Leona Lewis Debuts “Essence Of Me”: Listen
Leona Lewis premiered a new song, “Essence of Me,” during her June 13 visit to BBC Radio 2. “I wrote this one,” she said. “It’s about stripping everything away and coming back to, basically, the roots of what I do and who I am.”
Like current single “Fire (Under My Feet),” “Essence of Me” is about self-empowerment. But while the former is stomping old-school soul for fans of Adele, “Essence of Me” is more contemporary R&B in the style of Jessie Ware, where Lewis sings to pounding drums and synths that drip like a leaking faucet.
“Essence of Me” will likely appear in Lewis’ fifth album I Am. This record will be her first off Def Jam, and after an emotional separation from Simon Cowell‘s label Syco, to which she was signed for seven years.
“I was terrified of walking away from a somewhat secure relationship, even though I knew that we were no longer right for each other,” she wrote in an open letter to fans, adding, “For my fifth album I was asked to make a record that would not be true to myself.”
Hear Leona Lewis’s new song “Essence of Me” below.
[UPDATE: We’ve been asked to remove the stream. Sorry kiddos.]
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