Nathan Sykes is the business

[AS PUBLISHED IN MALAY MAIL]

Nathan unshackled

By Jordan Barnes

AS the youngest member of The Wanted, you could say Nathan Sykes always carried an extra weight of expectation.

But if his debut album Unfinished Business is anything to go by, the solo artiste will continue to turn heads in years to come.

Sykes was just 20 when, after five years, breakthrough act and chart-toppers The Wanted called for an indefinite break in 2014.

“What am I going to do?” he asked his mother, after the conference call from his kitchen at home.

“She asked what I wanted to do, I said, write music. She said, ‘What’s stopping you?’”

He kept true to his words and released Kiss Me Quick in July 2015, an instant hit that topped the US Dance Club Songs chart.

Last November, Unfinished Businesswas completed over a two-year period.

Listeners can detect 12 tracks of soulful, bluesy Motown numbers to distance the ex-pop vocalist from cheesy hits and cliché.

“In a boyband, you’re focused on making hits. I wanted the songs onUnfinished Business to work together like a journey.”

Sykes admitted he was exhausted with the boyband lifestyle, confessing it was never his thing after joining “unexpectedly” and “everyone wearing the same clothes, having the same hairstyle”.

“As a musician, songwriter, artiste and person, I had unfinished business. The (album) name came before anything else.”

It pays to have good friends as the Brit found when he roped in some big names of the industry.

Ariana Grande co-wrote his successful single Over and Over Againwhile rapper G-Eazy starred on Give It Up.

It helps to have a manager like Scooter Braun too, who boasts representation of Grande, Justin Bieber and Martin Garrix.

Last Tuesday, Sykes took to the stage at Le Meridien in Kuala Lumpur for an intimate showcase alongside Malaysia’s queen of jazz Ning Baizura.

At 42, Ning proved she only gets better with age.

She bossed the stage that shone with showbiz spotlights and a songstress in her element.

Bold notes embellished a classy cover of Frankie Valli’s Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, sung with familiar warmth and pizazz that made hearts flutter.

A timely renditon of latest singleSyawal Ini came later as Ning regaled the crowd with tales of Hari Raya.

She has plans to release a new album later this year and a tour.

Sykes made a delayed entrance, welcomed by whistles and screams by female admirers in attendance.

By all accounts, the ambitious singer-songwriter is introvert by nature, displayed as he plotted the stage with a hand in his pocket, nursing a cup of hot water and honey, between songs.

“It’s good for the vocals, apparently,” he uttered between a selection of quirky anecdotes.

Behind the mic, however, he roared into life.

Kiss Me Quick was belted out with the confidence of a man who’s been there and done it, followed by eight songs.

A cover of John Legend’s All Of Mewas standout, an artiste who has clear influence on sections of Unfinished Business.

More Than You’ll Ever Know has the Frank Sinatra Big Band feel to it, as does Sykes’ impressive baritone vocal range.

With shirt tucked in in orthodox fashion, looking no less prim than a school prefect, his look has the ability to deceive from the rounded singer who has performed in Malaysia with The Wanted in 2012.

Turn your back on the stage and you’d be mistaken for thinking Sykes had been replaced with a Michael Buble impersonator.

The way he rasped out Over and Overleft the crowd speechless in this respect.

He ended on the most pop sounding of the lot, Famous, and exited to a standing ovation and some 200 new fans.