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Alicia Keys rebirths classic R&B on new record

US NEWS CVN-DEMOCRATS 90 LA

“I feel like history on the turntables.”

Thus begins Alicia Keys’ latest album “Here,” her first in almost four years. The song is “The Beginning (Interlude),” and as its title suggests, it’s only the first stroke in Keys’s personal Sistine Chapel.

Like Maya Angelou before her, Keys continues plowing through with verse after verse of self-empowering lyrics like “I’m Nina Simone in the park and Harlem in the dark,” and “I’m the dramatic static when the song begins.” It’s a modern twist on Angelou’s “Still I Rise.”

Beyoncé may be a superstar, but Keys is an artist. Thus, “Lemonade,” an album I still love, has been successfully ripped apart and burned to the ground by Keys.

If “Lemonade” was “Pet Sounds,” then “Here” is “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

Like “Lemonade,” this album is also about race, poverty, gender, family and self-love.

However, it takes the themes of “Lemonade” and opens an entirely new set of eyes upon them. It’s an experience better to listen to than to explain.

Keys partnered with New York producer Swizz Beatz to craft this masterpiece of a record, quite possibly the best I have heard all year. Songs flow in and out of each other and come together like one perfect, continuous track.

If late-1960s George Martin ever produced a soul record for Columbia or Atlantic, “Here” would be the final product.

Various interludes connect the songs together, accompanied with audio clips from interviews and readings. These include poetry excerpts, discussions about insecurity and even a statement made by former Black Panther Party leader, Elaine Brown.

Despite this, the record is anything but repetitive. Elements from various classic genres appear throughout this 16-track LP.

“The Gospel,” which sounds like an early-2000s hip-hop hit, is sung with the ferocity of Foxy Brown and the elegance of Josephine Baker while the lyrics tell tales of ghetto life, poverty, violence and drug addiction.

Keys’s childhood in Hell’s Kitchen certainly plays its role here.

Songs like “Illusion of Bliss” and “Kill Your Mama” also feature hard-cutting, heavy-sounding beats. The latter’s only instrumentation is someone strumming as hard as they possibly can on an acoustic guitar, on the verge of smashing the instrument in a bestial fit of rage at any moment.

With that said, there is still great tenderness and love to be shared in tracks such as “Blended Family (What You Do for Love),” “She Don’t Really Care_1 Luv” and “Girl Can’t Be Herself.” It reminds us of that matriarchal, all-loving side of Keys we all grew up to love.

“Holy War,” the final track on the record, epitomizes this authentic, nurturing aspect of Keys’s character. It is a song that is not only anti-war, but anti-hate.

Just like John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance,” perhaps someday we will join together and storm Capitol Hill while screaming the lyrics to this song, holding onto our last hope for change.

As far as I’m concerned, “Maybe we should love somebody / Instead of polishing the bombs of holy war” is the next “What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding?”

Your candidate may not have won this election, and I can understand your anger. The United States is either about to enter its Golden Age or its Dark Age – no way around it.

But in your time of doubt, remember the words of Keys or Beyoncé or the Beatles or any other musical revolutionaries.

I hope then you will realize you don’t need the stroke of a politician’s pen or the cry of their executive order to define your freedom.

Austin Faulds

afaulds@indiana.edu

@a_faulds9615

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