Living under the shadow of bigger artists

by Kabura Ng'ang'a

There is great trouble of being a great artist on your own but you are in the shadow of someone else who has come before you. This is in the sense that people keep comparing an artist to another artist in sound or style of music.

Normani broke out in the music group Fifth Harmony when they broke out from a music competition. This then came with her being shadowed by Camila Cabello because she was a stronger vocalist than Normani. After the group split, Normani has been doing her thing and now people think that Normani is the next Beyonce. What both these situations did and keep doing for Normani is that she is yet to get the full artist recognition she deserves. People want her to express her vocals into a Camila bill and her performances into a Beyonce bill.

Domani Harris has been releasing his music and he has the tight bars and good flow but him being TI’s son does not make it easy at all. Last week, there was a video of him freestyling on a morning show and almost everyone who commented below the video on every platform mentioned his dad, ‘bars like the dad’, ‘sounds like the dad’…and just more ‘like the dad’. Domani is really great but there is the trouble of people never wanting to experience Domani outside of his father’s fame.

It is probably how some artists are really good but they might never get to get the success they are really capable of because someone they are compared to came before them and they were or still are very great. It takes a lot of work to break off from that shadow.