It sounds so fresh you could be fooled into thinking Spring just came around. Mapei’s finger-clicking positivity has come out of nowhere. She is relatively unknown, but the Rhode Island-born artist raised in Sweden follows her nordic countrymen in making pop music with a soul.
She had success in 2008 with ‘Video Vixens’, and was featured most recently on Major Lazer’s Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do, but her style has since evolved. ‘Don’t Wait’ trades slick raps for warm vocals that carry the track, but Mapei maintains the hypnotic, vocoded undertones that dominated the ‘Video Vixens’ hook. Her rap flow is not cut out completely, but contained in a bridge with a strummed guitar and reduced drum beat for company. It is a refreshingly light change to the dark atmosphere that has overtaken R&B and it will be worth seeing what she comes up with next.
7/10
Don’t Wait will be released on Downtown Records on 5th November 2013.
