SoundBite platform gives us Angie
Listeners are going ‘crazy for her voice’ as she pounds out the music
ASPIRING musos who know they have talent have been given a platform to showcase their skills.
The KFC SoundBite music website launched in May has been inundated with tracks from local, unsigned artists who want their music to be heard nationwide.
One such artist is Angie Santana whose song All of This is making waves on the website.
The 22-year-old vocalist and songwriter has made it a point to be part of the full production process of her songs.
“I listen to a lot of other people’s music so I know exactly how I want to sound on mine. I don’t want to be edited or auto-tuned, the realness of my voice has to be there. What I sound like on the song must be the same as what I sound like when I perform live.”
Artists have to register on the website and upload their tracks onto the SoundBite platform. Music fans can access the platform and listen to 30 second SoundBites of their favourite tracks and have the power to control the charts through likes, shares and downloads to move the songs up and down the chart. At the moment Santana’s song is sitting at number 38. The chart has 550 local tracks, each week an additional 50 newcomers are loaded.
In order for the artist to get to the number one spot, fans have to unlock the song to stream the full track.
Santana was born in Bloemfontein and has been singing since she was 14.
“I recorded my first song at 16, though it wasn’t serious. I met a Malawian producer while in school at Mafikeng and he heard the song and wanted to get into the studio with me.”
After that, Santana started putting out her own music on social media and reached out to the likes of Sean Pages who advised her to be more expressive.
“In 2015, I started uploading videos on Instagram and YouTube, and that’s when Sean hit me up again. I worked with him on the song Good Thing and soon after that I featured on PdotO’s album as well.”
Her producing skills gained momentum when the song she wrote, Crazy For Your Love, went viral on social media.
“I wrote the song last year. My whole EP is inspired by the diary of my relationships, break-ups and falling in and out of love. In this song, I talk about a person I like a lot and kind of go crazy wanting him to call and be with me.”
She also released a song called No Condition last year. Both songs are on her EP By The Time You Get This, which will be released later this year. She is also working on a mixtape called #2KSantana that will feature several local hip-hop artists.
I consider myself a trap soul artist. I grew up on R&B
No Condition is also featured on the KFC SoundBite website.
For All of This she worked with fellow Free State artists Thwenny Thwenny and Castino.
“I consider myself a trap soul artist. I grew up in the 1990s R&B era and consider myself the “Hip Hop Faith Evans”. I like the sounds of Aaliyah and Mya and decided to take that sound with what hip-hop sounds like now. It’s like love songs on trap music,” she said.
Santana said having her music on the website wasn’t about getting signed to a record label.
“I’ve always wanted to do music, so people can hear what I can do and bring. I want them to hear who Angie is.”
For the EP, Santana is working with UK-based rapper, producer and vocalist Taylor whom she met on social media.
“He is working on my whole EP. Initially, I worked with him on just one song and I decided to redo all of them and they sound really amazing. With the three songs already released, it’s an eight-track EP and the styles on the songs are like no other, so people should go out there and get it to hear it for themselves.”