Halima Drops 'SWEET TOOTH'

Halima builds songs like a working arranger: drums first, pocket next, melody last only because it has to sit perfectly. SWEET TOOTH, her eleven-track debut, isn’t a grab-bag of styles; it’s a set of decisions made with a clear ear Afro-Pop syncopation where the hook needs lift, R&B phrasing when the line wants room, club frameworks tightened to keep the floor moving without bloat.

The voice sits inside the rhythm, not on top of it. That’s the center of her sound.

She grew up on practical classics: Mary J. Blige for phrasing with bite; Destiny’s Child for blend discipline; Missy Elliott for space and structure; Misteeq and Ciara for topline economy. Those references show up as craft, not cosplay pre-choruses that step up clean, ad-libs written as counter-melody, and choruses that land by the second pass because they’ve been cut to fit the tempo, not a slogan.

“cocoa body” lays out the uptempo template. Hand-layered claps, shakers nudging the snare forward, bass that glides rather than stomps. The hook is written in conversation with the drums, which keeps the track light and repeatable. Doubles are tight; the smallest ad-lib answers the last syllable like a percussion part. It’s a dance record that trusts restraint.

“eau de vie” warms the low end and drags the hats a fraction behind the grid for tension. Verses hold close to the mic in a lower register; the chorus jumps by interval into chest voice without strain. A pad blooms in the second hook nowhere earlier—to give the arrangement headroom. The bridge is eight bars of filtered loop and a two-note phrase; the drop back into the chorus is clean. No grandstanding. Just a plan that respects a room.

“november like u” does the quiet work. Piano and sub, brushed percussion at the edges, a single-line guitar used like punctuation. She keeps melisma on a short leash and saves the lift for the final chorus stacked thirds and fifths to thicken the chord instead of shouting at it. Reverb is short and purposeful; breaths stay in where the line needs human weight. The lyric clocks timing and cost, not platitudes.

Lagos, London, and Brooklyn are inputs, not branding. Lagos is in the percussion choices: woodblocks placed ahead of the beat, congas mixed low enough to push without swallowing the kick. London adds metal and motion a rim that reads like street hardware, a field-recorded door hiss tucked in a transition, train rhythm turned into a hi-hat pattern. Brooklyn shapes the workflow: verses built to loop, hooks stress-tested at show volume, endings trimmed so a DJ has a clean out. Geography here is a toolkit.

The album didn’t arrive as a “concept.” It gathered while she turned twenty-eight and edited the last decade into shape. Some tracks came in a day; others needed weeks of subtraction. Bridges that explained too much were cut. Keys moved to where her voice carries most naturally (you’ll hear D major and F minor recur). Tempos were set for feel, not platform indexing. She prefers the songs that argued back the grain left under the polish is deliberate.

The title comes from life before it turns into language. Studio bags with Haribos, Twizzlers during long sessions, a detour for a pastéis de nata when a take needs a reset. Later, she read research tying sweet preference to pleasing instincts. It didn’t become a hook; it became a boundary.

On record that sounds like choices held: a chorus that resolves and stops, a bridge that resists the showy key change, a verse that refuses to over-explain a clean emotion.

Power, for her, is maintenance. Notes taped to a wall where she can’t ignore them. Phrases spoken before a second pass. A 2023 Sampha set list pinned at eye level as a quiet benchmark for breath, patience, and song shape. She leaves fingerprints in the audio—a cracked consonant kept if it tells the truth of the moment.

Live, the set mirrors the record. Minimal patter. Count with the drummer, quick check of the wedge, downbeat. Stems are tools, not crutches. “cocoa body” and “eau de vie” test the room’s elasticity; “november like u” resets pulse without draining it. The order respects a floor: rise, hold, cool, rise again. Attention is treated like currency and spent with care.

Call it genre-full if a label is required. The real description is simpler: song-first writing, rhythm-smart arrangements, and a voice trained by giants but loyal to its own line. SWEET TOOTH reads like a first chapter from someone who has already done the hours clean takes, sharp edits, decisions that hold up in headphones, in a club, and in daylight. No costume. No padding. Just work that stands up.