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Cynthia Erivo VibeZ

A Tony, an Emmy, a Grammy, and Oscar nominations — Cynthia Erivo can do anything with a song. Fifteen tracks showing what she does when nobody has handed her a script.

The stage voice, out of the theatre

Cynthia Erivo was born in London to Nigerian parents, trained at RADA, and became internationally known through the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple, for which she won the Tony, the Grammy for the cast recording, and later an Emmy — leaving her one Academy Award short of the EGOT, with two Oscar nominations already logged for Harriet and subsequent work.

What that résumé can obscure is that she is a genuinely distinctive recording artist. Erivo has enormous technical capacity — the range, the breath control, the ability to sustain a note past the point where most singers would need to breathe — and the interesting thing about her records is how often she declines to use it. Her best performances are the restrained ones.

What to listen for

"Stand Up" from Harriet is the Oscar-nominated original, and she co-wrote it — a spiritual in structure, about Harriet Tubman, and it earns its swell.

"The Color Purple" with Jennifer Hudson is two of the biggest voices of their generation deliberately not competing, which is harder than it sounds.

The covers are the real pleasure. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" with Alison Jiear, and "God Only Knows" — the Beach Boys song — with John Legend and the chamber ensemble yMusic. "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar and "When You Wish Upon A Star" show her theatrical instincts at their most controlled.

The original material — "Glowing Up," "Jump," "You're Not Here," "Mama" — comes largely from her solo album Ch. 1 Vs. 1 and is more contemporary R&B than her stage work would suggest. "Si Pudiera Leer Tus Sueños" is in Spanish, because of course it is.

Go deeper

Ch. 1 Vs. 1 (2021) is her solo album and the best evidence for her as a writer rather than an interpreter.

The Color Purple Broadway cast recording is essential, and her Wicked work is the highest-profile chapter.

For the tradition of the great theatrical Black voice moving between stage and record: Jennifer Hudson, Audra McDonald and, going further back, Leontyne Price. And for the London side of her story, Beverley Knight paved a great deal of this road.

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