“A Rendezvous with Christina Sofina Might Be the Game Changer R&B Needs”
— By James Onwuachi. June 26, 2021
The dating game is more confusing than ever.
Since 2010, male music artists such as Drake, The Weekend, J-Cole and even the amblyopic Fetty Wap have seemingly had us men “in our feelings”. All that time with exasperating sighs, we’ve collectively reclined on our metaphorical Freudian psychoanalytical couches with earbuds in and the anxiety-ridden world tuned out.
In that same decade, schools across the nation adopted more gender-inclusive pedagogical concepts that emphasized collaborative learning in classrooms, and dumped the dull and aged patriarchal instructional approach of the Baby Boomer Generation. For women, the 2010-2020 decade brought changes that empowered women and encouraged the amplification of their voices on dating and sex. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in December 2019 that the majority of jobs in America were held down by women; not men. The proverbial soundtrack to all that change was led by the likes of female R&B/pop stars such as Ariana Grande, FKA Twigs, Nicki Minaj, and more recently, the kaleidoscopic sounding Doja Cat. James Brown sang “This is a Man’s World”, but even The Godfather of Soul would concede that things have changed, especially in the R&B and pop genres where women are setting coquettishly explicit sex instructions to head nod-worthy beats and sharing hyper-climactic stories about their WAP.
However, singer, songwriter, dancer and model Christina Sofina is a woman willing to meet men in the middle of all this change in the dating game with her latest record “Rendezvous”. The LA-based musical polymath and closet-intellectual Sofina has put in as much time and effort in her music career as other successful R&B songbirds.
The LA-based musical polymath and closet-intellectual Sofina has put in as much time and effort in her music career as other successful R&B songbirds. Sofina fashioned her singing voice as a child in Russia after her family hastily left their native country of Kazakhstan to escape the influence of local mafia. The family started over in Russia with Sofina finding emotional sanctuary in music. In Outliers spirit, Sofina put in her 10,000 hours of genius practice quickly developing into a prodigious lyric-soprano singer, attracting the attention of two American musicians from Boston. Their triangular partnership would serve as an internship of sorts for Sofina in which she learned everything from the business of starting a record label to music production. Sofina would later appear on the Yes!No!Maybe! music project for MTV Russia in 2010 and perform for industry entities in music and fashion including Glamour. The cumulative impact of those experiences encouraged Christina to spread her wings and move thousands of miles across the Pacific to the sandy shores of California in 2013. Since then, Christina has built up her brand as a multi-talented singer and model. In many ways, Sofina represents today’s empowered woman. Blessed with irrepressible beauty and a mythically seductive countenance, the blonde-haired Rapunzel charmer has appeared in ads for Adidas among other top fashion brands. She also added the title of entrepreneur employing herself as a choreographer and jazz singer around clubs in LA. In 2015, she signed with Pacific Records and released the EP Eternal Summer, and that opened significant doors for collaborations with West Coast rappers and R&B musicians.
Of course, Sofina is quite familiar with the obsessive networking scene in LA with its celebrity-studded and white-boy wasted parties in The Hills and ghetto fabulous galas from Inglewood to Beverly Hills. And there’s no question that the sophisticated and self-assured Sofina has a long line of suitors and has heard her fair share of pickup lines, having attended many of those neon-lit events herself. However, with her single “Rendezvous”,Christina shows us that she is not jaded about dating. That’s good medicine for pop music that needs a feel-good shot in the arm.
“Rendezvous”does what so many R&B singers are not so ready to do with their lyrics: sound approachable. The song starts with a deep grooving walking bassline as if every single guy on Rodeo Drive in LA is channeling John Travolta’s Tony Manero from “Saturday Night Fever.”The 4/4 beat joins the bass play like a tap on the shoulder right before you turn around. And that’s when Christina Sofina make the introductions with “Hi. How you doing?” It’s a fluttering butterfly-like hello that gently lands softly in your conscience as she follows up with “Oh, I see you wanna rock with me.” It’s a tongue-in-check observation that we’ve been caught staring at her from afar all night at the club, but there is no need to be embarrassed. It happens to the best of us. Though, there is time for pleasantries. After a sexy monologue, “Rendezvous” steps up the still-aired sensual tension with Sofina, passionately poised like a sultry Joan of Arc, calling out a lovestruck legion of fanboys: “Boy, you know what I’m here for / I wanna make you feel real love.” The opening rubs elbows with classic mid 1980’s R&B, and pays nice homage. It’s clear that producers Tyler J. Humphrey and Daniel R. Ulibarri, both collaborators with Iconica Recording Group on this track, aren’t just sound architects, but scholars of R&B history.
