He hasn’t merely broken into the Top 200 Airplay chart on Digital Radio Tracker; he’s cut into its upper tier. That’s on top of owning the NACC Hip-Hop adds, the #2 slot on NumberOneMusic’s Seattle chart and #48 on Record World Magazine, just to name some of the January highlights. 130 radio stations added his hit song “Be Your Freak,” now available in four different mixes, to their playlists. I’m talking about urban pop singer/songwriter Ronnue of course, whose breakout figures on the indie spectrum in 2019 and just recently in 2020 have been getting the northwest underground very excited lately to say the least.
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/ronnue/?hl=en
Electronically-synthesized with more glam than a vintage David Bowie tune, “The Retro-House Mix” of “Be Your Freak” is probably my favorite version of the song, but it’s easy to see why this track has been just as popular with fans as the other remixes – “The Bounce Mix” and “The Retro-Funk Mix” – have been. A diversified palate is an important attribute for any singer to have, but Ronnue doesn’t just have a uniquely versatile way of crooning in his music; he takes on every mix he produces with a one of a kind stylishness that is used for a specific creative purpose exclusively and thus never recycled again.
“Sex Shooter,” a Prince-composed song by Apollonia 6 from the film Purple Rain, is slated to be Ronnue’s next major release, and the early cut of the song that I just listened to might be even more sonically stimulating than the original is. With his version of the song, Ronnue pushes the muscularity of the melodies to the very brink of R&B recognition, allowing for maximum depth in his grooves without any excesses handed over from the bassline. His voice is in the eye of the storm, commanding our attention forward, but the instrumentation is pulling back on us, as if to contain as much emotion as the lyrics do.
REVERBNATION: https://www.reverbnation.com/ronnue
Tonality has been an important ingredient in this artist’s recipe for success since the beginning (just listen to his album Introduction 2 Retro-Funk to hear exactly what I’m talking about), and personally I would love to hear him experiment with acoustic material in his next endeavor. One thing Ronnue does perfectly with “Sex Shooter” is adjusting the feminine drive of the harmony to meet his needs as a masculine, red-blooded vocalist with a range as tuneful as it is commanding, and with more aesthetically stripped-down content, I think we could appreciate his defined skillset in this respect all the more.
There’s no other way to put it – Ronnue is taking over the world one listener at a time in 2020, and it’s difficult for me to see his trajectory as a professional recording artist shifting from this present one anytime soon. A chart-topping indie success who has his eyes set on a much loftier prize than simply winning the hearts of the underground media, this Seattle-based musician is going places in a hurry, but in his latest work, he’s showing us that he has what it takes to get there – and stay there – for the long-term.
CD BABY: https://store.cdbaby.com/Artist/Ronnue
Jodi Marxbury