A rising star and powerhouse of Canada’s East Coast, Reeny Smith will be in Moose Jaw on Friday, Oct. 21 to perform in her “Classified The Retrospected Tour” at the Mae Wilson Theatre.
She is an exceptional unique songwriter with a sensational voice and has been named one of CBC Music’s Top 10 Searchlight Finalists in 2019. She has also been featured in other media such as the Toronto Star and SOCAN Magazine.
Smith’s musical background comes from her family, her father Wallace Smith and grandfather Rev. Wallace Smith Sr. In the late '70s, Smith Sr. made the biggest gospel group in Canada. Reeny’s brother JR performs in the family’s traditional band Sanctified Brothers.
Smith has performed with Grammy award-winner Lisa Fischer, along with American rapper Anderson Paak, at the Halifax Jazz Festival. She has also performed at the Prismatic International Festival with classical pianist Dinu Wijeratne and sang at the induction ceremony of the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia.
In her early days, she used to sing in church choir bands where she developed her harmonics. This also helped her have better control over her singing. Even though her family sang gospel, her self-interest stayed with Hip-hop and R&B.
It was at St. FX University where she learned about jazz music and majored in it. In her professional career, her love and passion for hip-hop and R&B made her able to incorporate these genres of music and blend them with jazz to make a complete fusion out of it.
Her song “Amber Lights” talks about a journey of a relationship from everyone’s mundane life. The song is about caution signs that a girl finds at the beginning of a relationship.
“I know this probably ‘ain’t what you wanna’ hear, But I can’t ignore the signs are there,” tells us to take things slow for an emotional journey and if that process is being rushed, it might seem too forceful with lots of red flags. The development of a relationship between a boy and a girl is necessary.
“Rushing into something while ignoring red flags could end badly,” Smith says. She wrote this song from an inspiration of a fender bender video that she happened to watch. She worked on this song with her brother JR. “We love to feed off of each other’s ideas and be creative together.”
Smith has also worked with Taiwanese Rapper and singer J. Sheon. She says, she got connected with him through her publisher, Cymba Music. They worked together for 3 days in downtown Toronto for his album. J. Sheon’s songs were mostly written in Mandarin and just a few in English.
Her song “Good Girl Swag” and “You Got It” are two hit songs from the album. “I was binging the show “Bad Girls Club” and got inspired to write something polar opposite.” This helped her create funky compositions to make people feel good, wanting them to vibe with the song through dancing. “Going funky with the composition was a no-brainer,” she said.
Right now, Smith is working on releasing a Christmas EP within a couple of weeks.
To the Moose Jaw community of talented artists and musicians, she says, “Dream big, or don’t dream at all.”
Tickets for the show on Friday, Oct. 21 at the Mae Wilson Theatre are available online for $33.23.
