Album Review: Alicia Keys - HERE

Album cover

Here is the sixth studio album by American singer-songwriter Alicia Keys. It was released on November 4th, 2016. According to the singer: "This album is so much about life, New York City, us as people, all the stories I saw growing up,”

After her geat album Girl on Fire (2012), Alicia decided to returned to her roots and she sounds more New Yorker than ever with HERE. Musically, she said that: “It sounds like the New York that I know. It’s aggressive, it’s raw, it’s me being my most truthful…It is such powerful music. You are going to go crazy.” mixing hip-hop, pop, R&B and soul. Lyrically, I noticed a lot of songs about problematic issues that a lot of people have been living these last years, talking about hope, injustice, deaths, murders, family and racism against afro-americans (mostly).

The album has several interludes that gives a more realistic vibe to the tracks. The first interlude is called The Beginning (Interlude), followed up by The Gospel a song about "the problems with money and drugs in the familys of the ghetto." While, in Pawn It All Alicia sings about letting go some things in order to start a new life, it is a beautiful song and its message is very powerful.

In general, it has a lot of slow piano ballads full of raw and powerful messages, that really wiil make you think about our life and the life that other people live. There are several interestings songs to talk about, for instance, the fifth track Kill Your Mama, where the main topic is the loss of compassion that some people loses thanks to the money and "dirty bloody business". Furthermore, Elaine Brown (Interlude) that is before this song is a poem, the woman who talks on it says: "Poetry from the street". Continuing with interesting tracks, the sixth track called She Don't Really Care_1 Luv is actually two song in one, because 1 Luv is a song that is at the end of She Don't Really Care, but in the same track. I think that She Don't Really Care is my favorite song.

"She grew up in Harlem

She grew up in Bronx

She know she was a queen

She lived in Queens

Oh yeah, oh yeah"

Here is that kind of albums that can be described as dark, but at the same time very lit, because there are songs very dark because of their messages, such as: Illusion Of Bliss, about an addict woman and how she really tries to change her life and at the end Alicia's voice breaks and the end of this song is very dramatic but real, she sings: "I don't wanna be a fallen angel, Don't say I'm gone, gone, I don't wanna be a fallen angel". However, as I said there are lit and hope tracks that makes this album very motivational, such as: Blended Family (What You Do For Love), Work On It and More Than We Know. On the other hand, in this album there are two tracks that talk about insecurities that some women have; Cocoa Butter (Cross & Pic Interlude) and Girl Can't Be Herself, which is also one of the few tracks with a fast rhythm.

Alicia Keys' album ends with Holy War, which is amazing. This last track talks about that we should be more empathic and that there are things that matters less than other that should be moe important for us.

I really loved this album, because is a mixture of different feelings and emotions: it is dramatic, raw, lit, beautiful, sad is all at the same time, but at the end it helps us to think about issues that we should be more interested and worried.

Alicia Keys - HERE: ★★★★★

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