Via Rosa • "Beautiful Stranger"
Via Rosa remains one of the more prolific artists in Chicago. You can find covers, remixes, features, demos, side projects, instrumentals, and so many more on any given day from the south side talent. With all of these creative directions taking form (including her duo DRAMA with Na'el Shehade), she tends to shine the best when working with collective THEMpeople, a formula that worked so well on the album DeathViaLove, and a formula that hasn't been heard in four months. That all changed at midnight when Via released “Beautiful Stranger”, an almost six minute song that acts as two pieces of a soulful and smooth puzzle. The first half remains produced by THEMpeople while the second haf is “a loop from '3hrs and 59minutes' by Jennah Bell.” The result is fantastic, something to play with some candles and some rainfall, something to hold you over until Via releases the anticipatory Metempsychosis later this year.
“One day I looped one of my favorite songs by Jennah Bell called ‘3hrs and 59minutes’. I walked around my house a few times and ended writing a song about a man I saw. Later that day I met up with Boog at the studio to mix Metempsychosis. He had this beat he had made and wanted me to hear sooooooo that happened and the minute I heard it I started singing the lyrics to the song I had wrote that morning. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put it on the tape and after months of contemplation I decided to mash the two versions together and just share both of them.””
