Mila J has begun the new year with heartbreak. Her new acoustic EP January 2018 strips her traditional R&B to its emotional core, particularly on "By A Show Of Hands," a song that could probably be repurposed as dancefloor-ready R&Bass but finds intimacy in its simple packaging. "One hand up if you've ever had your heart broke / Two hands up if you're heartbroken now / Wave your hands if this ever happened to you," she sings on the chorus, subverting the participatory choruses of classics like Destiny's Child's "Independent Women, Pt. 1" into something more cold and rhetorical.
Mila's latest might not play into the celebratory aspects of welcoming a new year, but it is a new page. With the more aesthetic, 90s R&B homage out of the way, the new music lets Mila show that her songs find their center in her strong, personal songwriting, and it's only getting better.
Quotable Lyrics:
Packing your things in a bag
Dropping ‘em off
Won’t ring the bell
I just leave it in front of the door
That’s when I figured
That I'd know the code to the garage
All I wanted to do
Is leave it in your spot
Didn’t know I’d see you, with her
I’m looking like
No it can’t be you, not with her