped up by Jay-Z and Roc Nation not too long after.
This monumental record deal with a reputable Hip Hop label along with her first single ‘Hot Right Now’, which featured DJ Fresh, as well as her biggest hit to date ‘R.I.P.’ (a remake of Drake’s ‘I'm Ready For You’), had me convinced she had a certain edge. But I couldn’t have been further away from the truth. There is a sense of confusion when you listen through the album despite the group of R&B heavy weight producers/writers such as Terius ‘The-Dream' Nash and Ester Dean being part of this project.
The album starts of well with the Nash written ‘Roc The Life’, a guitar driven track with tongue twisting lyrics about superstar dreams. The track has enough swagger to pick up where ‘R.I.P.’ left off, only for songs such as ‘How We Do’ and ‘Uneasy’ to throw you off completely. These tracks, which would probably be better suited for a happy-go-lucky artist like Katy Perry, instantly makes you think bubble gum pop and teenage house parties. More disappointment follows with the Will.I.Am produced ‘Fall In Love’, where its apparent that Will ‘dumbed down’ Rita’s vocals and let the production take the lead.
Having that said, there are a few gems which made for a pleasant surprise. Club banger ‘Radioactive’ positively channels the same energy as ‘Hot Right Now’. But it’s ‘Been Lying’ which highlights Rita’s warm mezzo-soprano vocals perfectly. It’s also coincidently one of the two tracks which she has co-written for the album. The emotional ‘Hello, Hi, Goodbye’ cements my suspicions that Rita has more to offer. Hopefully its tracks like these that take president in the future.