If last night’s final installment of The Real Housewives of Potomac reunion doesn’t have you listening to Candiace Dillard Bassett’s new album Deep Space today, nothing will. Hell, even Mia is promising to download her first single “Drive Back”!
When guest host Nicki Minaj asked the women how successful they thought the single would be, the answers varied in shadiness and honesty, but it was when Candiace told the group that the song has over half a million streams, and when Wendy pointed out that “she’s on Billboard,” that Nicki’s ears really perked up. Candiace tells them she reached number 24 on the Billboard R&B charts and number 4 on iTunes, so Nicki asks how many copies the album sold. And that’s where the confusion sets in.
Nicki explained to the women after their valid questions that when someone downloads all the songs from an album, that’s when it counts as one album sold. Candiace looked up a handy infographic on her phone that she had just received the day before to report she sold 20,213 albums in one week. Nicki was still not quite as sold but congratulated her on the accomplishment.
She also asked Candiace what her selling point would be, and Candiace told her, “My vocal ability, first. Before my dance ability, before the performance, my vocal ability first. I’ve been singing my whole life.” She also admitted to using AutoTune on “Drive Back” and other songs “for creative purposes” and that’s when Nicki requested an acapella performance, right then and there on the couch. Candiace hesitated, first offering to sing a gospel song, but when the entire room pushed for “Drive Back,” with a little help from some finger snaps, she launched into it.
Host Andy Cohen beamed from the sidelines and she was met with a big round of applause — something ALL the women could agree on! “I gotta give it up to you,” he told her during a break. “That was really hard. You sang your fucking song and you brought the room down. That was really good.” He also told her husband Chris, “She did something amazing, everybody cheered for her.”
In true Bravo fashion, it all makes sense why they kept in those lovingly shady moments as the women primped on the couches during the breaks, with Candiace seen randomly yet quietly busting into song as she adjusted her hair.
So how well is the Deep Space album doing? Very well, according to a recent press release! It reads: “CANDIACE has built widespread hype with her debut album, Deep Space. Right out of the gate, it opened with more than half a million streams in its first week. It also notably became one of the Top 25 R&B albums in the country, reaching #24 on the Billboard Current R&B album chart. In addition to success on the charts, the record earned praise from R&B superstars Anita Baker and Toni Braxton.”
As of today, “Drive Back” currently has over 360,464 plays on Spotify and her artist page reads “24,484 monthly listeners”, but that number is sure to rise soon because dammit if that song doesn’t make you want to come back (come back!) and listen to it again and again.
Stream The Real Housewives of Potomac on Bravo