of house, hip hop and techno", but noted that Nicolette's "velvet" jazz harmonies provided an unlikely contrast. Nicolette said that she added her vocals to the backing tracks after months of indecision as to what would fit, and that after the single's release, the duo kept sending her tracks which she wrote lyrics for "in a very casual way". Released in March 1991, her second single "Waking Up" defined the singer's sound most clearly, according to Kodwo Eshun, due to its distinctive "syntactic swerve, instant hooks and sparse backdrop". According to Peter Shapiro, "Single Minded People" and "Waking Up" became "rave standards" and were among the earliest tracks to contain hardcore's "trademark speeded-up breaks." Having built up underground momentum with her "left-field club cuts", including with the further single "Wicked Mathematics" (1992), Nicolette said that the idea to release an album came naturally to PJ and Smiley and herself. She later explained: "I just thought of myself as a musician doing my own thing, that happened to be within those circumstances. I knew that I wasn't just going to keep [releasing singles] because that's not what being a musician is about as far as I'm concerned. Making an album was the most logical thing." Now Is Early includes songs from all four of Nicolette's previous singles, encapsulating her progression one disc, and was written by Nicolette with Shut Up and Dance, while the latter handled production and arrangement. According to Eshun, the album's low budget and independent label status afforded Nicolette "room to experiment". Composition Now Is Early places Nicolette's unique, soulful voice atop Shut Up & Dance's hardcore production. According to Nicolette at the time of release, the album incorporates "every type of music I've ever listened to," including the music her father raised her on, such as classical music, gospel, African music and Broadway musicals. She nonetheless said that she saw herself as "a dance act, among many things." The production is breakbeat-driven; some songs feature broken beats, such as "Dove Song", while others feature minimal beats, including "No Government". By contrast, Nicolette's voice is smooth and gentle, with a scat style compared by music critics to Bessie Smith and "Billie Holiday on acid". Nicolette said of her sound: "Calling it jazz is too obvious. Something about the way I phrase and repeat lyrics, maybe. But I was a hip hop fan before I got into rave which