{"id":3056,"date":"2011-08-03T14:59:46","date_gmt":"2011-08-03T21:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3056"},"modified":"2011-08-03T15:08:18","modified_gmt":"2011-08-03T22:08:18","slug":"nikki-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/nikki-rich\/","title":{"rendered":"NIKKI & RICH"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

NIKKI & RICH<\/h1>\n

A California girl and New York guy make beautiful music together<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As far as mea culpas go, \u201cNext Best Thing,\u201d the\u00a0debut single by pop duo Nikki & Rich, isn\u2019t particularly remorseful. Over malt-shop piano and doo-wop backing vocals, singer Nikki Leonti tells a heartbroken ex it was boredom that led her to stray. \u201cIt\u2019s my fault, I\u2019m the one to blame,\u201d she coos, callous and cavalier. \u201cShame on me and my man-eating game.\u201d<\/p>\n

In real life, she plays no such games. A preacher\u2019s daughter from Corona, Calif., Leonti grew up on a strict diet of gospel\u00a0music. \u201cI snuck a record once,\u201d confesses Leonti, recalling a rare teenage foray outside of spiritual sounds. \u201cNow that I look back, it\u00a0was such a harmless thing. I snuck the Mariah Carey Christmas\u00a0record, which is odd. From there, once I was 18, I had a lot of\u00a0cramming to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonti had released two gospel albums of her own by her early 20s. In 2007, when she met future songwriting partner Rich Velonskis, she was singing backup for country superstar Carrie Underwood. Velonskis is a New York City-native DJ and composer who (under the pseudonym Rich Skillz) has produced tracks for such artists as Eve and Robin Thicke, and his work on Ludacris\u2019 2006 Release Therapy<\/em> earned him a Grammy for Best Rap Album.<\/p>\n

When Leonti and Velonskis started writing together\u2014he handling the music, she the lyrics\u2014they planned on licensing their material to other artists. One of their first compositions was \u201cSame Kind of Man,\u201d about a woman addicted to destructive relationships. Lyrically, it would have been perfect for its intended recipient. \u201cRich and I worked on that song when Whitney Houston was looking for material for her project, so it was written with her in mind,\u201d Leonti says. \u201cIt was something that I connected with and became possessive of\u2014and we ended up keeping it for us.\u201d Velonskis recalls his partner\u2019s determination not to part with the track. \u201cShe wasn\u2019t having it,\u201d he says with a chuckle. \u201cWhich was good. I couldn\u2019t imagine that song done by anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Excited by the music they were creating, the two christened themselves Nikki & Rich and began recording their debut\u00a0album, Everything<\/em>, due in late September. Musically diverse and loaded with warm-weather jams, the collection draws on\u00a0influences old and new. \u201cMusic is not a science project,\u201d says Velonskis. \u201cIt should be whatever you feel, whatever is inspiring you at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Kenneth Partridge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NIKKI & RICH A California girl and New York guy make beautiful music together As far as mea culpas go, \u201cNext Best Thing,\u201d the\u00a0debut single by pop duo Nikki & Rich, isn\u2019t particularly remorseful. Over malt-shop piano and doo-wop backing vocals, singer Nikki Leonti tells a heartbroken ex it was boredom that led her to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[623,2285,10156],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3056"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3056"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3066,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3056\/revisions\/3066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}