Brenda K. Starr’s “Tu Vida En La Mía” (SINGLE)

Steeped in patterned, colorfully-accented drums and string-driven melodies that sweep listeners off their feet just as potently as any grooves do, Brenda K. Starr’s “Tu Vida En La Mía” is an intoxicating cocktail to say the least. Powerfully mixed with a close attention to detail, and perhaps the most sonically streamlined track this songwriter has recorded in the last fifteen years of her lauded career, “Tu Vida En La Mía” is everything we love about a summer pop jam in a sprawling, six-minute powerhouse of a single. Starr’s voice leads the way through one seductively swinging verse after another, each providing us with another layer of melodically soothing instrumentation to fall in love with. Her words might be Spanish, but you don’t need to be bilingual to decipher what they mean – after all, with a vocal as warm and beautifully buoyant as hers, her harmonies tell as much a story here as any linguistics ever could. One of the star debuts of the new Eso Es Records, there isn’t a Latin pop fan alive who should avoid the new sounds Brenda K. Starr is laying down in this marvelous composition.

Of all the emerging record labels I’ve been hearing about lately, there is no debating whether or not Eso Es Records is the most buzzed – it’s not even a contest. Latin pop music has been steadily finding a new wave of fans in the last two years, and to some extent, the timing for Eso Es’ Michael DeBarge and Natalis Ruby couldn’t be better than it is this spring.

SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/album/0C1bD3LdqVcU6vfxert2uO?highlight=spotify:track:6W2myhJo6Ytkd7GmwkySyl

Between DeBarge and Ruby, artists like Starr are gaining access to a smorgasbord of contacts, Grammy-caliber talent and production credibility that you don’t get at the snap of a finger in Hollywood these days. Brenda K. Starr’s incredible presence (and performance) in “Tu Vida En La Mía” provides us with more than enough proof to support the notion that she’s got plenty of material left in the tank to share with us, and with the help of master-league professionals like those at Eso Es Records, I think she’s going to give us some of the best music of her entire career in the next few years.

Those who haven’t heard “Tu Vida En La Mía” already this spring need to make a point to do so as soon as possible. It’s inspiring droves of critics and fans to stay abreast with the latest developments from Eso Es Records in 2020, and for Brenda K. Starr herself, giving audiences yet another reason to believe in her consistent eminence as a singer, songwriter and steward of the Latin pop genre. She’s come a long way in the past few decades, and if you’d never heard her music prior to now, I don’t believe you would ever guess that she’s been hammering away at the underground mantle since the mid-80s. Starr flexes the muscle she’s made an entire career for herself with gorgeously here, and reminds all of us why she’s ruled over the Latin pop genre for as long as she has.

Nicole Killian