Kyla
Kyla Reid (née Smith),[1] commonly known as Kyla, is a British house music singer in the UK funky subgenre.[1][2] She is best known for her song “Do You Mind” which was later featured on Drake’s 2016 international hit “One Dance”.[1]
Kyla features on the Crazy Cousinz UK funky song “Do You Mind”, released in 2008,[2] which peaked at number 48 on the UK Singles Chart in 2009.[3] DJ Paleface liked Kyla’s voice after seeing her in a video for the song “Be What I Wanna Be”.[4] Kyla gave up her music career to start a family.[1]
In early 2016, Kyla was first contacted by Drake’s production team regarding the use of her 2008 song “Do You Mind” in a new afrobeat and dancehall infused song with Drake and Nigerian artist Wizkid. The song was quickly produced and released in early April 2016, due to fear of it being leaked, and it became an international hit, reaching number 1 in the singles chart in 15 different countries, including her native UK, the US and Drake’s native Canada.[1]
The success of “One Dance” allowed Kyla to reboot her career, with guest appearances in a number of 2016 British summer music festivals, including the Wireless Festival.[5] Kyla was later featured on English producer Naughty Boy’s single, “Should’ve Been Me”, which was released in November 2016 and peaked at number 61 on the UK Singles Chart. She was later featured on another producer Zac Samuel’s single “Play It Cool”.[6]
Kyla released her first single as a lead artist, called “You Ain’t Mine”, featuring dancehall artist Popcaan, on 15 September 2017.[7]
Paleface started making tracks for library music in 97, come 98 he started to release garage tracks, the first being a bootleg called Can We. In 99 Paleface joined a collective called Stonecold and released a few tracks with those guys aswel as playing on a range of London pirate radio stations. In 02 Paleface joined Transition Masterers and really learnt to mix down. Come 06 he started up Northern Line Records and in 08 started a collective called Crazy Cousinz and now Currently Running Northern Line Records.