Hey all! Amita here with today’s Big Sell. The #BigSell30 has kept me on my pop culture toes this month! We hope it’s been fun for all of you to experience one piece of pop culture every day for 30 days too.

If there was a prize for trying to combine a bunch of Big Sells and make a Super Big Sell- I think this might qualify! 🙂 Take some Black Excellence, with a dash of British influence, (inspired by our fellow British podcasters JoJCast) initially discovered on my Spotify Daily Mix and one of his tracks qualifies as a Super Short Song!

As I mentioned before, I have been enjoying my Daily Mixes from Spotify and three of my mixes have usually been pretty straight forward – one is mostly mainstream pop, one is hip-hop/rap and one is Soul/R&B. But the 4th Mix is a great mix of mostly unknown artists that Spotify curated just for me and it’s where I found today’s Big Sell- Zimbabwe-born British singer-songwriter, Rationale. 

I instantly felt David Bowie, Tracy Chapman, Sade, INXS, James Blake and so many more vibes from Rationale. He came out with an EP last year and the song I heard in my Daily Mix was “Fast Lane“. It’s a great mid-tempo song, but his voice is something else. It has such depth and soul and I had to listen to more. The next single I became obsessed with is the title cut, “Fuel to the Fire” which is an emotional song that has some 80’s influences with a modern pop feeling. The music video is captivating and a perfect compliment to his powerful lyrics- check it out here. I’m also enjoying “The Re.Up” and his latest singles “Palms” and “Something For Nothing”. (Yes I named basically all of his tracks and I don’t care- I fell in LOVE with all of his music!)

As you can see, I became obsessed and started to do some more research to find more info about him. Here’s the skinny on Rationale: He is 32, loves to dance and also produces all of his own music. He did an interview explaining why he called himself Rationale and the reason seems like it’s kismet that I found him for #BigSell30:

L: Why choose the word “rationale” in particular?

R: I had a job in a charity call centre and the boss told us: “Today we’re going to be selling stuff, make sure you get an extra £1 out of people as it’s for charity. Give them an introduction and a hard sell, then, once you’ve got their attention, give them the rationale.” That word stuck with me.

Hard Sell- Big Sell…it’s meant to be! He already has a few notable fans- Pharrell, Justin Timberlake and Elton John have all praised him over the last year and his full album release is scheduled for next spring. He is officially saved on my Spotify and I KNOW that Sean is going love him. I can’t wait for all of you to listen- mark my words and remember his name, he is going to blow up very soon in the states and you can thank me later.

Please tweet us @PopInsiders or leave a comment below and tell us what you think of Rationale!

And don’t forget to tweet us to let us know how your #BigSell30 Challenge is going.