From the Y Crate, #14:
“I May Be Single” by ELISHA LAVERNE (Avex)
In the mid-90s, I was a music writer for the black arts mag Artrage. During this time, I witnessed a strange phenomenon: loads of British artists – the kind we’d use the ‘urban’ tag on today – were scoring huge success in Japan while they couldn’t get arrested back home. Some (such as CJ Lewis or Louchie Lou & Michie One) had had limited chart success in the UK, but most of them simply never registered on the radar.
Elisha fell into the latter category. When this came out in 1997, this Sarf London girl was the toast of Tokyo, with her face on several Japanese magazine covers. I remember interviewing her at the time and wondering how disconcerting it must be to be a household name thousands of miles away from home, yet virtually unknown in your own backyard. With this song, Elisha did the “I’m not a pathetic loner just because I haven’t got a man” thing years before Natasha Bedingfield debuted with “Single”. The guitar work on the remix is particularly sweet.
GEORGE LUKE 