From a young age, Dutch singer Naomi Sharon could see her future. “Around three or four I was already intrigued by music,” Sharon tells ESSENCE. “If I saw someone on TV, I would be like, ‘oh, that’s going to be me.’ I always had a dream that I wanted to do it.” The emotional depth of her sound can be credited to not only being born into a music-centric family, but also her being inspired by a number of culture-bending genres.
Now, as the first female artist signed to Drake’s record label, OVO Sound, Sharon’s debut album Obsidian (2023)—a 16-track project tapping into her vulnerabilities like a diary—turned her into a singer-songwriter to watch. Musical references from Stevie Wonder and Sting, to Eva Cassidy and Sade, are felt in her unparalleled sound.
However, learning from the industry’s greats is not just a reference point for her ambient voice. “Madonna, in the beginning of the 2000s, when she had the black hair and everything was a little bit gothic and cool tones,” she says of her beauty inspiration. “When I go back to inspiration boards, I look up pictures from that era, not only from her, but also just the artists in general.”
Currently as the opener for Tems’s Born in the Wild Tour, the beauty of Sharon’s sound, skin, and makeup are turning heads and perking ears. As for her beauty routine? “I love Korean skincare,” she says. “I think that they’re living in the future. I am addicted to [a brand called] Medicube,” she adds about the viral brand known for their Age-R Booster device.
When it comes to makeup, the cool-toned enthusiast channels Madonna, of course, with her eyeshadow palettes from Makeup By Mario and Huda Beauty. “I like to try new things every show, but I’m never doing warm tones,” she explains. Her natural beauty is not limited to her face, chopping off her hair to put a hard stop to her weave fixation. “I was addicted, the only way to stop was to just chop it off,” she says. Even still, “I do still love to transform from time to time,” she says—which gives us a hint into what we can expect next from the budding artist, both musically and beauty-wise. “It feels like a new era.”
