Nikki & Rich talk about their special connection to the gay community
Soul-pop duo Nikki & Rich are getting ready to release their eclectic, genre-defying debut, Everything, an album that truly lives up to its title by taking inspiration from pop, soul, hip-hop, R&B, and classic ’60s girl groups and blending it all together to create a truly unique sound. Nikki Leonti’s sassy, high-stepping vocals are bolstered throughout by Rich Velonskis’ combination of hard-hitting, radio-ready beats, programmed keyboard flourishes, and live instrumentation.
The first single is the swaggering “Next Best Thing,” which the duo performed recently on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. The duo is set to perform on the main stage at San Francisco Gay Pride on June 27. Everything is due to be released later this summer.
Other highlights include the soulful “Same Kind of Man,” the doo-wop inspired “Cat & Mouse” (which was heard in the season premiere of the CW network’s 90210), and the playful “Dreaming” (which was used in the opening title credits of Fox Searchlight’s summer film Just Wright). Digital bonus track “Money Chaser” was featured on the July season premiere of HBO’s Entourage).
Leonti is a Corona, CA-born pastor’s daughter and former Christian music artist who grew up singing in church, while Velonskis is a Queens, NY-born former DJ and established hip-hop/R&B producer who got his start spinning in New York City clubs as a teenager. These two seemingly opposite characters first met in 2007 while Leonti was based in Nashville working as a background singer for Carrie Underwood. Velonskis was in Los Angeles producing tracks for Eve, Robin Thicke, Mario, and Ludacris, under his moniker Rich Skillz. (A track he produced on Ludacris’ No. 1 album Release Therapy earned Velonskis a “Best Rap Album” Grammy.) Velonskis was looking for a strong vocalist and lyricist to collaborate with and take his tracks to the next level, and he found her in Leonti. The two began working together in December 2008, writing and recording Everything up in Velonskis’ Hollywood Hills home studio.
Here, the duo talk about their unique sound, their hip fashion aesthetic, and their very personal connection to the gay community.
Q: I heard your music described as “doo-wop soul.” Sounds like you’re created a whole new genre.
Nikki Leonti: I wouldn’t call it doo-wop soul. We have elements of doo-wop in our songs, but there are other sounds and vibes as well—R&B, soul, hip hop. It’s an eclectic mix, but it all has a common thread.
Q: The doo-wop influence is very strong in a couple of songs, particularly the single “Next Best Thing.” What is it about that sound that inspired you?
Rich Velonskis: We’re big fans of that era. We love the innocence and exuberance that you hear in the music from that time. A couple of songs lent themselves to that kind of sound, but from there, we went to other places—there’s a hip hop vibe, and there are also a couple of Lauryn Hill-type grooves. Ultimately, we incorporate the newness of some of the drum and synth sounds so that our sound remains contemporary and current.
NL: Music wasn’t such a science project back then like it is today. People were just feeling it. I think that all music contains something that came before it. Everything comes from something else. As artists, we’ve gone back to the things that have inspired us, and these are inspirations that make you feel good, that uplift you, and that are relatable to most everyone. Our songs are also good to bop around to. Wait, did I just say “bop around”? [laughs]
Q: How did the two of you end up working together?
RV: Nikki and I hooked up because I was looking for a songwriter, and Nikki was recommended to me. So we started working as a writing team, working on songs for other people. Obviously, the first second I heard her voice, I was like, “Wow, this girl’s got a huge voice!” We were working on these tracks for other people, and there were some songs that really didn’t fit anyone else. We were like, “We’re on to something. It’s really cool. Let’s just keep them for ourselves.”
Q: So, when you first met, you didn’t intend to become “Nikki & Rich”?
N: No, it just happened. I got to the point where I was loving the stuff we were doing, and I couldn’t give the songs away. I was like, “I’m keeping these. They’re mine now.” I got emotional about it.
