City Winery: MIKI HOWARD

Miki Howard represents passionate vocal artistry wrapped in a diminutive package of beauty, sass and candor. Grammy-nominated Howard already has a stunning catalog of music wide ranging in style – from the breezy “Come Share My Love” and the steamy funk of “Ain’t Nobody Like You” to her soul-stirring signature “Love Under New Management,” the jazzy “Imagination” and the inferno that is “That’s What Love Is” (her duet with the late, great Gerald Levert). Miki has recorded eight albums but none quite like her new 7-song EP, I Choose to Be Happy from the Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blues Collection. She considers this CD of live and studio material the first in a forthcoming series of mini albums: Miki Howard Reality Music Record Series #1. The proud veteran states, “I’m making music for the soundtrack of the times we are living in now.”

The lead single is “Panther,” an affirmative declaration on the power of maturity and wisdom set to a raw Primal Funk of hand drum percussion, horns and chants co-produced by Miki with Jon Nettlesbey. In the lyric she proclaims, “I’m not a diva, I’m a Sacagawea,” name-checking the woman that assisted early America explorers Lewis & Clark. Miki shares, “You have to be a soldier for what you believe in. Some people get stuck in the trenches of adversity - a Panther soldiers through. In the music, I was going for a Kanye West kind a thing – a BIG sound that stands out on the radio.” With a sly smile she adds, “It’s also about the natural sexuality we women have between the rocking chair and the rocking cradle!”