“Beautiful” starts off soft and acoustic with the word “beautiful” chiming through the guitar. After a few seconds, quiet drums bring Sydney B in for her debut release.
Here’s my reflection, there’s no imperfection
Enough to make these bad boys cry
Then bass drums kick in on a powerful, insistent, continuous beat and Sydney launches into her pop anthem to life lived confidently, hopefully. She is 17 but her voice is as mature and confident as if she were 27 with a decade of experience.
“I want to remind myself and other people that insecurities can make you stronger. You’re beautiful in your specific way, or maybe in a bunch of different ways, and it’s important to remember that you have good inside you,” she said.
“I wrote ‘Beautiful’ because of some personal struggles that I was going through,” she continued, “and still am, and still learning from, being very insecure about certain things, having a lot of anxiety about what was in front of me, what was in the future. That song is a good reminder to me of who I am and what my message is.”
The concepts of “positivity” and “hope” are important to her, both in her life and in her music.
“Those are two of my main goals, to spread positivity and hope.”
But “Beautiful” is more than message. It has everything you want in a song — fine music, a beautiful voice with power throughout a wide range from low to high. The bass drums are prominent, inspiring, matching the message.
She and her producer wrote the song. He works with a variety of beats, combines different sounds and genres, and Sydney loves that. They work together to create the finished sound of her songs.
“Afterward, we add a lot of harmonies in the background, not necessarily me singing words but sounds that add to the beat.”
The video story expands the reach of “Beautiful.” The conceit an audition, with women in a wide variety of body types, colors, styles and ages auditioning for a song. The final scenes feature each of them standing on the stage singing lines from “Beautiful.”
“I love that part, too,” she said. “It showed what I wanted to express.”
Sydney has been singing since she was 9 and started creating her own music at 14. She is a junior in high school this year and has her sights on a career in music.
“I would love to take it anywhere. If I could do stuff for movies or TV shows, I would love to do that. If it’s just me performing, I would love that.” The things she would love to do include commercials or musical theater.
“Just anything in the performance world that I can get my music into,” she said.
“Beautiful” is created out of her own teen life and speaks especially to women, but she does not limit her desired audience to teens, women or young people. The music and the message of “Beautiful” are good for anyone to hear at any age, and that holds for the rest of her music.
“I don’t want to focus my brand and what I stand for to just one group. I want to spread it to as many people as I can,” she said.
Her musical tastes vary widely. She likes Meghan Trainor because “she takes a lot of sounds from the ’80s and modernizes them, and I really like that, and I also like how positive all of her music is.”
Ed Sheeran is another favorite, and she goes on to list pop, country, and, of course, musical theater.
“I have not incorporated any of that to any of my music yet,” she said, “but I would really like to at some point.”
She has not performed live, but she will play six songs for a focus group at the beginning March, and at a listening party at the end of March, she will play two. Also on her calendar is a tour to perform at Atlanta schools.
The songs she will soon put out, she said, will display different beats, messages and music.
“I like them a lot because they show the diversity within my music.”
Connect to Sydney B on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts, and hear and watch her grow.
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