TALK THERAPY w/ DANA WILLIAMS

Dana Williams, the soulful singer-songwriter, poet and guitarist from Los Angeles is an up-and-coming artist who brings a palpable soothing voice and grounded energy to the stage. It’s jazzy. It’s nonchalant. It’s breezy. It’s talk therapy.

 A lifetime of musical influence from within her household to her outside endeavors has shaped the singer’s style into one that is distinctive and instantly recognisable as Williams’.  Making music came intuitively to Williams, drawing heavy inspiration from her father and legendary guitarist David Williams who anchored several notable Michael Jackson and Madonna tracks with a funk-inspired strumming technique seen in “Billie Jean”, “Bad”, and “Like A Prayer”.  A supportive musical family (allbe-it a rare occurrence) boded key to Williams’s confidence in pursuing a career path that most would find rather challenging - a reality she finds utmost gratitude in. Through a childhood filled with constant moving, music became essential to allowing Williams to express the jarring shifts in her life and find rays of happiness through her words. A self-proclaimed “shy person”, Williams credits her sister for taking the ‘manager’ reins and booking her show after show in Los Angeles right upon graduating from college. Majoring in poetry and creative writing was yet another decision that added fuel to William’s creative fire. The breadth of time and space in a college environment gave Williams further freedom to discover the nooks and crannies of her voice and develop a unique R&B driven style with base foundations in her classical training. A case in point to what sets her apart is the absence of a pick when Williams dazzles with her effortless guitar-playing - something that she notes often draws the eyes of concert-goers. But it was the utter comfortability of performing on-stage post-college which made Williams realize that being a musician “was just meant to be”.  Cue career-shift from writer to full-time musician. 

Williams’s voice is undeniably remarkable (I can attest to this, I have been non-stop listening to her), lingering in the minds of listeners. But more than that, her lyrics are frank, sincere and attention grabbing - she will tell you when she’s “tired of your sh*t” or as she questions “why do you make me needy?” (lyrics from her new bop “Laundry”) as jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald taught her to do so. The cherry on top? Williams’s own grandmother was a profound jazz singer who she warmingly shares would often sing her to sleep, imprinting the sounds of jazz in her core memories and driving her music further in that direction. Performing at famed jazz club Lenox Lounge in Harlem also became an experience that was crucial to the development of Williams style, giving her a platform to stray away from basic structure and just, well, play around. To this day, Williams jazz influence shows up in her performances, especially in her preference for a live band, which gives her the flexibility to improvise and get creative on-the-spot.

Williams enjoys every aspect of being an artist from starting at the writing table, to sharing her music with live audiences, but it’s collaboration that she has been embracing most recently. Her highest streamed song on Spotify, “Egyptian Luvr” with Rejjie Snow and Aminé serves as an emblem of how collaboration can bring about fresh sound and innovation. She shares that when she first heard the beat, it immediately reminded her of a Kaytranada track - so she grasped onto it and the rest was history. Williams remembers that she hadn’t met Aminè until soon after working on that song when she arrived at an art show, recognized him immediately, went up to introduce herself, and when Aminè responded asking who she was, she chuckled, “I just worked on a song with you!” 

For Williams, collaboration has become a synonym for conversation. It’s the ebb and flow of a conversation that lends itself to her lyrics. It’s her cure to writer’s block, allowing her to continue writing even when feeling a creative’s worst nightmare: burnt out. Innately a more private person, much of Wiliams’s songwriting happens in isolation, but it's in those moments of conversation that she is able to step outside her usual perspective and become enlightened on something different. Something special. 

This charged Williams’ songwriting in “Talk Myself Out”, which was born from a conversation where her close friend pointed out that it seemed as though she was “talking herself out” of the relationship. Most of Williams’s songs are clearly self-introspections on her own life and the messages she has drawn from deep personal reflection. For instance, her recent single “Laundry” delves into the frustration in her relationship where her needs were not being met and her internal debates about setting firm boundaries with a significant other. 

“Talk Therapy”, William’s newly debuted EP, is once again - conversation. Conversations with friends. Conversations with family. Conversations with the self. Displaying a new evolution of Williams as a person, the EP talks about important life skills she’s developed while “trying to figure out life.” Although Williams has regularly released singles throughout her career, Talk Therapy has been a long-time coming, and she reels in excitement about putting out a full, cohesive body of work with one story threading it all together. With her unforgettable voice and witty, insightful lyricism, Dana Williams is an artist that no one will be able to talk themselves out of listening to.