I can only spend so much time in the emotional wreckage of complicated men before I start craving a fucking dance floor. Apparently Slay Raché hit her limit too. She had been writing from the darker side of relationships when a Valentine’s Day trip to the Michael Jackson musical in New York reminded her how much she loves ’80s pop and dance music. Cue the inner party girl kicking the door open. ‘You Make Me Wanna Dance’ feels like Slay remembering how good it is to make music that makes you want to grind against somebody until dancing turns into figuring out whose place is closer and how fast you can get your clothes off. There will be plenty of time for another man to ruin somebody’s week later. Tonight, all that dark relationship baggage can stay home on the couch in sweats with a gallon of rocky road, six episodes deep into New Girl repeats. Slay’s going dancing.
You can hear how that Michael Jackson musical flipped a switch in her, because ‘You Make Me Wanna Dance’ comes alive with the kind of ’80s pop bounce that makes sitting still feel fucking pointless. Slay keeps enough R&B in her phrasing to make all that retro shine feel slick and sexy – with a vocal that sounds like she knows damn well somebody is going to end up grinding closer than they planned. The track was recorded at Milkboy Studio in Philadelphia and the polish gives it that big-night-out gloss without sanding off the heat. Then the late key change comes in and turns the whole thing up another notch – like the moment dancing stops being innocent and starts becoming a conversation about going back to his place or disappearing into a club bathroom stall for ten very irresponsible minutes.
What makes this even better is how little emotional labor Slay seems interested in doing. She describes the song as being about letting go and self-love, adding, “no matter what you do, I’m just gonna dance.” Girl, yes. Some men have already gotten enough free therapy out of our playlists. Sometimes the healthiest response is the hard bulge in his jeans pressed against your ass on a sweaty dance floor while tomorrow gets stuck with the emotional processing. If the chemistry is good enough to make you pencil in an orgasm on your calendar for later tonight, I’m comfortable calling that personal growth.
Slay Raché has enough actual chops behind the party-girl turn to keep it from feeling like costume jewelry. Raised in Pennsylvania, she started singing as a kid and later studied jazz vocals at The New School in New York. Her ear grew up on powerhouse voices like Whitney Houston and Barbra Streisand before she took that training into pop/R&B on her own terms. She has crossed one million cumulative streams as an independent artist, and ‘You Make Me Wanna Dance’ joins ‘Sarasota’ in setting up her debut album due this fall. Apparently this album rollout comes with permission to have way more fucking fun, and I’m very much here for that.
Slay can keep the dark songs because some man will eventually ruin a Thursday and we’ll need them. ‘You Make Me Wanna Dance’ proves the woman writing those songs also knows how to put on something tiny and let a bassline make decisions for her. By the time that key change hits, I’m ready to find somebody who knows how to grind without making me regret choosing him and see whether the chemistry lasts long enough to get both of us out of our clothes. The relationship baggage can keep the remote and the ice cream. I’m taking the Uber.
