Kat Dahlia hasn’t landed on an exact sound, but she has an actual voice
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Version 0 of 1. A brassy Cuban American chick from Miami who sings and raps, Kat Dahlia doesn’t fit neatly into any pop category. That’s okay by her — she revels in her singularity, adapting her signature rasp to any genre you throw at her. She showcased her abilities at U Street Music Hall on Wednesday, touting songs from her debut, “My Garden.” On the album, Dahlia is direct about break-ups and frustrations and guys who make her angry. Her throaty embellishments feel honest — like she spent the previous night drinking to cure heartbreak. One of the virtues of “My Garden” was that it put Dahlia’s versatility front and center. That gravel in her voice hewed to both dark R&B jams and gruff ballads. She could bob and weave her way through exasperated rap verses and then trade the brooding for up-tempo bubblegum pop, like the infectious “Crazy.” The problem is that while the album is impressively multifaceted, Dahlia’s sound becomes hard to pin down. And that makes for a live set that is inevitably less cohesive, with transitions that are jagged and frenetic. A few of the tracks that worked on the album — her take on Celia Cruz’s “La Negra Tiene Tumbao,” for example — felt rushed and watered down from the stage. To her credit, even when the setlist was schizophrenic, she sang great. Dahlia’s voice is husky and round, punctuated with her scratchy vibrato. It soared on the snappy “Clocks” and trembled just right on the vulnerable “Mirror.” Right as she was building momentum, Dahlia paused smack dab in the middle of the show and shuffled through uninspired covers of the Weeknd, Travis Scott and Justin Bieber. Save for a handful of powerhouse vocals on Bieber’s “Love Yourself,” none of the covers offered anything new and only proved that Dahlia is infinitely more interesting when she belts out her own lyrics. But fans were into it, particularly one intense Belieber screaming in the back. Dahlia just seemed relieved that the buzzing room was more crowded than when she last came to D.C. and performed, she remembered, for about 25 people. She was here the same night of the 2014 Concert for Valor and had to battle with a bill that included Rihanna, Bruce Springsteen and Eminem. This time around, she had a sizable group of enthusiasts who could wail along and double as her backing track. They brought her back for an encore that featured “Gangsta,” a stewing, gyrating song that is a quick reminder about what’s so likable about Dahlia. Her style isn’t totally defined — but why should it be? She’s 25 and has one album, but she’s gritty and frank. She has an actual voice. |