Corinne Bailey Rae takes on punk anti-racism in new album: ‘Me liberei’

It all started with visits to a museum: the Stony Island Arts Bank, in Chicago (USA), which houses the collection responsible for inspiring Corinne Bailey Rae on the album released this Friday, the 15th. Black Rainbows It’s like a celebration of the place, which coincidentally turns 100 years old in 2023.

“One of the collections has all the books that were donated to the Johnson Publishing Company, subjected to review by the Ebony Magazine, Jet Magazine It is Negro Digest“, he said Corinne. She raised the impressive number of 26 thousand books that belong to the museum’s library. The magazines mentioned are important documents for the history of Afro-descendants in the United States, and, therefore, are under the care of an institution equally concerned with the preservation of this narrative.

“I was so inspired by them [artes], because I thought that maybe I had read all the books about black history in the school library, definitely many at the university and some at the local bookstore”, recalled the singer, who graduated in English Literature. “But, being surrounded by this vast collection of books, I felt like there were so many enriching stories that I didn’t know and that I wanted to learn. And there are all the records Frankie Knuckleswho was a big house DJ in Chicago… His whole record collection is there.”

8 years ago, the black artist and activist Theaster Gates brought to life the project that transformed the site, previously used for bank loans, into a large cultural center, located in a region that is home to low-income families. Gates is in favor of exhibiting “difficult objects from the American past”, as defined by Rae. For him, denying racism contradicts the anti-racist fight.

The singer revealed that she didn’t like writing essays after visiting museums, when she was still at school. “It was so difficult to take all that magical information and try to summarize it in one text,” she argued. “And then I discovered that I could talk about things through music, which, of course, is my favorite way of doing it.” Take a breath, this is just the beginning of the creative process of Corinne Bailey Rae behind the Black Rainbows.

Freedom

Corinne explained that the name of the new album came about as the combination of an optical phenomenon and blackness: “You know, the idea of ​​a rainbow, that a single beam of light can hit a prism, and that can refract into many colors different… All the colors we know and see, they all come from clear lights. Partly, it was because I wanted to talk about this breadth…”

Fascinated by the black history she encountered in Chicago, the singer “also wanted to talk about blackness.” “The black diaspora went to so many different countries, received influence from so many cultures and absorbed so many ethnicities. I really want to think of blackness as this broad spectrum, this big umbrella where it is so welcome,” she explained.

A double album should be the next venture of Rae, as she herself said. At the moment, however, all the songs on Black Rainbows are his favorites: “Really, these are my favorite songs right now, all ten songs. I think because it’s a spectrum and a rainbow, I couldn’t pick just one. I couldn’t pick just ‘New York Transit Queen,’ because I’d be missing out on all that classy jazz of ‘Peach Velvet Sky’. And I couldn’t just pick that one, because I want to have the smooth, psychedelic, bouncy, soulful ‘Earthlings.'”

The artist demonstrates her mastery of various rhythms by experimenting with sounds that are so different from each other in each song on the project. The single “New Your Transit Queen” was, right away, a surprise for fans who didn’t expect to one day hear “Corinne Bailey Rae” and “punk rock” in the same sentence. This choice is related to the themes the singer wanted to address. “I couldn’t ignore ‘Erasure’, which has a very strong message about the erasure of black childhood and the femininity and personality of black women , which I observed when I was examining problematic objects at the Arts Bank,” he clarified.

I wanted to try out all these different sounds because the theme of the record is so broad. Sometimes I’m talking about space and earthlings, aliens or creatures coming from somewhere else to reflect on the earth. Sometimes I’m talking about a woman who grew up in slavery and escaped. Sometimes I’m talking about a little girl who’s going west with a white family and is a pioneer during the Civil War. Or I could be talking about Audrey Smaltzwho won Miss New York Transit…
So I felt like the stories were all different. Some were complicated, some were just fun, some were beautiful, some were really true, some were imagined, some were difficult. So the answers were all different from each other. I felt that they definitely couldn’t stay the same style, they would have to vary.
I think I drew on my experience in indie punk, and then some of the songs came out. Certainly the songs that had that kind of anger or extreme joy just came out. That’s how I ended up picking up the guitar, and that’s how these stories came about.

