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.

