The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Friday, November 11, 2016 — 5A
RCA
I got the Keys
Alicia Keys is coming off of
a four-year hiatus from mak-
ing albums, but that doesn’t
mean her career has been stag-
nant.
Since
Girl
on Fire, Keys has
been making bold
statement
after
bold
statement.
Most notably, she
has pioneered a
#NoMakeup move-
ment and called
upon girls to revel
in the beauty of their own skin,
and has also taken on the role
of coach on NBC’s “The Voice,”
advising aspiring musicians.
Her newfound roles as mav-
erick and mentor shine through
in her latest work, Here. As the
title would suggest, the work
dwells entirely in the present —
it reminds listeners the necessity
of thinking deeply and acting
accordingly in this tumultuous
time in American history.
Here opens with an interlude,
warming listeners up to the
weight of the beautiful yet heavy
album. “The Beginning (Inter-
lude)” flows seamlessly into “The
Gospel,” a track initially backed
by sweeping piano and strings
that are easily swapped for a
snare and a grooving beat as the
song builds. Keys’s voice snarls
and scratches as she lays down
lines depicting a family troubled
by poverty, crime and money.
She spits, “If you ain’t in a bat-
tle how you gon win the fight /
Gotta speak the truth when I’m
up in the booth.” Right off the
bat, Keys makes it known that
Here is going to be more than just
a friendly, radio-ready record.
The issues tackled by Keys
are vast — race relations, envi-
ronmental issues, womanhood
and class. Mirroring the range
of subject matter is Here’s musi-
cal
composition.
There
are
ele-
ments of gospel
combined
with
classic
hip
hop.
Soothing piano is
paired with steady,
almost
combat-
ive
drumbeats.
Keys’s voice danc-
es between aggressive, loving
and playful. These multiplicities
paint Keys as real and complex,
as an emotional being rather
than a manufactured artist.
Stripping it down to just her
voice and a haunting guitar, “Kill
Your Mama” is one of the album’s
most raw moments. Keys minces
no words in telling listeners to
respect and better treat the plan-
et, though it’s not always clear if
she is speaking about the Earth
or a human mother. She takes the
enormous relationship between
the human race and the planet
and shrinks it down to the inti-
mate space between mother and
child.
Family and relationships play
a large role in Here, especially
when considering the complica-
tions of Keys’s relationship with
current husband Kasseem Dean
(a.k.a. Swizz Beatz). On “Blended
Family” she addresses the merg-
ing of her life with that of Dean
and his family. “Work On It”
seems to address him directly,
lovingly crooning “Darling, so
many lies were spread about us
… That makes us build all the
trust.” The track is hypnotic, lay-
ering big, reverberating drums
with repeated electronic ele-
ments all encased by Keys’s roll-
ing vocals.
“Girl Can’t Be Herself” is
another shout-out to Keys’s per-
sonal life as well as her public
activism. The track again plays
with guitar and bouncing beats,
making
the
tone
optimistic
despite its heavy societal impli-
cations. Its light nature implies
that Keys has found freedom in
her escape from beauty expec-
tations. Even lines like “Maybe
all the Maybelline is covering
my self-esteem” exalt her choic-
es rather than reel in what is
expected of her.
The album wraps with “Holy
War,” a reminder of the impor-
tance of love and understanding
despite all the trials and tribu-
lations previously addressed. It
would be impossible for one to
put a label on exactly what Here
is trying to convey or accomplish
— from the less than successful
interludes to tricky tracks like
“Pawn It All,” there is always
something new being presented.
Just like its singer, the album is
multifaceted, fresh and full on
intrigue.
Alicia Keys goes personal
and au naturale on ‘Here’
CARLY SNIDER
Daily Arts Writer
The singer-songwriter’s latest work dwells entirely in the present
RCA
Coogi up to my head like I’m Biggie Poppa.
In this miniseries, Daily
Music Writers reminisce on the
best live show they ever saw.
Harlem-bred,
Houston-
influenced A$AP Mob mem-
bers A$AP Rocky and A$AP
Ferg performed at Coachella for
the first time in 2012 and 2014,
respectively. Though separated
by two years, their sets followed
the releases of their debut, criti-
cally acclaimed projects (Live.
Love. A$AP and Trap Lord,
respectively) and marked the
beginning of their reign as rap
powerhouses. I was there for
both of them.
Can you remember a world
with Rocky and no Ferg? I
know, it’s hard for me, too. But
back in 2011, that was a reality.
I was a junior in high school
when I heard “Purple Swag” off
his lesser-known mixtape, Deep
Purple, for the first time. I didn’t
even really like rap music then,
but when the heavily Clams
Casino-produced
Live.
Love.
A$AP dropped in late 2011, I
began to look at the genre dif-
ferently — as interesting, exper-
imental, exciting and versatile.
I remember exactly where
I was the first time I heard the
opening three song sequence
of “Palace”-“Peso”-“Bass” —
Macy Helm’s car, leaving Faith
Lutheran High School’s park-
ing lot, on a Friday afternoon.
And it was with Macy Helm five
months later that I saw Rocky’s
Coachella Second Weekend per-
formance.
It was Day 2, a Saturday
night, and in the last 24 hours,
I’d successfully snuck alcohol
onto the campgrounds, refused
to call my mom and seen some-
one smoking out of a crack pipe.
This must be what adulthood
feels like!!! I thought, despite
being only 16 years old — my
persuasion powers continue to
amaze both my parents and me.
But that Saturday, we’d just
left an overwhelmingly aggres-
sive Radiohead set and found
ourselves in Rocky’s crowd.
