THE BILLIE-EVE MIXTAPE
By Kalamu ya Salaam of Kalamu.com
Saturday, July 02, 2011.
Billie-Eve
is Ayo’s third studio album. This one sounds like pages from a young
woman’s deeply intimate diary; someone who has strong beliefs and is
being tested by a trough of hard-ass unproductive relationships and
social conditions. She manages to moan about heart hurt without
sounding maudlin or pitiful, perhaps because in the midst of a sea of
troubles she secures islands of defiance and resistance. And even as
she admits she has fallen, the depression notwithstanding she is
pushing herself back up.
In a French interview
she explains how the album came about, how she wanted something basic
in terms of instrumentation and engineering, how she preferred first
takes and laying down material in a five day New York recording
sprint—but then getting a few more ideas and taking three more days in
Paris to record additional music.
Ayo
was in the maternity ward during a long delivery of her daughter,
writing music in her head, and it wasn’t all lollipops and roses. Her
post-natal blues came hard and early. Relationship break-ups just
before a baby is born can be devastating, making you want to run and
hide.
Ayo’s
trials propelled her into the studio. Emotionally naked, she put it all
out there. There is a sincere rawness that might be characterized as a
modern day blues. Sometimes the songs are literal duets with only one
instrument, there are no elaborate arrangements, indeed some of it
verges on off the cuff albeit riveting and revealing letting-go
sessions. Let the pain and the pity go, admit the fuck-ups and
fucked-overs. Woman up: suck it up and spit it out.
Ayo’s
sincerity is stronger than the bullshit with which she is dealing. She
encourages us to identify with and embrace the process of salvaging the
torn apart shards of her heart. Plus, she made a couple of wise
decisions in including some material that on paper might not make much
sense. Like, what is spoken word artist Saul Williams doing dropping an
inspirational verse and where did that stylistically out of place
Jackson 5 “I Want You Back” song come from?
Significant chunks of Ayo’s personality are presented. Clips from performances featuring music from Billie-Eve
show Ayo literally bouncing off the walls doing the Michael Jackson—and
by the way while most of her steps are clearly just imitations of
Jacko, Ayo does have a mean moonwalk. Not only that, she can actually
sound like Michael, really.
Plus
she laughs a lot. Not nervous laughter, nor the guilty giggle of being
caught doing something when you thought no one was looking, but real
chuckles of enjoyment. In Yoruba Ayo means “joy” and evidently her
father was a prophet because he presciently identified a dominant part
of her personality.
All
of that said there is a little paradox that I would like to briefly
explore: Ayo’s concerts of her new material are hipper than the album,
more intense and musically sharper. Although that might seem to be
common sense, really it’s not. Especially in pop music, the whole goal
of concerts is to sound like the record, which of course in most cases
was sonically altered in the studio recording process. In addition to
multi-tracking and overlays, there are a myriad of engineering
enhancements and effects, all of which taken together virtually ensure
that unless one has an unlimited budget and an expert tech crew there
is absolutely no way the live performance is going to match the
recording.
But
listen to the opening selections on the Mixtape. These are all
selections from the new album. They make up a thirty-minute concert
broadcast and they are smoking. Ayo loves improvisation, making her
closer to jazz than to pop. I think what had happened was Ayo got the
new music recorded when it was fresh ideas and emotions, but once the
tracks were laid down and as they toured with the music, she began to
explore, to stretch, and yes even discover other aspects than those she
first had in mind.
Regardless of why, I really, really dig the live stuff even as I admire the compositions on Billie-Eve.
Actually the recorded compositions are charming but the live
performances are down-right lusty. Ayo does not try to re-create the
recording, instead she seems to channel the emotional experiences and
ideas that inspired the compositions. In many ways Ayo holds
conversations with her audience during which she reveals the content of
her emotional diary.
Aesthetically
Ayo says she wanted to go in a rock direction with this recording. Even
as I enjoy what she is doing now, I’m intrigued and patiently anxious
to hear what she’ll be up to next. Meanwhile we wanna dance! We want to
be all the wo/man we are and can be. Thank you, Ayo!
Ayo Billie-Eve Mixtape Playlist
01 “Live de la Semaine” – Radio broadcast
Billie-Eve
02 “It’s Too Late”
03 “Who Are They”
04 “I’m Sorry”
05 “Flowers”
06 “Real Love”
Kalamu ya Salaam is a writer and filmmaker from New Orleans. He is also the founder of Nommo Literary Society - a Black writers workshop.