Up and coming R&B vocalist and songwriter Dana Williams will be welcoming a new single soon, ahead of her upcoming project. The single, “Holiday,” is expected to release next week on May 17th.
The LA-based artist released her first EP back in 2013. The project, entitled ‘The Lonely One,’ had its opening track, “Keep Me Waiting,” featured in Damien Chazelle’s Oscar-winning film, Whiplash. “Keep Me Waiting” was the only original vocal composition to be featured in the film.
Since her debut EP, Dana Williams followed up with a sophomore EP entitled ‘Let’s Fall,’ before shifting her focus to releasing singles. Williams released one single per month for over a year. Aside from being influenced by legends such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, Williams was also heavily influenced by her father, the late rhythm guitarist featured on tracks like “Billie Jean” and “Like a Prayer,” David Williams. Her father had her sit down and write everyday, which instilled in her a passion for writing that is evident in her lyrics. Regarding the experience, she shared:
“It felt like a fun activity. I don’t think that when we were writing as a kid I was thinking like ‘This is training,’ you know, it was more like, I have all these feelings and I’m going to write it out. But it has definitely helped a lot because I obviously have this skill that I’ve been working at and honing since I was very young.”
Dana Williams amazed her audience not only through her vocal talent, but also through her songwriting ability. Her 2017 single “Honey” was featured on Spotify’s Fresh Finds playlist, and has s ince amassed over 3 million streams. She was also featured on Rejjjie Snow’s track “Egyptian Luvr” alongside Aminé; it has been streamed on Spotify over 19 million times. More than anything, she hopes that her fans take a message from her music, particularly to be easier on themselves and love themselves past their flaws.
“I think my goal is always to just reach more people with my music and I would like to influence people in a positive way with an empowering message. I guess something that people can feel when they listen to my music they can a little bit more powerful and feel like they’re not totally alone in this world. And also, I’d like to play more shows and get to know people who are listening to my music. I feel like playing live shows is a really good way to interact with people and I love that.”
Williams is grateful for her fans, and looks forward to performing more concerts to connect with them more this year. She has a promising career ahead of her, and it will be interesting to see where the release of her new music will take her. Her latest single, “Holiday,” has been described as “softly assert[ing] a need for independence [with] lyrics drifting between poetic and blunt against a dreamy backdrop of rumbling beats and rhapsodic string work.”
Check out Dana’s Youtube channel here!