Wayne Shorter It is Herbie Hancock are two of the names that influence the music of Corinne. Shorter, according to the author of the hit ‘Like A Star’, said that the song has no beginning or end. Coming from a jazz artist, the idea makes even more sense. “It’s almost like the music is always playing. It’s kind of always vibrating somewhere in the universe,” he reflected. Rae. “When you’re in music, you just understand what’s going on, participate for a bit, and then stop. But what you do seems to continue.”

Sun Ra It is Parliament Funkadelic were also mentioned, but Corinne stated that the greatest influence for Black Rainbows came from other types of art: “I think the biggest influence for me, actually, has been artists outside of music practice. Attending black artist retreats at the Arts Bank, and in New York, at the Park Armory. Seeing filmmakers, choreographers, sculptors, painters, discover Betye Saar for the first time…”

I make music, why can’t I bring courage to what I do? Why have I kind of closed off in my imagination what’s acceptable to do, based on what I think other people will like? […] I feel like I really freed myself from that, which led me to this really broad project.

Black Rainbows was, in many ways, liberating for Bailey. Love, as the singer exemplified, is a feeling that everyone knows, but “a song about the stone churches of Ethiopia” would not result in a large number of people identifying with the theme. “But at the same time, we are all human and we are all curious,” she assured.

Therefore, when asked about the feelings placed on the album, Rae came to the conclusion that the main thing was freedom — from which feelings of shock, joy, anger and surprise derived. “A lot of these stories I just didn’t know. Being around a kind of celebration of the black middle class, these independent communities that really thrived during segregation, these separate communities and their fashion and their art and their independence, was new information for me,” he pointed out.

Girl, Put Your Freedom On

Part of the feeling of freedom that Corinne Bailey Rae felt stems from the confidence she gained throughout her career. Although a portion of the public may only remember songs like “Put Your Records On” and “Like A Star,” she has already proven — a long time ago — that she is far from being a “one-hit artist.” “I feel like those who really follow me know the songs and know which ones they connect with, without necessarily being too celebrated,” she summarized.

I’m always very surprised when someone says something like, ‘I didn’t know where you were or what you were doing.’ I always have to say, ‘I just got off a tour. I have three suitcases to be unpacked at the entrance of my house, and I’ll be back on stage in two weeks.’ […] On the other hand, if I only had one hit, it would be fine. A lot of people don’t get there.

“Put Your Records On” is part of his first studio album. Corinnethe namesake Corinne Bailey Rae (2006) and, like many relatively old hits, this was another one of the tracks that went viral on TikTok. The version that reached the social network, however, belongs to Ritt Momneywho grew up listening to the original author’s songs.

Rae got in touch with the cover in an unusual way. She was walking down the street from her home, in Inlgaterra, and came across some children around nine years old. “I heard her music on Tik Tok!” they reportedly said. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s so cool,’ but I thought they were talking about my version. When they played the song for me, there were all these people doing makeup challenge videos or stuff like that. But yeah, I loved it. It was a lot of fun,” he confessed. Corinne.

It’s good to know that a new generation is getting to know the music. And then, of course, onlookers will say, ‘Oh, is that an old song? Let me take a look. Momney I was really interested in redirecting people to the original music too, which was cool. They [crianças] they ended up coming to me and listening to this different version. It was adorable!

Brazil and tour

Last year, Corinne Bailey Rae He was in Brazil and declared his love for the country. She has expressed a desire to return to her label and agent, but has made no promises. Good news for fans who prefer to watch their idols outside of festivals is that the multi-artist is considering holding solo shows with Black Rainbows in smaller houses. For the public in the north of Brazil: Corinne He hasn’t been to the region yet, but it’s one of his wishes.

Brazil has a very deep place in our hearts. Obviously, most of the Brazilian music I know comes from the Bossa Nova era. I feel like that’s been a big influence on my music, where a little bit of jazz crosses the line into being conversational and really pretty and has all these subtle movements. Then Jobim It is Gilberto, these artists have influenced me a lot. And it’s still the music I turn to when I want to feel kind of sophisticated, you know?

Daughter of an English woman and a Caribbean man, Bailey was born in England and sees Brazilian music as the intersection between European and African music. “That’s the context where I come from,” she described.