Last year Chloe x Halle released Sugar Symphony, their first EP on Beyoncé’s Parkland label. It’s part of a reported six album, $1 million deal.
Those terms have proved to be quite controversial among fans and YouTube commenters. Some call it a lucky break that 99% of YouTubers can only dream of, while others call it modern day slavery. $500,000 apiece for six albums does seem awfully low, although if those albums are 6-track EPs like this one, they might come pretty quick.
Here’s why Chloe + Halle are more interesting than thousands of other singing YouTubers. A few years back, when they were 13 and 16, they posted this cover of Beyoncé’s ‘Pretty Hurts.’ And it caught the attention of Queen Bey herself.
Chloe, the older sister in Chloe x Halle (on the left here), has the “better” voice in a traditional R&B sense. She’s the little Beyoncé, after all.
But Halle’s voice has a lot of character, and a jazzy element that I actually prefer. She also seems to be the guitar player of the duo.
This week is dedicated to the inspiring tale of Chloe x Halle, a singing sister duo from Atlanta. They’ve been posting YouTube videos since 2008, when they were 10 and 8, respectively.
I’m skipping ahead 8 years from those days to a couple of covers the sisters posted in 2016, at the ripe old ages of 16 and 18.
Here’s a great song written by Laura Nyro and featured on her classic album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession but turned into a hit by 5th Dimension.
Nyro wrote a ton of songs that became hits for other people but never received the acclaim she deserved as a performer in her own right. I own only this one album and it’s a knockout.
