Sy’Rai is slowly but surely carving out her own musical lane. The songstress, who happens to be Brandy’s baby girl, made a striking solo debut with her debut single “On My Own” last year and followed that up this April with her single “Not About You.” These outings have the people wanting more, and Sy’Rai’s in the studio cooking something up. To tide us over until she’s ready, the budding star digs back in her vault to bring us her unreleased track “Bad Guy.”
“Hey, my loves. This was a school project I worked on and wrote by myself at 3 a.m. I hate making you guys wait, so here’s a little gift from me to you,” she wrote on YouTube after surprise-dropping the track. We’re not sure what the project was. But if the singer was going for early 2000s vibes, she definitely nailed the assignment.
“Bad Guy” sounds like a Neptunes track beamed straight from 2001, complete with guitar riffs and the production duo’s space-age boops and beeps in the background. Sy’Rai, meanwhile, swipes a bit of her mom’s tricks of the trade — including immaculately stacked vocal harmonies and quick switches between her higher and lower registers.
Despite the obvious influences, she makes the track her own as she tells a guy about himself while giving him the boot. It all comes to a head on the song’s chorus. “So tell me how I / Tell me how you’re not the bad guy / Tell me that you didn’t tell lies / Tell me while you look in my eyes,” she sings with conviction as she demands the truth.
Sy’Rai might not have plans to release “Bad Guy” commercially, but we certainly aren’t mad that she dropped it for our listening pleasure. Listen to the retro banger when you press play.
