NAIMA floats on “ThunderGO”

Brooklyn artist NAIMA has shared a new song called "ThunderGO," a dreamy R&B adventure with an infectious beat and a gorgeous, black-and-white music video directed by Morgan B. Powell. The track features Isaiah Barr of Onyx Collective.

NAIMA had only released one song, "City Lights," before today. That track was co-produced by Nick Hakim and Jon Nellen (as well as NAIMA herself), major co-signs for an artist's first release. That track's video was directed by Jared Malik Royal, but like the new visual treatment for "ThunderGO," it's black and white and set in an anonymous warehouse, granting it an aura of mystery. NAIMA is clearly curating an aesthetic.

Born in Brooklyn but raised in New Rochelle, NAIMA comes from a musical family. Her vocal style brings to mind R&B contemporaries such as Solange and FKA Twigs, but her early influences were the funk, disco and hip-hop records her mother spun for her growing up, as well as the Latin artists her Panamanian father introduced her to.

After attending Berklee College of music, she returned to her birthplace, where she joined a community of artists including Hakim and Onyx Collective, but also Starchild and the New Romantic, Madison Mcferrin, and Oyinda.

On "ThunderGO," NAIMA and Barr harmonize in eerie fashion at the high ends of their registers. "Just let the thunder go," NAIMA repeats on the cathartic chorus.

"This song definitely has a strong sensual energy driving it," she writes. "At the same time there is an undertone of tension. There is a back and forth that is happening in this song — an emotional dance, so to speak. And all of the back and forth, tension, and sensual energy that is swirling thickly around ultimately evokes an undeniable need and desire to feel a release...through physical intimacy."