(February 14, 2019) Casii Stephan did not move from Minneapolis to Tulsa in 2014 with the intention of continuing her pursuit of a music career. Three years later, Tulsa World Magazine cited the singer/keyboardist and songwriter as one of Nine Oklahoma Musicians to Watch. What happened in the span of those three years? Stephan rediscovered her love for songwriting.
Stephan’s experienced a career revival in 2017, performing in a female driven music festival that she helped create, placing high in two songwriting competitions and performing with her band, The Midnight Sun, at the 2017 SXSW music festival.
Stephan and her band give SoulTrackers a glimpse of prowess as a live performer on this version of her song “I Like the Way.” The footage of the performance of the song that Stephan wrote in 2016. comes from a recent show in Tulsa. That recording won an Independent Music Award for Best Love Song.
However, this being a live performance Stephan took some liberties with her creation. "It was so much fun to perform this version of ‘I Like the Way’ last November. On the recording, the song is recorded at a faster tempo and with strings, but changing it up with the trumpet and slowing it down really takes it to another level. We also added some BGV's (background vocals) for this performance, which were beautifully sung by a dear friend of mine. When we heard feedback from people at the show about this song, we knew we had a performance that we wanted to share on a bigger scale." Check it out here.
By Howard Dukes