Like most female R&B singers today, Sofina was influenced in varied measure by the vocal styles of the iconic R&B vocalist Aaliyah who tragically lost her life in a 2001 plane crash in the Bahamas. Aaliyah’s indelible voice traveled from the low to high vocal ranges living mostly in middle register with periodic dips down low for breathy singing rap verses. Aaliyah was the exemplar at holding a full-sounding tone in low range, and Sofina is notably just as brilliant. In fact, Christina displays precision timing in the pocket of the bassline like the jazz and bossa nova singer she inhabits from time to time on club stages. Christina makes the complex vocal runs effortlessly, but unlike her contemporaries, there isn’t much of a brash timbre in her vocals on “Rendezvous.” Instead, Sofina is smooth and colorful as she levels with guys in earshot that she’s genuinely here to see where things may possibly go as the night progresses. The chorus jumps the track into slight hyperdrive with an up-tempo beat pushed further by rhythmic guitar riffs and light synth touches - a studio wink to the late Rod Temperton (Michael Jackson’s “Baby Be Mine”). It’s one of the more refreshing elements in the production of “Rendezvous.” The guitar riffs in particular capture a bit of the back-and-forth influence in the long-standing relationship between R&B in the United States and British Soul, surfacing in the Alt-R&B music more recently.
Another gem in “Rendezvous” is the cheekily playful songwriting that makesroom for Sofina to brandish her cool steelo persona without sacrificing her soft come-hither impressions. Now, Sofina is direct in the bridge uttering in a seductive falsetto: “But when we’re in private / I want you to touch me / You’re not gonna fight it.” The lyrics don’t get much more decadent, and it suits the role Sofina plays on the record well. Sofina has a secret. Sofina knows she’ll be hard to deny in the verse after the bridge. It is easily the most fancifully effervescent musical stanza in R&B this year: “Mask on, like Moulin Rouge / Encore, we go round two / We on this rendezvous / Bonjour, merci beaucoup / This love, make me a fool/ Un deux trois.” It should be noted that Sofina is a comparable academic in her own right as a college graduate.She speaks Russian and Portuguese in addition to English, so it’s not surprising that she would weave French in her songwriting, another language Sofina is likely studying at her leisure. There are plenty of singers that have made token use of foreign words in lyrics, but Sofina’s use of French here feels comfortable as opposed to ubiquitous interjections of papi in R&B today.
And as “Rendezvous” hits the break near the end, the music shifts from hot-girl summer harmonies to ambient slo-motion in the outro. It’s chopped and screwed territory.
Listen to “Rendezvous” here.
Sofina’s voice is slowed as her soulful vocal echoes of ecstasy infer that she has found love. Sofina walks us through the final paces of the record ending our three-minute “Rendezvous” to one closing beat with no after-party coda. But it’s a song ready for radio, too. There is a randy amount of vanity in the lyrics of R&B/pop artists right now that suggests maybe they’re trying to compete with the wanton wordsmithing in Hip-Hop music. These days in the backrooms of studios, there’s an argument to be made that more rappers are trying their hand at singing more often to keep pace with their R&B counterparts on TikTok hits, another revenue stream for artists. No need to worry for now. The line between rapping and singing has yet to blur.
Of course, while raunchy lyrics are relevant in pop culture and remain the legitimate prerogative of the artist, it’s a compliment to the artist and the listener when R&B/pop singers don’t default to crudeness in order to disguise their lack of artistry.
On “Rendezvous”, Christina Sofina demonstrates that she has creativity and artistry in abundance. Sofina will be on more billboards in LA, and in your neighborhood. Bet on that. We can also look forward to hearing more from this gifted singer.
Article by James Onwuachi, a writer and pop culture philosopher. James is also an OpEd contributor for Newsweek, and has appeared on “FOX and Friends” on FOX News.
He loves sci-fi movies.
Links:
Newsweek OpEd on The Real Source of Cancel Culture:
Newsweek OpEd on Black Men as the Rorschach Test America Fails
Newsweek OpEd on Thomas Jefferson as My Dr. Suess for Children’s Literature