WizKid also hops on one of the songs.
Normani recently caught up with Billboard on the American Music Awards red carpet, and she told our correspondent that the music she was about to release was the truest to her style. We get our first taste of that drip with a two-song EP produced by Calvin Harris today (Oct. 22), and all we can say is, this queen is bad to the bone.
It begins with Caribbean-tinged R&B-dance heater “Checklist,” featuring verses from Nigeria’s WizKid. Normani drops a bossy, rhythmic vocal that’s husky and hypnotic. Harris hits the beat heavy and adorns it with some light strings, then drops the mood into a pop ballad with “Slow Down” that hits somewhere between his last album Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 1 and the classic house grooves of his more recent collaborations. Normani, meanwhile, meets the mood perfectly, switching between bounce and soul with ease.
If this is the new Normani, we don’t ever want to go back. Harris definitely helped bring the heat, but this talent is all hers.
Listen to both “Checklist” and “Slow Down” from the Normani x Calvin Harris EP below.
