Nicole: Natalie is the s**t.
Okay. Natalie, how would you complete, "Nicole is...?"
Natalie: Nicole is — I can't say what she said — Nicole is my favorite. That's how I'd finish it.
Nicole: She's sweet.
Natalie: That's how I'd finish it [laughing].
I see... [laughing]. So, Nicole, how would you fill in the blank: "I am the ____ of Nina Sky?"
Natalie: "I am the energy of Nina Sky." I answered for her.
Nicole: Natalie is the voice of Nina Sky.
In the years following your 2004 debut, the musical landscape has changed quite a bit. How have you spent these past few years?
Natalie: Besides working on The Musical, we've been touring, traveling and sleeping [laughing].
Nicole: Natalie has also been designing clothes. So we've been really busy. We've always been on our grind, and there hasn't really been any down time for us.
Your style of R&B is known for its eclectic mix — a little bit of hip-hop, a little bit of reggae, a little bit of rock. What do you think you bring to the genre that it really needs?
Nicole: We just make music that we love. We grew up listening to everything, from rock to hip-hop to pop to reggae, like you said. Our music is heavily-influenced by all that stuff.
Natalie: There's no real formula to what we do. We bring real music.
Nicole: It's not traditional. Most people go into the studio and they have an idea of what their album is going to sound like — like they want to recreate an old Marvin Gaye ditty, or they want to recreate a '60s sound, or they want to recreate something that was hot in the '80s. When we go into the studio, we're just like, "Let's make an album that we love and we hope everyone else will love." In that way, Nina Sky is non-conventional.
There are a few Latino artists that have been accepted (or played) on mainstream radio. Do you ever feel the burden of being labeled as a role model for that community?
Nicole: At the end of the day, we want to be successful and we want any young girl to look up to us and say, 'If two girls from Queens who grew up with their brothers and sisters in a regular apartment and didn't come from money can do it, then I can do it, too.' That's cool, but our goal is not to be a role model. Of course, it's dope if you can inspire people to be positive and to achieve things, to feel like they want to do things and they can achieve things.
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