Har’Monique debuts with “One In a Million” — sultry, classic R&B dipped in hip-hop
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By Kurt Beyers
With a power voice that goes as deep and hot as magma, or high, hard and cold as nails, delivered smooth, soft and dreamy or with a hacksaw edge, Har’Monique is launching her career with “One In a Million.”
The song drops July 12, the video a couple weeks after that.
Except for the overt but not explicit sexuality, the melody and vocals are classic R&B, set over a bell-like hip-hop beat.
“I’m not really an R&B artist, so, I feel like whenever I do dabble in R&B sounds, it has to have some sort of hip-hop flair to it,” she said.
When she first heard the music that became this song, what immediately popped into her mind was the Aaliyah song by the same name.
“When I heard the sounds, I definitely heard Aaliyah’s ‘One In a Million.’ Her song had a lot of depth to it, soulful but real deep in her voice, and I thought, ‘That’s so cool! I love it!’ So, when I heard these sounds, I was like, ‘Oh, my God! That can have the same kind of undertone and depth to it.’ I wanted to take the title and make it my own.”
The sound, she said, was sexy, and she knew right off that she had to write something sexy to the music.
Cuz what I want want want want
Is what you want want want
Tonight
That’s why I’m saying
Make me your one in a million
That process is in the nature of her creativity.
“I don’t ever go in with a subject matter in mind. The song is always what the beat and the sound tell me it needs to be, and it basically writes itself.”
The real joy of music, for her, is in the creation. Despite a voice that could have been designed specifically for R&B, and with the control that lets her use it however she wants, which, after this song, will be mainly pop, she says, “If I wasn’t writing my own music, I wouldn’t be singing.”
This, and her fierce desire to be independent, tell the story of why six albums worth of her songs are “in the vault under my bed.”
She is working on the seventh now. It will drop sometime early next year with 23 tracks. She wrote “One In a Million” in 2017 for the fourth album. It will be the third song she has released, the first this year. The other two were in 2021.
Her story goes like this:
She had a boyfriend in college who was going to school for audio engineering. Har’Monique has always sung, always had a voice for singing, and had been singing since she was a child, but “My goal in life was never to be a singer. I wanted to be a writer and write novels.”
One day the ex said to her, “You can lay down some vocals.” This was when she was 21 or so, a little more than a decade ago.
“So, I told him that I wasn’t getting into anybody’s studio to do cover songs. If I had to sing songs, I was going to have to write my own. And that’s when I fell in love with writing music.”
Har’Monique, whose day job is flight attendant, has found the engineer she wants, and another whose work she likes to master her songs, and she is just beginning to put out some of the music she has written.
It was the 21st song she selected from her vault for her album No. 7, Monique by Har’Monique.
She said “One In a Million,” the R&B number, doesn’t belong on this album, which is pop mixed with whatever her creativity tells her to mix in.
She plans to release singles, the next one around Labor Day, until she gets the album finished early next year.
“There’s always going to be a switch-up for my music. I gotta keep people on their toes. Like I said, the most fun is just creating.”
Despite the R&B vocals and melody, she said she had to put out this song.
“I just love this song, so I gotta put it out.”
July 12. It’s worth marking on the calendar: “One In a Million,” Har’Monique. Connect with her on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
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