Solange Is the Knowles of the Week

Yesterday, Solange Knowles (the singer in the family who isn’t Beyoncé) released her excellent EP, True. Coming in at under 30 minutes and sporting just seven songs, it is as restrained as its star’s vocals, which are crisp and limber but generally free of melisma. Solange will never not be compared to her sister first of all because duh, and secondly because her tone often sounds like a higher, airier version of Bey’s. At this point, though, Solange is yin to Beyoncé’s yang. While Beyoncé is so mainstream that her surface perfection will never crack, Solange is the hard-flopping, “fuck”-saying, Dirty Projectors-covering former teen mom who’ll steal a coat after modeling it on a runway and then tell a magazine about it. More »