IRIE MAIDEN

Shavonne So Tell Me, Tell Me

Via Youtube description by producer Mo Rosati:

Shavonne’s real name is Rose Iovio and like myself is from Hamilton, Ontario. We met through a mutual friend while we were actively looking for singers in the area for various studio projects. When I first heard her voice, I remember that it had that high pitch, almost babyish tone that I heard over & over again on all the freestyle records I was listening to at the time eg. Cover Girls, Nocera, Pam Russo, Trinere, Debbie Deb, Cynthia, Stevie B etc. I was really anxious to do a freestyle record & this was my first attempt at this style of music which was so dear to my heart.

The general theme of all freestyle is either love gained or love lost, and the tone is usually always yearning. This Canadian diamond flips this completely, however—the chorus of so tell me what you see in me / from the very start / was it my love or was it just my heart? gives it a cast of doubt and mistrust, and the vocal stuttering extends it to the point of interrogation. It’s a jaded, anxious take on a bubbling sound, and feels much more cutting and angular, without losing the pop bounce that makes it ~~Freestyle~~. This track didn’t seem to gain much in the way of traction nationally, popping up in a few regional playlists in the US, but it was a completely different story in Brazil. “So Tell Me, Tell Me” became one of the integral tracks of freestyle and Miami Bass’s introduction to Rio, mutating into the funk carioca sound and concurrently the romantic, emotional subgenre known as funk melody.

“This song was a bomb in Brazil around 1989/90. They use to play this song every hour in all radio stations all over the country.”