As the rapper took the stage, a
topless woman grabbed me and
tried to get on my shoulders. I
don’t think I’d ever felt more
alive — terrified, but alive.
I mark that memory as the
moment I started really loving
rap music; I date that day as
the birth of my current musi-
cal tastes. I can’t even really
tell you who came on stage
that night (probably the whole
A$AP crew) or what songs were
performed, just that his set was
ground zero for my current
interests.
By Friday of Coachella 2014’s
Weekend Two, my affinity for
rap music had further devel-
oped and A$AP Ferg’s debut
mixtape-turned-album
Trap
Lord had already been out for
over seven months.
If you looked up “A$AP” on
Spotify, Ferg popped up before
Rocky. Despite this, the rapper
was given a 3:40 set time, one
unusually early for the sizable
crowd he was likely to bring. At
least that’s what my three friends
and I, who’d gone into the festi-
val earlier than normal to see
him, thought. We were correct
in assuming the crowd would
be huge. Huge and absolutely
insane. I must say, I don’t think
you can appreciate the art that
is Trap Lord until you see your
friend punching someone in the
face as it’s being played live.
The album is nothing if not
aggressive and abrasive, and
sometimes that fails to trans-
late when just blaring through
a pair of headphones. Of course,
“Work REMIX” had been on
loop in everyone’s headphones
since its release. But lesser
played
tracks,
like
“Dump
Dump,” with its “I fucked your
bitch, n*gga / I fucked your
bitch” hook, and “F**ck Out My
Face,” which essentially just
repeats its title for the major-
ity of the track, were not as
well-received out of context.
The necessary context, if you’re
wondering, is in the middle of a
mosh pit, with Ferg inches away
performing it.
Also, there is literal video
footage of my friends and me
at this performance, recorded
by a kid right behind me, unbe-
knownst to us until later. Feel
free to look it up on Youtube,
but I won’t tell you what I was
wearing or what color my hair
was at the time.
RACHEL KERR
Daily Arts Writer
Discovering young adulthood in
Coachella pits with the A$AP Mob
A Daily Music Writer remembers when Rocky and Ferg broke out
B+
Here
Alicia Keys
RCA Records
BEST CONCERT EVER
ALBUM REVIEW
HOPELESS RECORDS
Which one of them is Yellow?
My first time falling in love
with an album coincided with
my first time falling out of love
with a person, during my fresh-
man year of high school.
The
relationship,
in
my
freshman year of high school,
was never clearly defined, and
the end was even less so, which
meant I had a lot of pent-up
emotion left over afterward
and nothing to do with it. Up
until that point, I’d never real-
ly listened to music, much less
been emotionally impacted by a
SAMANTHA LU
For the Daily
How falling out of love helped me to
fall in love with Yellowcard and punk
Before them, I’d only had a vague idea of how music could move people
song; the extent of my musical
tastes was whatever was play-
ing on 98.7 AMP radio, com-
bined with whatever songs
my close friends forced me to
listen to every once in a while.
Most of my musical experi-
ence was focused on instru-
mental and classical music
because I took piano lessons
from when I was 8 years old
up until eighth grade.
Yellowcard’s When You’re
Through Thinking, Say Yes
marked the beginning of my
passion for all things punk
rock. Before that album, I’d
had only a vague idea of how
music could move people.
After months of repeated lis-
tening, I felt connected with
the artist on a near spiri-
tual level; I remember being
amazed that something could
strike such a chord within me.
That album still brings back
memories of my frozen hands
clenched tightly around my
phone, earbuds plugged in
tightly,
marching
doggedly
back home from the bus stop
after an exhausting day at
school.
I started listening to My
Chemical Romance not long
after I was first introduced
to Yellowcard by one of my
close friends, but in a twist of
irony, I didn’t really get into
them until right after the band
broke up in March of 2012.
Where Yellowcard was a ten-
tative toe dipped into rock,
MCR was a dive headfirst into
the emo genre. The first song I
heard by them was “Welcome
To The Black Parade,” one of
the most prominent tracks
in My Chemical Romance’s
entire
discography.
Even
though it was six years old by
the time I was in ninth grade,
I’d never heard it before, and
the
immeasurable
energy
somehow folded within the
five minutes and eleven sec-
onds of the recording left me
absolutely speechless.
I didn’t think it was even
remotely possible to memo-
rize the lyrics to all 80-plus
songs in MCR’s discography,
but it happened all by itself.
I love all four of their main
albums, but their first album,
I Brought You My Bullets, You
Brought Me Your Love, will
always hold a place in my
heart for the way it never fails
to invigorate me from head to
toe. Nothing else I’ve heard so
far can even begin to match
Gerard Way’s raw, hoarsely
passionate vocals, the haunt-
ing melodic lines and churn-
ing guitar of which Bullets is
comprised. Even today, “Our
Lady Of Sorrows” and “Demo-
lition Lovers” remain some of
my favorite songs in my musi-
cal collection.
For me, punk rock was
never about simply rebelling
for the heck of it. Punk rock
finds beauty in the unexpect-
ed, flavored with a unique
brand of musical flair punc-
tuated by aggressive musical-
ity and heavy emotion. It has
become my conceptual home
away from home and trans-
formed listening into an act of
tangible comfort, a personal
safe haven there for me when-
ever I might need it.
MUSIC NOTEBOOK
I had a lot of pent-
up emotion and
nothing to do
with it.
Music has
become my
conceptual home
away from home.
Their sets at
Coachella each
marked the start
of their reigns.
We were correct
in assuming the
crowd would be
huge and insane.
Her newfound
roles as maverick
and mentor shine
through.