Tamara Jenna, Birmingham based alternative r&b artist’s latest track ‘Esmeralda’ is a sprawling, often disorienting, but altogether wildly immersive soundscape that’s able to elicit so much out of its listeners. Jenna’s flow and delivery are a definitive highlight, purposeful, slick, and delectably smooth when she needs to be. But it’s in the rather offbeat, slightly experimental production elements that she’s able to carve out something unique to herself. The track itself has a poignant origin, drawing from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Tamara Jenna uses the lyrics to narrate how Esmeralda makes the narrator, in this case Quasimodo, feels.
It’s got that right balance between a light and sultry feeling while still retaining a darkness and tragedy that’s intrinsic to the source material. A markedly unique UK hip-hop piece.