Jalen Ngonda played a sold-out show at The Swedish American Hall in San Francisco this September. You can tell his voice is more than a 70’s soul knockoff in his recordings alone, but it’s nothing like hearing him live 10 feet away.
Not even one of my favorite musicians over the past 5 years, Aaron Frazer, who had the song at my wedding’s first dance, could showcase live like Ngonda. I saw Frazer a week before, and while his catalog runs deep with fresh new soul, Ngonda’s live performance is best of the year, beside Mon Laferte at Bottle Rock. Ngonda still needs work on building his catalog and moving more into his own sound, but give him 5 years and he’ll be on top.
More than any musician before him, I heard more people tell me Spotify recommended Jalen Ngonda to them. If that’s not an potential sign of major success than take it from me. While I was a part of his Spotify recommended season late last year, I realized I reposted his song “Don’t You Remember” on SoundCloud 5 years ago. Bite it, Spotify recs.