Thursday, November 5, 2020

Sibling duo Charlie Belle, at just 22 and 20-years-old, has been a band for more than 12 years; Two new perfect pop singles out now.

Jendayi and Gyasi continue to defy preconceptions, telling a musical story as Black artists who don’t make music that society expects.
 
+++


Charlie Belle (L-R): Gyasi Bonds, Jendayi Bonds. Photo by Kees2Life.
 
+++
 

“Makes melodic indie-pop feel like a viable option for the first time in eons.” — The Guardian (UK)
 
“Now more than ever there’s a spotlight on Black artists, and what Black artists have to bring to the table in all genres of music,” Jendayi says. “We’ve been a band for 12 years and Black our whole lives. There’s a sort of reckoning right now for what Black artists can bring to the table.”
 
Gyasi is blunt: “People always assume I’m a rapper, I tell them I make music or that I’m an artist and the first question I receive is, ‘Are you a rapper?’ We are put in a box by our skin that people have deemed ‘Black music,’ but all music is Black music.”
 
+++
 
PLAY, POST & SHARE
 

 

[STREAM]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/CharlieBelle-WhatAboutMe
 
“I wrote the entire song around my love for the E major chord the song starts off with and always returns to,” Jendayi Bonds tells American Songwriter about writing the latest Charlie Belle single, “What About Me?” She continues, “But if I’m being honest, I was taught music by ear and that’s how I write my music: sound first. So it’s a chord that I experimented with because I’ve been playing guitar for so long, but I don’t know its technical name. Honestly, if anyone wants to tell me what it is, that would help our band practices out I’m sure!” Listen to “What About Me” by Charlie Belle at American Songwriter or at the link above!
 
Jendayi and Gyasi Bonds of Charlie Belle are available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
 
+++
 
Charlie Belle | In The Press

  
 
“Easygoing yet innovative vibes.” — NYLON

“Definitely a band you want to know.” — AfroPunk
 
“Wanna feel good? Press play.” — Vice
 
“The most infectious kind of power-pop.” — Wired
 
“Outstanding... Brit-flavored indie-pop confection.” — NPR
 
“Everybody is getting to know Charlie Belle.” — MTV
 
+++
 
PLAY, POST & SHARE
 
Charlie Belle | “Looking For Magic”


Check out “Looking For Magic,” the new video from Charlie Belle over at Glide Magazine, which says it “captures the close chemistry between brother and sister, and the fun that they can have together making music. There is a smoothness... that is conveyed both in the laid back groove and in Jendayi’s effortlessly cool vocals that linger in your mind long after listening.”
 
[VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEWV8zccZMM
 
[STREAM]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/CharlieBelle-LookingForMagic
 
+++
 
Charlie Belle | About
 
When national attention came to the sibling duo Charlie Belle in 2014, Jendayi and Gyasi Bonds were literally just kids.
 
Sixteen and fourteen-years-old at the time, they were both already veterans of the Austin music scene when their debut EP “Get To Know” blew up. Press came from NPR, Nylon, MTV, Vice, Wired and others, and Jendayi and Gyasi appeared together on the cover of their local paper, the Austin Chronicle.
 
“It was weird and exciting and interesting and fun and flattering to say the least, that randomly by chance, our debut EP really hit it out of the park, right?,” Jendayi says of that crazy time. “Man was it cool!”
 
She continues, “Nothing in my life until that moment showed me that perhaps I could truly pursue this. Maybe I had a perspective that other people might want to hear. Maybe I could make an impact on people with my music in the same way that bands like Arctic Monkeys, The Strokes, and Local Natives made an impact on me.”
 
“I’ve been the drummer in Charlie Belle for 12 years,” Gyasi says, now a 20-year-old college student.
 
Jendayi has graduated college, she’s 22 now, and while the pair took time away from schooling us with pop tunes too damn accomplished for teenagers, it was the right thing to do. They were always plotting a return, and now they are educated, wiser, and ready to present new music to a world that is much different from the one they played for just six years ago. The new tunes are clearly by two independent, self-actualized artists, who know exactly what they’re doing.
 
“He went off and became his own human,” Jendayi says of her brother, “I went off and did that too, and I jumped into my songwriting. We were supposed to move and grow like this, so we could tell our story with intention.”
 
Part of that story is of being Black artists who don’t necessarily make the kind of music that society thinks they would be, or should be, making.
 
Look, Jendayi and Gyasi just want people to know that they are creative, multifaceted artists, who happen to be a brother and sister who grew up gigging around town in Austin. But they also want people to know that as Black artists, their lives and experiences are just as rich and nuanced as everyone else’s.
 
“I want more of our stories to be told,” Jendayi says.
 
It’s important to the band that their sociopolitical stance and their personal cultural awareness co-exist in harmony alongside their pop sensibilities. Those blown away by the catchiness and thoughtfulness of Charlie Belle’s debut can look forward to new songs by young adults who have now been doing this for half their lives.
 
What was already great is even better: Fun, upbeat, buoyant, while also keenly aware of the moment in a way that only Jendayi and Gyasi can speak to.
 
Two new singles, “Looking For Magic” and “What About Me?,” by sister-brother duo, Charlie Belle, are out now.
 
+++
 
Charlie Belle | Links
 
ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : YOUTUBE : INSTAGRAM : BANDCAMP
 
+++
 
Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact
 
WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL




No comments: