Twenty-one year old Maddy had something to say. Left feeling bleak after ending romantic entanglement she created a project inspired by the experience. “I needed closure and this person couldn’t give me that so ‘Girlfriend’ was my closure.” Created in collaboration with producers including Tyler Braddock, DVN, and Foolproof Flacko the project details the tale of person left on the other side of a harsh decision.

Maddy speaks of the situation matter-of-factly “we wanted each other and there was lot of tension. The person cut me off.”

Turning to music as a means of self-expression is nothing new to Maddy. Growing up in Bloomfield, New Jersey she was apart of a family with a long standing connection to the art form. The granddaughter of a trombone player she studies music at Randolph’s County College of Morris “I understand rhythm dictation and rhythm notation.”

While the beats fit nicely into today's sonic climate there is a coarse quality to Maddy's voice that differentiates it from today’s standouts. “Growing up and trying to find my sound I felt like I had a kind of ‘differentish’ voice.” She looked to Louis Armstrong as an example of how different doesn’t always mean negative.

She first began recording in her closet stating “I was a music theater major because I believed I couldn’t achieve my dreams as a singer”. Not only a singer but a deliberate songwriter she started collaborating with Braddock after being introduced to him through a friend. “What does he get that nobody else does is the personal side of me and the reasons that I create. He’s really cool” said Maddy sharing that he knows “the true story behind the songs.”

A fan of anime and J-Pop Maddys musical influences are varied. She says she looks to “Amy Winehouse, Nina Simone- I loved her view of the world, Beyonce-because she’s Beyonce, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby.” She tries to experiment with different vocal approaches studying the fundamentals of “funk” and “psychedelic” saying “ I don’t like staying in one place.”

Her parents made sure that she knew “Michael Jackson, (the) Jackson 5, Luther Vandross” and iconic New Jersey talent “Whitney Houston”.

Despite her diverse influences her inspiration is clear “a lot of the songs had to do with this one person…I hope they heard it.”

Maddy will be performing tomorrow evening at Newark’s Vibes in the City. Get tickets to her performance here.