More Accolades for Tink’s Winter’s Diary 2

I’m proud to have produced on this project. It’s still crazy to me that it was done in her basement, and is reaching so far and making lists over artists with six figure budgets.

Variance Magazine names WD2 the 46th best album of 2014.

46 /// TINK – WINTER’S DIARY 2: FOREVER YOURS
The Chicago hip-hop songstress allowed herself to showcase her skills beyond rapping on this latest effort, which she self-released. If there was any doubt she’s one to watch, this record quashed such thoughts.

 

Red Bull named WD2 the 8th Best Rap Mixtape of 2014.

8. Tink – ‘Winter’s Diary 2’

While, overall, Atlanta overpowered Chicago this year in terms of breadth and innovation, the proportional quality of Windy City mixtapes put the two cities neck and neck. Tink’s ‘Winter’s Diary 2’ was perhaps the most surprising of these releases. The teenage rapper/singer, who grew up nearby DJ Rashad and other footwork practitioners in Chicago’s Calumet City suburb, has already hooked up with the more experimental side of the rap/electronic/dance spectrum — Future Brown, Sasha Go Hard, etc. — but it was this mixtape that showed how incredible she could be when left to her own devices. No lyrical revelations can really be found in her tales of love and lust, but her intonation is saying much more than her words ever could. This tape was only part of Tink’s 2014 rise: she’s also now working with hitmaker Timbaland, she made a track and video with Sleigh Bells, and we had the opportunity to see her rock a few stages this year, including an opening set for Juicy J at Red Bull Sound Select: 30 Days In LA. Keep it up, Tink!

 

Rolling Stone has WD2 as number 8 Best R&B Album of 2014, even beating Teyanna Taylor and Trey Songz. That’s crazy.

Tink’s music never fit the narrative of Chicago hip-hop — a mirror of the deadly blowback from the city’s abandonment of poor, black communities — so she’s not been a key figure in the microscopic dissections of the scene. But her brashly spit rhymes and fluid cooing have attracted plenty of music-industry attention (Timbaland is producing her official debut album). Winter’s Diary 2, her fourth mixtape since 2012, focuses on fleet, frisky, mature, doleful love songs that recall TLC more than R&B’s current leading edge — Miguel, Tinashe, Kelela. Already a sly songmaker, Tink projects a take-no-guff tenacity, even without a virtuoso voice (“Treat Me Like Somebody,” “Count on You”). Shifting briefly into rap mode, she sparkles, trading nasty bars with Lil Herb on “Talkin’ About” and busting out a fierce tribute to her faithful partner (“Your Secrets”). C.A.

 

The Chicago Tribune named it the number 5 best Chicago indie album of 2014.

5. Tink, “Winter’s Diary 2: Forever Yours” (self-released): The teenage artist from Calumet City, aka Trinity Home, is three albums deep into her career already, and her growth as an artist has been exponential. At first she was connected to Chicago’s hardcore drill scene, but she’s since expanded her scope considerably. Tink’s latest mixtape is steeped in the sensuality of slow-burn ’90s R&B, and it traces the arc of a love affair. With finger-snaps, heartbeat drums, twinkling keyboards and dreamy vocals, it positions Tink as a rising star: a versatile vocalist and songwriter with a flair for pop hooks who can straddle the worlds of R&B and hip-hop.

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