Toronto-based singer-songwriter Zaki Ibrahim is nominated for a Juno in the R&B/Soul category for her song Money. (red ink/Sony Music Entertainment Canada)

If you subscribe to the gospel of Whitney, Beyoncé, Mariah and Mary J., you know that the traditional mode of operation for a neo-soul diva has to do with pure, concentrated vocal power. It’s about bombast and melisma, a vast range and notes that go on for days.

'It’s not your average R&B/soul composition; it’s super vibey, with an Afrobeat repetition kinda thing. It’s a peculiar song to sing.'—Zaki Ibrahim, on her Juno-nominated song, Money

Toronto-based singer-songwriter Zaki Ibrahim is an odd duck in this pond. Her debut EP, Eclectica (Episodes in Purple), leaves no doubt as to her talent and skill. Ibrahim’s voice is a jolt of quicksilver, shooting up in melodic arcs or darting in circles around gut-rattling beats. But as far as vocal acrobatics go, count her out. Though she’s been compared to artists like Erykah Badu and Jill Scott, Ibrahim has more in common with beat-boxers and studio producers, using her voice to emulate drums, crickets or a marimba and building tracks out of those interconnected parts.

That’s why Ibrahim scratched her head when Money, a slinky, acid-jazzy track off Eclectica, was nominated for a Juno Award in the R&B/soul category. She’s up against veterans like Divine Brown and Deborah Cox — both considered at one time to be Canada’s answer to Mary J. Blige — as well as Ivana Santilli and newcomer Elise Estrada, women whose songs boast the glossy production of dance-floor hits.

Money’s nomination “is a bit of a mystery to me,” Ibrahim laughs during a recent phone interview. “That song is so odd. It’s not your average R&B/soul composition; it’s super vibey, with an Afrobeat repetition kinda thing. It’s a peculiar song to sing, even, because I get into all these different characters, you know: ‘I don’t wanna give you money / I don’t wanna take your money.’ It illustrates a bad relationship with — and paranoias around — money.”

On the EP, the song is an epic suite, with separate sections that range from spare, pounding drums to whispery acoustic soul. It clocks in at over 17 minutes, though Ibrahim assures me she made a video with a “shorter version.”

“There’s definitely a contrast between that and the other songs in the [Juno] category,” she adds. “I’m a bit surprised that it’s there at all, to tell you the truth, but I guess it’s where it fits best, right?”

(red ink/Sony Music Entertainment Canada)

When we spoke, Ibrahim was wrapping up a few last-minute things in Toronto before jetting off to Vancouver for the Junos. The West Coast is familiar stomping ground for her — she was raised in both Nanaimo, B.C., and Cape Town, South Africa, and spent time in Vancouver before finding a home in Toronto’s vibrant music and arts scene.

Much has been made of Ibrahim’s multicultural background — her dad’s South African, her mom’s British — and peripatetic childhood, often by folks who strive to make connections between her unconventional upbringing and the fluid, genre-spanning nature of her sound. When I suggest that her experiences growing up might have left her with a unique gift to connect with creative communities, she snorts.

“Even talking about ‘communities’ feels like a form of pigeonholing. I don’t necessarily think that being pigeonholed is the worst thing that could happen to you as an artist, but I don’t like to pay it too much mind. Revolutions become institutionalized all the time.

“As for [creative collaboration], that’s kinda happened naturally,” Ibrahim continues. “Maybe it’s just a personality trait or something. At this age, the word ‘community’ is starting to warp and change for me. I feel like wherever I go, I’m constantly bumping into people — maybe they form a group, maybe they don’t — and there’s a spark, and then [you find yourselves producing] a thing.”

Ibrahim’s wish list of potential future collaborators is epic. She says the various sonic layers on Radiohead’s In Rainbows, for example, felt like a “validation” of what she’s trying to do with her brand of urban soul. Ibrahim’s playing the same festival as South African freedom singer Hugh Masekela on April 4, and jokingly says she’ll do her best to “stalk him.” She yearns to hang out with hip-hop aces Madlib and ?uestlove (from the Roots), and she says that after hearing the work he did with Senegalese duo Amadou and Mariam, “it’d be really cool to see what happened if I ever did anything with Damon Albarn.”

Ibrahim’s creative process has gone through substantial shifts over the last few years. That’s one reason her full-length debut album, tentatively titled Every Opposite, is still under development.

'I’m hoping to have a few Spinal Tap moments at the Junos.'—Zaki Ibrahim

“I’m keeping a little bit of time to put aside to really bring the shape of it together again,” she offers, somewhat sheepishly. “Right now, I’m really looking forward to that month or so when I get to care for [the album] and bring it back to life. There are some tracks I want to revisit and others I want to add. I’m recording — literally almost documenting, in a way — the evolution that’s taken place over the last year.

“Because I’m still always in this state of learning new ways to put songs together, I’ve tried to start looking at some of the songs as compositions rather than just things. Like, Money would be an example of a thing. It’s less of a song. It’s a feeling.

“Money,” she mutters under her breath, only half joking, “isn’t even that good a song.” Still, that won’t stop Ibrahim from showing up at Sunday’s Juno ceremony.

“I’m hoping to have a few Spinal Tap moments at the Junos,” she laughs. “It’s amusing, because you have people taking [the Junos] so seriously, like it’s [a matter of] life and death. Most of the time, I feel like there’s a running comedy in my head, and I look forward to the whole scene. I won’t be laughing at it; I’ll be laughing with it, as part of the wonderful comedy of what life hands to you.”

Eclectica (Episodes in Purple) is in stores now. The Juno Awards air March 29.

Sarah Liss writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.