White-girl funk is a sketchy road. Nikka Costa knows that, yet she’s not worried.
Even though her major-label debut, 2001’s “Everybody Got Their Something,” linked her to the genre the same way Teena Marie’s “Lady T” record solidified her place atop white-girl R&B in 1980, Costa insists her new CD is a rock record.
“I just wanted to make a record that was closer to my live show and the energy of the live show,” Costa said recently from the road. “And I wanted to try taking a different approach by making a bit more of a rock record and less a sample-driven record, something that was more rock and in your face – just for a change. I never want to make the same record twice.”
Costa, who opens for Lenny Kravitz on Wednesday at the Fillmore, isn’t a household name, yet she’s no stranger to performing. The daughter of arranger Don Costa and the goddaughter of Frank Sinatra, Nikka started performing at age 5. Two years later she was singing with her father’s orchestra in Milan, Italy, and opening for The Police in Chile in front of 300,000 fans.
She topped the German charts in her teens and moved to Australia a few years later, where her sassy vocals were worshipped and her brassy red locks adored. Her “Butterfly Rocket” was nominated for a best new artist award at the Australian Recording Industry Awards in 1996.
But the turn of the millennium brought Costa home. When her new single, “Like a Feather,” landed in a Tommy Hilfiger ad, Virgin Records wanted to hear more, resulting in “Everybody Got Their Something.”
“Before that record, I’d had a record deal through the biggest indie label in Australia/New Zealand,” Costa said. “I had made records way before that on various labels back in the day, and that’s how they did it for Europe. But I had never released anything before ‘Everybody Got Their Something’ in America.”
She ends the sentence abruptly. Then she’s asked the obvious question: Why hadn’t she released anything stateside until she was almost 30?
“I don’t know why, but maybe the time wasn’t right and then it was. This business is so …” Her voice trails off. So, has she ever been encouraged by a label or a manager to change her sound to a more pop-friendly format? She laughs.
“Almost everybody has told me that, to go poppy,” Costa said with a flicker of resentment. “The fans that are really hard-core and loved ‘Everybody Got Their Something’ appreciate that I stick to my guns. But the record company wants to make money, and my style isn’t easy for them to sell because it doesn’t sound like everything else. They have to think out of the box, and it makes it harder for them, and they don’t enjoy that. But for me … I don’t want to sound like everybody else.”
“Everybody Got Their Something” left people scratching their heads trying to describe the album. Critics and fans alike find themselves comparing artists – from Boomkat to Lenny Kravitz’s more experimental work – to Nikka, using her as the comparison. Her future-funk boasts samples and angry brass sections and sassed-out guitars and, naturally, Nikka’s otherworldly voice.
While her new record, “Can’tneverdidnothin’,” is more about rock ‘n’ roll, it remains the obvious extension of her work on “Everybody Got Their Something.” “Can’t Never Did Enough” is a rager where spurts of back-up harmonies own the driving bass; “Fooled Ya” is a ballad that opens the door to the full-bodied beauty of her unique vocals.
But it took Costa a while to find her new record’s voice.
“At the last minute, I pulled the first version and re-recorded it,” she said. “I didn’t feel like the record exemplified exactly what I wanted to have out there. I got a little bit too many opinions, and I started to lose my focus and made a record that I thought was good. But in retrospect, I’m glad I made the decision to change it and make it more rock, because it was a bit more poppy.”
Pop music critic Ricardo Baca can be reached at 303-820-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com.
Nikka Costa
WHITE-GIRL FUNK|Fillmore Auditorium, 1510 Clarkson St.; 8 p.m. Wednesday, opening for Lenny Kravitz|sold out|any ticket releases will be available via Ticketmaster, 303-830-8497 or www.ticketmaster.com.
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RADIO 4 Breaking from their opening slot on the Gang of Four U.S. tour (which is skipping Denver) and fresh from an explosive performance at this year’s Coachella festival, Radio 4 is poised, alongside acts such as Bloc Party, to bring its ’00s-slanted post-punk to the masses. The band plays Sunday at the Larimer Lounge.
THE WEDDING PRESENT They’ve come a long way since the mid-’80s, when they took over the reins (or what was left of them) from The Smiths in
England’s indie-pop scene. The band struts the old and new on Tuesday at the Bluebird.
THE SHINS It’s not quite Natalie Portman giving you her headphones and telling you, “This will change you life.” (As she did in the film “Garden State,” which introduced The Shins to the mainstream.) But seeing the band live is still a killer time. It plays Tuesday at the Fillmore.
– Ricardo Baca
