Brick & Lace
- Shaleia Reid

The new sister singing duo Brick & Lace are sure to make waves in the sea of R&B artists out. Not only is their name unique but so is their music. Raised in Jamaica with roots stretching all the way from Harlem, New York  Nyanda and Nailah define their sound as a mixture of R&B and Reggae.  They are edgy, innovative and determined, with that combination there is no stopping them.

S.R: What does the word Empress mean to you?

B&L: Empress is like Queen it is like royalty. Its all about like a goddess, all women are and we should consider ourselves that way and men should treat us accordingly.  That is what “Never, Never” is about really like saying if you treat me like a lady than I might think about considering you. Sometimes guys come up to you and are like ‘look at this, I got this money and I drive this car’, so what. To me that doesn’t make you who you are.

S.R: How old are you and was singing always something you wanted to pursue?

B&L: This is most definitely something we always wanted to do. Even at an early age coming up, you know… we were singing at church. We sang background for Beres Hammond and Diana King that is where we got most of our experience on stage. We kept pursuing it

We went to University in Miami for like two years and we felt like zombies (laugh). It was like this is not where we want to be, we want to do music full time, you know.  We always dibble and dabbled with it but it was really becoming a real pressing issue. When we were in University we needed to buckle down and get serious, do we want to do it or not. So we made a decision. Actually opportunities came up to write with Dallas Austin and that had also caused us to leave school.

S.R.: With so many female R&B acts out now, what will make you stand out amongst them?

B&L: Well we are the only sister duo out there now. We are mixing dance hall with R & b and that really hasn’t been done before, fusing the two genres. But that is what we love and that is what we loved growing up. We were heavily influenced by SWV, En Vogue and TLC. At the same time being in Jamaica and being around dance hall and reggae it is was a natural thing for us and that is the vibe in our music. You kind of hear a reggae and R& B flavor, which is new and exciting.

S.R: Can you be compared to Rihanna or do you think your sound is totally different?

B&L: People naturally want to compare us to Rihanna because people love to compare. She is from Barbados she is an island girl so we are definitely happy for her. We are looking for the island girls on the scene. Uhm, we’ve been compared to Nina Sky, they are two sisters and two Spanish girls. But yeah, when people get to know Brick & Lace they will definitely understand we are different, we stand apart and have our own name.

S.R: How is it being sisters and being in a group together? Do the two ever conflict? Do you know how to divide the two when you have personal issues with each other than having to go into the studio to sing?

B&L: Oh we do (laugh). We are two strong minds me and Nailah I think it keeps us on our toes creatively. So we do bump heads sometimes like all siblings do. At the end of the day the sister bond is strong, we grew up very close. It was four girls, four of us growing up and we are all really tight.

S.R: Do your other sisters sing also?

B&L: Yes they do, our younger sister is working on her solo project and our older sister, she sings, helps us with our arranging and writing, stuff like that.

S.R: When is your album coming out?

B&L: I would think around summertime.

S.R: What artists are making guest appearances on your album and why did you chose them?

B&L: Well right now we have a dance hall remix to “Never, Never”, produced by Akon and on the dance hall remix we have Baby Cham. We don’t have a lot of features on our album. Just because we didn’t think it was necessary. We achieve what we set out to achieve musically and we didn’t want to throw a bunch of rappers or artists just because if we put his name on it we will sell more records, you know what I mean. We kept the music’s integrity. In the future if we feel like collaborating we will definitely do that.

S.R: How did you hook up with Akon?

B&L: Through our A&R and Jimmy Iovine they just thought he would mesh with us creatively. With his background you know, being so diverse with the African mix, R&B and Hip Hop and us coming from Jamaica I guess they felt like he would understand us musically and he did. Working with him was easy, it was instant chemistry. The record came out really good.

S.R: You two write your own songs, do you also produce?

B&L: Not yet, we do write our own material writing has always been importance us. Like I said we had worked with Dallas Austin that is where a lot of our writing training came from. We got to write for TLC they demoed our record. So writing has always been important to us. But as far as producing not yet. That is something definitely in the future.

S.R: Are you in relationships, if so is it hard balancing your personal life and while pursuing your careers?

B&L: It has been challenging especially when things get hectic.  So we are in the process of killing ourselves because it has been so difficult (laugh). But of course one day we want to settle down, get married and have a family and have stuff like that.

S.R: Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

B&L: We want to have definitely made a mark in the music industry and music world. We want people from all over to have heard our records., Hopefully we will have our own company and be working and writing with new artists, bringing them up under our wing like people have with us.

S.R: Will there be a video for “Never, Never”?

B&L: Yes we are, we did the video with Benny Boom he directed it. We are so excited about that video coming out. It should be out soon.

Check out their single "Never, Never".

Windows Media: Listen here

Real Audio: Listen here

To find out more about Brick & Lace, CLICK HERE

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