"Give Me Space" by RSB & Shanade
Review
I do try hard to get as much information about the new releases I review in the magazine as possible: after all the purpose is to recommend something to you which you might enjoy & then you need to track it down to listen to it yourself.
This review however concerns a track which even after a couple of weeks sleuthing remains something of an enigma, and that includes my having a chat with its writer & vocalist
.I first heard "Give Me Space" on BBC Introducing from Coventry & Warwickshire when it was billed as "Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra featuring Shanade". However if you look on the various social media & streaming platforms, you'll also find it attributed to variations including "RSB and Shanade" etc
I'm also pretty sure from my investigations that no actual symphony orchestra was involved (you certainly can't hear one) so let's make the reasonable assumption that that part is a stage name.
"Shanade" is of course well know local writer, performer & teacher Shanade Morrow and I owe what little I know about the song to her. Thank you. The song was in fact commissioned from her by a student at Myton School, and a world where school students are confident & experienced enough to commission material from artists as experienced & renowned as Shanade is a very encouraging one.
This teenage producer ("RSB") clearly has a most interesting vision as well as confidence & talent: the song Shanade wrote for him is not only the sort of thing that only someone of her skills could create but reflects the experience & insights of someone of her age rather than their mid teens. And that's another reason to respect RSB: if you want to release something more profound & nuanced than the regrettably if understandably callow life stories of the adolescent can yet generate: don't try and fake it but go to someone who can do it really well.
Which is what Shanade has done here: that's why I particularly wanted to share it with you. We've not heard much from her recently, but here she is back on top form & you ought to listen to "Give Me Space": it deserves both a wide audience and success. In fact she seems quietly confident that it could do well.
A classic "big" pop sound (which is presumably where RSB comes in and with so much interesting instrumentation that you can see where the "orchestra" epithet might come from) with an intriguing R&B/Latin fusion, it sounds great & has plenty of commercial potential as Shanade predicts.
The glory though is the words: Shanade at her finest. Dealing as often is the case with her, with the less appealing aspects of relationships, the ones you inevitably find yourself in once the heady sheen of first love has evaporated, she doesn't dodge the issues but confronts them & articulates them so originally that she evades any danger of clichés.
But that's only half the story: Shanade being Shanade, however concerned she is about the situation she's writing about, she hasn't lost her compassion nor sense of humanity and as again one often finds in Shanade's best work, there seems to be a sense of optimism.
And all this delivered in one of the finest emotive voices you can imagine. That's what drew me first to her talent (and I suspect a lot of you as well): there never has been any fakery nor showboating in her delivery: it reeks with honesty. But if you've ever been to her shows or had the pleasure of meeting her, then you'll know that the performer derives from the person.
So there you have it: a new Shanade single, one of her very best & in collaboration with an exciting & mature up & coming talent. How great is that?
I've told you pretty much all I can, so I suggest that you go out & have a listen yourselves: one starting point might be via this link:
