“No Goodbyes” by Wellingta  

Coming at us with everything she has in the chamber right off the top of the track, Wellingta is not messing around when she kicks out the opening bars in “No Goodbyes,” her all-new single currently out and available everywhere quality hip-hop is sold and streamed. Although she’s got a pressurized percussive force beneath her lyrics, she’s the one owning the spotlight in this performance, and her control over the narrative only gets stronger as we press on.

Wellingta didn’t pick the easiest era to get into this industry, but for what she’s able to present the audience with in “No Goodbyes,” there’s really no denying the potential she’s got as an artist in modern hip-hop. You can’t teach these skills, and she lets them carry every lyric in this single.

The beat here is a little wound up, but it doesn’t go unutilized in the grander scheme of things; if anything, I think its stifled angst contributes a lot of charisma to the song that wouldn’t have been in this performance otherwise.

I think Wellingta has a good feel for her depth as a performer, and she’s able to work off of the groove in “No Goodbyes” like her voice is an extension of the percussion. That’s not something that you find every day in this genre or any other at the moment, and it’s likely a big part of the reason why critics are as in love with this player as we are right now.

Wellingta has a relaxed vocal style that could be a little harder than it is here if she needed it to be, but I like that she isn’t biting off more than she can chew at all. There’s nothing wrong with playing it safe when you’ve got as smooth a backdrop to straddle as she does in “No Goodbyes,” and if I were in her position I probably would have gone the same route with this single. She doesn’t want to overstate anything, let alone her number one asset – her voice – and by choosing to go with a cut-and-dry route in this performance, she makes it easier for us to appreciate the abilities she has with a microphone in her hands.

Hip-hop is hard to break into, but with the charm I’m hearing in “No Goodbyes,” I think Wellingta has a better shot at stardom than a lot of the other singers trying to come up through the underground right now. She isn’t focusing on the predictable in this piece and, better yet, she doesn’t sound like someone obsessed with being “experimental” just for the sake of getting some love from a discriminating press. This is a pro track from a pro player that sounds like it could break open a new audience for her if promoted on college radio, and all things considered, I think it’s a great way to get introduced to who Wellingta is and, more importantly, where she’s going. From this moment forward, I think she can be considered a heavyweight in the underground.

Mindy McCall