Photo via Festicket
For those of you who don’t know, Normani was one of the five members of the music girl group Fifth Harmony, who were together for a total of six years. The first member of the group to go was Camila Cabello, who a lot of you know, while the remaining four stayed together for a while, but after releasing one album together, officially decided to part ways.
Music groups come and go, and it’s very unrealistic to expect them to stay together for their entire career, but with Fifth Harmony, what made their split so interesting was the fact that the public expected all five former members to have flourishing careers, but that didn’t happen.
Even when the group was together, there was only one member that most people paid attention to, and that was Camila Cabello, so when the group members all started their solo career, it was no surprise that she was the most successful. Yet on the other hand, Normani was another member that people were sure would go places in her career. She had the full package: she has a beautiful voice, she’s an amazing dancer, she’s an amazing performer, and she’s beautiful, but the question is, why is her career not as big as it could be?
INCONSISTENCY
This is by far the BIGGEST criticism when it comes to Normani. She's way too inconsistent with her music.
As an ARTIST, is it not your job to release music? Where’s Normani’s music? It’s nowhere to be found. The only songs that she’s been in as a solo artist (prior to her debut solo single) that ANYONE can name off the top of their heads are “Love Lies” by her and Khalid which was released in 2018 and “Dancing with a Stranger” by her and Sam Smith which was released in 2019.
These songs were released four and three YEARS ago, and don’t get me wrong, the songs were good, but they weren’t enough.
Then in 2019 she released her debut solo single “Motivation” and……….
Gif via Giphy
Now listen, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t listen to the song and watch the music video a couple times, ‘cause truth be told, the song was cute, and the song itself isn’t the problem, it’s what happened AFTER the song was released, which was nothing.
Nothing happened after she released the song, which is what I mean when I say that Normani has a problem being consistent with her releases. The song had very little promotion before and after it was released, and that’s a big problem.
And because of that lack of promotion, the song came and went. It was a cute bop when it first dropped, and social media was talking about it, but it vanished way too quickly. The hype died down way too soon, and when that was happening, Normani and her whole team did NOTHING to raise the hype back up again, and that’s what angers me.
“Motivation” should have been followed up with another single, but it wasn’t. It could have been what put Normani on the map permanently had her and her team played her cards right, but unfortunately, that ship has sailed.
Now flash forward two YEARS later, Normani drops another single, this time with a feature.
I should add that between these two years, NOBODY talked about Normani because she gave us nothing to talk about. People literally forgot she existed up until she dropped the song, which again, makes me upset for her. As an artist, it’s required for you to keep your name in people’s mouth, and I don’t know if Normani didn’t read this in the fine print, but it should be common sense.
I know that people love to take all the blame off Normani and put it all on her team, which yes, her team does play a large role in this, but at the same time, Normani plays a role as well.
This is HER career, no one else's, and it’s HER job to make sure she gets a great team behind her. There’s only so much we can blame the team for until we finally start holding Normani accountable. Normani said it herself in an interview that she’s scared to release music, so clearly SHE plays a far bigger role in this.
Now back to that song she released after TWO YEARS of practically going ghost. The song came in 2021, and was called “Wild Side” featuring Cardi B, and when I tell you I wanted this to be Normani’s breakthrough hit, I truly mean it, but unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
Not only was the song TERRIBLE, but again, as quickly as the hype came, was as quickly as the hype went. The lack of promotion was the song’s downfall. Normani again, didn’t do as much promotion for the song as she should have. It’s even laughable that Cardi B, who was just a feature on the song, seemed to promote the song more than Normani did. And to make matters worse, just like she did after the release of “Motivation,” she went ghost…AGAIN!
She’s been teasing her debut album for a long time now, and yet has very little to show for it.
This again brings up the whole conversation of her team purposefully trying to sabotage her career (as a lot of her stans claim), which look, yes it’s the job of your team/agent to secure you interviews and all that, but Normani doesn’t need her team in order to be more active on social media.
In a day and age where social media is single handedly launching people's careers, there’s NO reason why Normani isn’t using it to her full advantage, which brings me to my second point.
SOCIAL MEDIA:
Let’s discuss Normani’s social media presence a bit more ‘cause it definitely plays a role on why her career is flopping. And the thing with her social media presence, is that she has no social media presence!
