Josephine Oniyama has been named as the final act at this year’s Other Voices. Speculation had been rampant as to who it might be ever since the official Other Voices timetable was released with a ‘Special Guest TBC’ slot on the Monday evening. Some overly-enthusiastic guesswork we heard over the past few days was predicting everyone from Alt-J to The Divine Comedy to be announced, but it’s the soul-styling of one of the breakthrough soul stars of 2012 that has been named.
The 29-year-old released her first album Portrait in October and has already bagged a fantastic support slot to Paloma Faith on an upcoming tour in the new year. Her music has been described as everything from samba-pop to Morrissey-like indie (she’s heavily influenced by The Smiths).
Granted, her announcement isn’t as immediately spectacular as it would have been had I been writing this story about Alt-J but all that will be forgotten when she unleashes that voice of hers on the parishioners inside St. James’ Church tonight.
