YOUNG STAR RISES,
Rising star Zola Simone, 18, racking up streams of debut album
As a kid, Zola Simone took part in a music program at Boston’s Center for Teen Empowerment. Now 18, Simone recalls staring in awe at images of some of the city’s upand-coming stars that lined the center’s walls.
“I remember they had posters of Dutch ReBelle and Michael Christmas,” she told the Herald, referencing the Boston hip-hop heroes. “What’s crazy is that I was 13 years old looking at that poster of Dutch ReBelle and now I have a song with her on my debut album.”
That song (and ReBelle’s hot-asfire verse on it) helps make new LP “Now You See Me” a mighty first release for Simone. Just a month old, Simone’s set has already racked up hundreds of thousands of streams. It won’t be long until the singer-songwriter gets saddled with a label like “Massachusetts’ Billie Eilish” (or maybe “Massachusetts’ Lorde,” which actually isn’t that far off ). But before Simone goes global it’s worth noting how good and how grounded she is.
Crafted with help from producer the Arcitype at his Cambridge Bridge Sound and Stage Studio, “Now You See Me” displays Simone’s talent for tight melodic hooks and sharp lyrics. Echoing the ghosts of Club Passim, “Harvard Square” uses a bare folk frame to outline bland commerce crushing the square. On “Sideways,” she teams with the Arcitype’s band, STL GLD, for a forceful pop song spiked with hip-hop that rails against school shootings and climate change.
“Writing things about social issues, I put a lot of pressure on myself to properly represent the gravity of a situation and do the topics justice,” she said. “But at the same time, I also put a lot of pressure on myself not to make it cheesy or preachy. As a teenager, I feel that adults are sometimes preachy about issues and it turns you off from listening.”
Nothing on “Now You See Me” turns you off from listening. From top to bottom, it’s a strong mix of pop, rock, folk, hip-hop and indie electro music. The wild uptick in streams offers some proof of that. As does the validation from Hollywood producers.
While her music is now reaching a diverse audience across digital platforms, Simone’s first big break came when her song “Easy” featured in the finale of the Netflix series “Atypical.” In a crazy twist, Simone wrote the song about two of the show’s characters and sent it along to a producer on “Atypical” via Instagram.
“(The producer) hearted the message and said, ‘Love it,’ which was really nice to hear and I thought it would be the end of it,” Simone said. Months later, she received a message from a music licensing executive with the show. “I felt like this was the ultimate win. All the producers loved it. It fit perfectly in the scene … I was elated.”
Finished with high school, Simone decided to skip enrolling at Berklee College of Music this fall. It’s hard to know what the right career choice will be at this point, but rolling with the impressive momentum of “Now You See Me” seems like a smart move.
“I’m definitely not stopping,” she said. “I just moved to Medford from Cambridge and finished setting up the music corner of my room and was recording something yesterday.”