Q: Now, Nikki, you had already put out a couple of albums before meeting Rich, right?
NL: Yes. I put out a couple of albums in the Christian Gospel Community.
Q: Tell me more about that.
NL: I grew up in the church, in a very religious family. So, I had no choice but to do Christian music. I wasn’t allowed to listen to anything but Christian music. I couldn’t listen to the radio. I could only listen to what my parents allowed. And I was home schooled, so everything in my life was pretty much managed and controlled. I didn’t hear pop music until late in my teens. I left home right around my 18th birthday.
Q: You busted out?
NL: Yeah, I busted out. The week before my 18the birthday, I had already packed all my things. I left to go on a trip to sing, and on August 20, my 18th birthday, I called and said, “You know those boxes in my room? Can you ship them to me?” I was in Nashville at the time. And I never went back.
Q: Wow, that took a lot of guts. Do you feel like you took anything with you from your experience singing Christian music? Your song “Yellow Brick” has a gospel feel.
NL: If I took anything with me, it was that feeling of soulfulness that gospel music breeds. And the bigness of the vocals—I definitely took that with me as well.
Q: Rich, tell me a little bit about your musical journey.
RV: I was mostly producing hip hop and R&B for artists like Ludacris, Mario, and Robin Thicke. I began as a DJ in New York, which is how I developed my ear. I started to make my own tracks, and I passed a demo along to an agent. He got the CD to the manager of Eve, and he called me the next day and said, “You gotta get out to LA. We gotta get you into the studio.” The next day, I was in the studio with this huge engineering board. I didn’t even know what all the buttons did. An engineer helped me learn things, and then it all happened from there.
Q: Nikki, I know you write the lyrics to the songs. Are the stories made up or true?
NL: If a song is about a difficult love story, then it’s something from my own life. If it’s all about having fun and being crazy, it’s completely made up [laughs].
Q: You guys have a definitive sense of style. What inspires you, style-wise? Are you really conscious of trying to portray a certain image?
RV: Everything is conscious, especially with fashion. You have to be conscious about how you look. That enables you to feel confident. We’re fans of a certain Hollywood flavor, people like Audrey Hepburn and Steve McQueen. Nikki’s also got an old school Jackie O thing going on. It’s just classy cool—not costume-y or too over the top.
Q: Nikki, I imagine your religious upbringing didn’t allow you to experiment with fashion.
NL: True. Rich taught me more about fashion than I ever knew before we met. I didn’t know brands or designers or anything.
RL: My mom is a fashion nut, so I’d always read those huge Vogue magazines. I was always intrigued by fashion.
NL: His mom sent me like 30 vintage dresses, some of them still with the tags on them, all of them in perfect condition. It was like Christmas.
RV: Yeah, she sent Christian Dion, Yves Saint Laurent, all from the 60s and 70s. And they fit Nikki perfectly.
Q: Well, I think gay fans are really going to like your vibe, both musically and style-wise. Are you conscious of having gay fans yet?
RV: We hope we have a ton of gay fans! It’s funny because I went to the Abbey in L.A. one night, and there was this amazing amount of energy, people dancing and having fun and not caring who was walking in the door. That’s the kind of energy we’d like to have at our shows. It was very different from some of these clubs where people are too much in their box, where they don’t think it’s cool to dance or to get too crazy.
Q: No, the gays love to get crazy.
RV: And we love that. There’s a freedom there. You don’t get a sense of restraint.
NL: You know, I get a lot of letters from people in the gay community. Some of them were in the church before, and they knew of me when I was a Christian artist. I know a lot of gay people who have dealt with feeling repressed from being in the church, as I was. I know what it feels like to go through the process of trying to become who you are, while also dealing with the religious guilt that you feel from moving on. When you’re raised in an environment where your view is very small and restrained, being free to open up and have your own thoughts and opinions is an amazing feeling. I know that many gay people can relate to that.
MySpace: nikkiandrich