Detroit area artist Lydia Lato normally creates what she calls deep, ethereal songs, but she has always wanted to “write songs that have summer themes.”
This summer is it, and “Please Me,” a fun, relaxed summertime love song, is just the ticket.
“I really love ‘Please Me.’ It’s a very fun little song, a very romantic song that anyone can vibe with,” she said.
I love the way you please me
And the way you share your feelings oh
Let’s skip the long discussion
Get right down to the healing oh
“It’s meant to be a fun romantic song for the summer, just, you know, expressing love, enjoying the summer with your loved one, your romantic partner. From the singer’s side, it’s meant to show how she really loves her partner.”
It is a poppy, funky disco track with a rap monologue and is, like a lot of the five-track EP it comes from, Summer Vibes, “experimental.”
“My other songs are more ethereal, more bass, and they’re more — how do I say — deep, but I decided to put out this EP for the summer. I have other songs that I’m releasing later this year that are not as poppish as the EP. They’re more intense, deeper. This EP was kind of experimental.”
“Please Me” opens with a lilting, chiming melody before bringing in the drums to pick up the pop beat, then swings into a rap passage she delivers at a 120-beat pulse rate:
So let me paint the scene
You brought me to my feet
I was down incomplete
You were patient and sweet
She is having fun experimenting with fun music.
Lydia, born in Nigeria, moved to Canada when she was 15, graduated with a degree in political science from the University of Waterloo, earning distinction, came to the United States, to the Detroit area, in 2019, and has been putting out music since 2021.
She lists her musical influences as Sade, Michael Jackson, Lauryn Hill, Whitney Houston, “people like that,” but she adds funk influences from Lu Kala, Doja Cat and the producer Dr. Luke.
“Oh, I love funk,” she said. “Hopefully, in the future, I can make more funky songs, funk disco. It’s just a very fun genre.”
The EP is experimental in another way, also. Normally, she said, she makes her music “from scratch.”
“I create a song from scratch, and I work with producers from scratch. But most of the songs in the EP, I used beats I bought online. I found beats I liked, and I started to create song lyrics around them, working with a songwriter.”
Her lyrics, too, she writes but she likes working with other songwriters “just to elevate my music, because two heads are better than one.”
“I start out writing the lyrics, and then I bring in a songwriter to help me finish it and take the song to where I want it to be. I might not get an angle in the songwriting process, and bringing in another writer can take the process to another level and make you really shine.”
While she has taken time out to create an EP full of summertime love songs, and she likes to showcase the positive and upbeat, she does have that more somber side. Her strong, clear voice sells both.
“Most of my songs, I like them to have kind of a hope to them, a kind of positive vibe to them, but not always, because I have some songs that are a little bit intense and not upbeat.”
Songs like “The Edge,” released in 2021, a more serious song about love that can go to one side or another, which opens to a lovely but foreboding piano beat.
She plans to release more singles this summer and fall, and they will be more like “The Edge,” she said.
But she has a message for her listeners.
“If they don’t want to get bored of the same thing day in and out, they should definitely listen to me and watch out for my next song, because I don’t create typically one kind of theme over and over again. I like to branch out, to spread my wings. So I experiment.”
Hence, for instance, different melodies, forms and mixes of the five tracks of Summer Vibes, and the rap in the easy-going pop of “Please Me.”
See what she does next. Connect to Lydia Lato on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
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