Zulayka

Compared to a Queen Latifiah - Jay Allen

San Diego resident Zulayka carries Brooklyn within her bones and her heart. This Puerto Rican songstress was raised in the New York borough and her voice conveys its dogged determination on “You’re No Different.” With a rich background in Latin music as well as R&B, her ample tone effortlessly carries this tune. Although structured as danceable vocal pop, the song’s main focus is Zulayka as the jilted lover who’s clearly had enough. The lyrics are laced with enough bitterness and vitriol to knock any cheating man flat, and her delivery of the lyrics is sharp and focused.

Right from the beginning, the mood is set with meaty, dramatic chords offset with gentle string plucks. The drum programming is energetic yet subtle, allowing for Zulayka to come in and verbalize a scorned woman’s fury. She is most effective during the verses, where her rapid-fire phrasing squeezes the hurt and anger into tight rhythmic spaces. For a brief moment after the second verse, the song structure flirts with a club music arrangement. It’s as simple as a bass-snare changeup, but it hints slightly at the track’s remix potential. Zulayka’s position is unshakeable as she belts out the bridge, “You can no longer hold me down; I’m not getting played out.”

“You’re No Different” is not just a song that women can rally around, but a possible crossover hit in the making. Zulayka claims the tune from the first verse, extracting every bit of emotion from its lyrics. Her voice is powerful enough to be registered as a lethal weapon and she handles it with the utmost professionalism. There’s never a moment of over-phrasing words that already paint a detailed portrait of a woman who wants out of the relationship. Instead, she allows the lyrics to direct her voice down the right path, which makes for a very honest and captivating performance.
- Jason Randall Smith

80,000 gigs were booked on sonicbids last year alone Zulayka was just one of them. - Sonicbids

Song Title: “Como un Ángel (Like an Angel)”

Reviewed by Alex Henderson

Rating: 3 Stars (out of 5)



In recent years, Latin artists like Shakira, Ricky Martin, Mark Anthony and Jennifer López have crossed over to non-Hispanic, non-Spanish-speaking audiences in a major way. They accomplished that not by abandoning the Spanish language, but by recording in English as well as in Spanish. That bilingual approach may ultimately be the key to commercial success for Zulayka, who performs mostly in Spanish on her single, “Como un Ángel (Like an Angel),” but also includes some lyrics in English. The Brooklyn-raised Puerto Rican vocalist, who now lives in San Diego, has a diverse musical background. In addition to performing R&B and dance-pop, Zulayka has performed straight-ahead Latin music. She is an ex-member of the group Conjunto Calle 4 Banda, which focused on the tropical side of Latin music with salsa, merengue and bachata, and released an album titled Estudiando Llegarémos (Studying, We Will Arrive) in 2000. Zulayka has since become a solo artist, and her crossover instincts yield likable results on the exuberant, synth-driven “Como un Ángel (Like an Angel).”



This enjoyably funky single is dance-pop with elements of salsa, hip-hop and reggaetón. A hybrid blend of dancehall reggae, hip-hop and Latin music, reggaetón has been especially popular among Caribbean Latinos (Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Cubans) since the 1990s. Reggaetón is really toasting more than rapping, and when Zulayka toasts in a reggaetón style on parts of “Como un Ángel (Like an Angel),” one hears hints of Ivy Queen (Puerto Rico’s leading female reggaetón star). But toasting is only one of the things that Zulayka does as a vocalist on this single. Actually, Zulayka favors three different vocal approaches on the same song: she sings, she toasts and she raps. Zulayka sings and toasts en español but switches over to inglés for the rapped part, and the expressive vocalist sounds quite comfortable with all three. Zulayka also sounds quite comfortable going from Spanish to English back to Spanish, which is a plus given her crossover leanings.



“Como un Ángel (Like an Angel)” isn’t an exceptional song, but it’s certainly an infectious, catchy, danceable one and could easily work well in a club setting. Zulayka is worth keeping an eye on.



Review by Alex Henderson

Phil Putnam
ReviewYou Managing Editor
ARIEL PUBLICITY
CYBER PR Campaigns & Social Media Strategy - Phil Putnam

Song: “Say What You Want”

Review by Alex Henderson



There is a saying among Puerto Rican New Yorkers that goes as follows: you can take the nuyorican out of the Big Apple, but you can’t take the Big Apple out of the nuyorican. Musically speaking, Zulayka may be a perfect example. Zulayka is a bilingual nuyorican (Puerto Rican New Yorker) vocalist who grew up in Brooklyn and has since relocated to San Diego. If “Say What You Want” is any indication, though, moving 3000 miles and switching coasts didn’t change her musical outlook. This medium-tempo single reflects her New York City background with infectious, catchy results.



Zulayka is known for her modern R&B and dance-pop with a strong Latin flavor. San Diego, of course, has a huge Latin music scene, but much of the Latin music that is wildly popular on the West Coast is regional Mexican music (norteño, duranguense, mariachi, grupero, tierra caliente and banda) rather than the tropical Latin music that Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Cubans on the East Coast are more likely to listen to. The Latin influence in Zulayka’s music is tropical and Caribbean rather than Mexican, and “Say What You Want” is an R&B/dance-pop jam that incorporates elements of hip-hop, salsa and reggaetón. One of Zulayka’s influences, in fact, is the Puerto Rican reggaetón star Ivy Queen, although Zulayka takes a decidedly bilingual approach rather than gravitating to Spanish-language audiences exclusively. Zulayka successfully fluctuates between English and Spanish on this tune, which finds her not only singing, but also rapping in a hip-hop style and chanting in a reggaetón style. Even though the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements let you know that Zulayka comes from an East Coast nuyorican background, she really spells it out when she boasts that she is “the chica preferida from the NYC” (in other words, the girl of choice from the Big Apple).



For this type of jam to work well, one needs an addictive groove, and “Say What You Want” delivers. Zulayka finds the groove and works it, and the result is an appealing demonstration of her ability to bring a definite sabor nuyorican (nuyorican flavor) to club-friendly R&B and dance-pop.



Review by Alex Henderson

Rating: 3 Stars (out of 5)

Phil Putnum

Reviewyou Managing editor

ARIEL PUBLICITY

CYBER PR Campaigns and social media strate - Ariel Group