Kayla Diamond: What You're Made Of

By Kerry Doole

Kayla Diamond: "What You're Made Of" (Slaight Music/Cadence Music): Last year this Toronto pop singer/songwriter broke through with the infectious earworm, "Carnival Hearts." A radio and YouTube hit (450K views), it marked her as an artist of immense potential.

That is reaffirmed on this charming cut, the second single taken from her debut EP Beautiful Chaos. It begins quietly, with piano and finger-snaps, then swells with massed backing vocals that lend it an anthemic air.

Diamond is becoming known for positive and uplifting messages in her lyrics, and this is no exception. "Life's too short not to fill it with love," she implores here, and who can disagree with those sentiments?

Beautiful Chaos is a collaboration with Toronto-based songwriter/producer Craig McConnell. Diamond explains that the album "is inspired by the chaos in my life. It represents that ability to find beauty in what others perceive as sadness. It also represents my life until now - there have been many ups and many downs to get to where I am today, and that to me is beautiful and chaotic."

The singer's life changed when she won Slaight Music’s 2015 “It’s Your Shot” competition with her song "Crazy." That win gave her the confidence to quit law school to pursue a musical career, and she's now showing us what she's made of.

Diamond's versatility as a vocalist is showcased on some very successful collaborations with EDM artists. A cover of Mike Posner’s “I Took a Pill in Ibiza”, with Kiso Armic, has received well over 4 million streams on Sound Cloud, and a track with Anevo, “Feel Something”, has hit 3 million+ streams on Spotify.