Like I just said, why is she not using her social media to her full advantage? Why is she hiding herself away from the public? Why does she only have 56 posts on her Instagram account, and barely any of them are promos for her songs? Why does she not interact with her fans on social media?
Here’s the hard core truth: Normani is not at the level where she can go ghost on the public for months to years, and then come back with a song, and have it top the charts.
Look at someone like Beyonce for example. Beyonce is a very private person. She no longer does interviews, and she posts very rarely on social media. HOWEVER, Beyonce is STILL able to get people’s attention, and it STILL able to be the topic of discussion, simply because she’s BUILT herself up that pedestal. Beyonce is beyond established in her career, and has made herself a household name to the point where she could completely delete all her social media accounts, and STILL hold the fame and influence she has now.
Normani on the other hand hasn’t. Normani is a fresh and young artist who’s still early in her solo career, which is when she should be trying to get her name out there the MOST, yet, she’s not doing so.
When Beyonce was starting out her career, she was doing interviews and was interacting with the public. She only became extremely private after she was established and secure in her career, and Normani is neither. She’s neither established or secure, so she can’t afford to be THIS quiet.
Let’s look at Rihanna as another example. Rihanna has been teasing us about new music and a full album for YEARS now, yet, we’ve gotten nothing. She released her last project in 2016, and while that makes a lot of people angry, we all know that once she DOES release music, whether it’s in 2022 or in 2026, people will listen to it and people will care. This is because again, Rihanna's career is established and secure to the point where she can not release music for six years, but when she does, it’ll be all anyone can talk about. The same goes for Adele, but we can’t say the same for Normani.
Taylor Swift released her recent albums Folklore and Evermore out of nowhere with little to no promotion, and yet they were HITS! Folklore went on to become the best selling album of 2020, selling 836,000 copies its first week, while Evermore sold 300,000 copies first week.
Unlike all these women, Normani has no established career, and the fact that she behaves as IF she does, is making it even harder for her. Looking at her Instagram account, you would think that she’s an Instagram model rather than an artist, and THAT’S a problem.
We don’t know who Normani is, and quite frankly, I don’t think Normani herself knows who she is, which brings me to my final point.
IDENTITY CRISIS:
Every artist has to have a certain aesthetic and musical identity that will distinguish them from others, and with Normani, she lacks this, which also plays in with her inconsistency. Normani doesn't have an identity outside of Fifth Harmony, and it’s about time that changes. I think a large reason for this is the fact that she doesn’t even know her audience yet, which is because she doesn’t release music like she should be.
If she was consistent with her drops, her team could easily figure out what demographic of people are checking for her, and what demographic aren’t, but she’s not, so we don’t know.
It’s as if she’s trying out 15,000 different personas, and none of them are working. One minute she's singing slow R & B, the next she’s singing slow pop music, and the next she's doing bubble gum pop.
Now there’s nothing wrong with experimentation, artists do it all the time. Look at Taylor Swift who went from country to pop, or Ariana Grande who went from bubblegum princess and unicorn pop to “34+35.” But the thing with Normani is that she does it too frequently and none of these sounds sound like her authentic self. But then again, who the hell knows what her authentic self is ‘cause we don’t even know what she’s like as a person!
It’s as if she doesn’t know how she wants to portray herself in the media. It’s like she wants to be this sexy and flamboyant person, but then she also wants the early 2000’s aesthetic, but then she also wants to be this quiet and mysterious person, and it’s just EXHAUSTING!
But lemme give her the benefit of the doubt. Ever since Normani released “Motivation” back in 2019, like all women in music, she began being compared to the greats in the industry. People were calling her the next Beyonce and the next Janet Jackson, and as a new solo artist, I understand how that puts a lot of pressure and insecurity on someone, but that alone isn’t enough for me to bypass her whole situation.
I love Normani and truly want her to win, but I think it’s time that I accept the fact that maybe, just maybe, she isn’t as passionate about music as we want her to be.
It just doesn’t make sense to me how somebody could have had ALL THESE opportunities to snatch our wigs off by now, and yet failed.
She had so much love from the music industry, I mean c’mon, BEYONCE, RIHANNA, JANET JACKSON, CARDI B, and NICKI MINAJ. These are all the biggest names in music who have all shouted her out and given her love, yet she still fails to deliver. It’s like she takes 3 steps forward and then 15 steps backwards.
No one wants Normani to fail, but ultimately, the question is: Is she even passionate about music?
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