SITE TOOLS
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Kina
Kina
By Carla Robinson
Zora Neale Hurston wrote that one of her characters didn’t know she was the
world and the heavens boiled down to a little drop. Well, Kina knows. And she makes music
accordingly. She refuses to dim a single star in her universe by bowing to people’s
expectations of a Black female performer. Instead, she puts down the pop-influenced rock
that comes from her soul and, because she can, she does it with the dazzle of a diva on a
Broadway stage.
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Kina’s eponymous debut invokes rocker
chicks Tina Turner, Dion Farris and Nona Hendryx, but never the foremothers of acts like
Destiny’s Child - Brownstone. She spent two forgettable years with them in the
mid-90s, but from day one, knew there would be a parting of ways for artistic reasons.
Since then, she’s joined forces with producer London Jones, who seamlessly supports
her vision through symphonic arrangements that are as funky and eclectic as her lyrics.
The debut smash, “Girl from the Gutter,” earned her comparisons to Alanis
Morisette with its bite-me lyrics (“I hope your hell is filled with magazines/And on
every page you see a big picture of me”), but a more telling Kina can be found on
“U Don’t Know.” “U don’t know me or my situation/My heart/Or what
things I got … So, what you see ain’t so predictable/I show what I want you to
see.” To even come close to knowing her, you have to listen to every song on the
disc, an effort for which you will be handsomely rewarded. M
December 2000
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