Erika Rose with GC and Soul Mafia

Show Description

GC and Soul Mafia: Hailing from Ft. Green, Brooklyn, G.C. and Soul Mafia offer a vision of music looking towards the future, drawing from the past, but firmly entrenched in the present. Their sound reflects influences as varied as Coltrane to Jay-Z, Coldplay to Prince, while ultimately landing within the graffiti tagged walls of hip-hop. The result is a Molotov cocktail of adept wordplay and searing saxophone riffs; hard beats and lush orchestration; technology and soul.

"Erika Rose is a rare jewel just waiting to be discovered! Her style of music is a mixture of life, love, darkness, and sensuality in the most refreshingly unexpected package, and it leaves you wanting more! I'm lovin it!"
- Alicia Keys


Erika Rose: As Erika Rose asserts early on in her debut album , Rosegarden is a "longtime coming; dreams deferred are now realized," as she put off her pursuit of a music career acting as childhood friend Alicia Keys' road manager for the early part of Keys' career. She did find time to co-write "A Woman's Worth," and a few other tunes sporadically spread throughout the Grammy-winner's two albums. Rosegarden finds this singer-songwriter focused on self. It is a solid, well-directed album from a promising artist and a talented musician-producer (Keith). Keith's production mixes rock and 70s R&B, which Rose -- a talented singer -- uses as a canvass for her diary-like lyrics. Whether it's dark paranoia ("The Darkness"), coy sexual boasts ("Spell On You") or quit-hatin' anthems ("Backstabbaz Bounce") With all her attention focused on building her own career, Rosegarden is a conspicuously personal work, worth the wait for the artist and listener