Janice Iche’s trademark is mellow performances: slow, graceful and layered. In a lot of her recent material, she fuses soprano and tenor background vocals to spoken word pieces themed around the empowerment of women.

       “I am now trying to go tech and start performing in a loop station. That should be fun,” she says.

Her rendition of Jamila Woods’ ‘Blk Girl Soldier’ layers the spoken soprano verses with a subdued humming in the background. She also does this with her own piece ‘Black Woman Power’, backed by a soprano drone.

Because her material is not as mainstream or conventional, Janice connects with her audience by tailoring set lists for each show. “Since my music isn’t so hyped, I’ve realized there truly is an audience for my type of music.” When she was featured in the AFRI-NA-LIDA concert, she sampled Erykah Badu and did a memorable rendition of Outkast’s ‘Hey Ya’. Her voice is quite explosive and adapts well to different genres of music and sounds. The effect is haunting in Jinku’s ‘Time’ where she is featured, clean cut without instruments in her cover of The Neighbourhood’s ‘Sweater Weather’ and within electro beats in ‘All for You’.

Among artists who inspire Janice are Fela Kuti, for his ability to put both himself and his audience in a trance; Sade, for her gracefulness; and Lianne La Havas for her strong presence when performing on stage. Janice also lists Rupi Kaur as her favourite poet.

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