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Music Review of Legends By Kent Manthie
Legends (Sapiens Record)
Pop-princess Renee Zawawi is smart young Woman; she has written a bunch of songs, recorded them and the result is "legends", her debut CD 12 tracks of danceable exotic pop-phoria. Legends” is a CD with some vividly expressive vocal chords. It’s syncopated Euro-style neo-disco with a tinge of the Middle Eastern to it, but mostly it’s a dance-pop record with a European flair to it, not too American sounding which is a good thing as there is already too much homogeneity in American pop music. The music on this CD is not at all like the empty-headed drivel such as you’d hear today if you turned on your local Star FM station that horrible syndicated radio station that plays the bottom of the barrel, musically speaking, and repeats the same garbage over and over again all day long, infiltrating city after city in the US. You get none of that on “Legends”.
Renee Zawawi is different; for one thing, she wrote her own songs, which makes for much more original-sounding songs as opposed to crap that’s written by a music factory in Santa Monica. Each person has their own unique, individual stories and experiences and their own personal ways of expressing them, so when someone, for instance, writes their own songs and sings them the music often tends to have something about it that’s more honest, fresher and more original, you end up singing from the heart, as it were, your heart, because the words came from your own experiences and hopes and dreams, et cetera. In a nutshell, that explains the difference between an artist and an entertainer. Ms. Renee has a pretty voice; an earnest childlike quality with a bubbly effusiveness, a cross between Bjork
and Jane Wiedlin.
“One Time in Italy” is a lush pillow talk of a song, romantic to the core. “Reunion” is a flashy dance number that I can picture pulsating out of the sound system at some hip nightclub in downtown Beirut. The song “Never Knew” has a Spanish flair to it, with castanets and track number 8, “You’ve Got To” has this simple kind of pleasure to it, something bright and shiny about it that appealed to me, but the last track, “On the Road” is probably the strongest song, a mellow, straight-ahead personal song; a detour from the
ebullience of the rest of the CD; a good way to close it out. “Legends” had me under a spell, for one thing, I wasn’t expecting to be very impressed, I’m jaded, I guess, but soon I found myself getting into it; the way each song segues into the next one kept me listening longer and longer. I’m not sure what, but something about “Legends” was both exciting and soothing at the same time, perhaps it was this very trait that had its hold over me. KM.
Kent Manthie - Reviwer Magazine
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Renee Zawawi and her stirring dance-pop sound is America's best kept secret - but it won't be a secret for much longer! Originally from Philadelphia, PA, Renee Zawawi has been all around the globe with her party-time tracks - capturing the imaginations of audiences everywhere. Her music will bring to mind artists like Madonna and Bjork, but what sets this new talent apart is her distinctive life-story and globally-conscience voice: Renee Zawawi's journey has not always been easy though. While still a young child, Zawawi was abducted from her home in Philadelphia and taken overseas. "I sang to release my soul and relieve the heartache of what I was going through," Zawawi explains. "Through perseverance and determination, I was eventually reunited with my family here in the USA." Zawawi’s” struggles continued to accumulate upon her return home: "I searched for my mother all my life, and the only time I found her was upon hearing that she was passed away and I saw her in the funeral home." Her father insisted on an education, but Zawawi’s only passion was singing. Following some work as a model and winning some local beauty pageants, Renee Zawawi moved to New York City, which is where her career took off. 
