“For those who died tomorrow, I do not assume I might cry, I gave you one too many nights” sings Jessie Reyez in “Mutual Mates,” a single off of her new album “Yessie,” launched on September 16. Brimmed with a lot of the gritty and uncooked R&B and soul sounds Reyez is thought for, the 11-track album is her second studio album and fourth challenge. In “Yessie,” the Grammy-nominated performer mesmerizes together with her distinctive, raspy voice whereas providing contemporary sounds, hopeful lyrics, and dance vibes.
“I am all the time simply speaking about my life and what I’m going via, however I am positively in a unique house.”
These expressions of pleasure amid heart-wrenching tracks replicate the journey Reyez has undertaken in her personal private life. “I am all the time simply speaking about my life and what I’m going via, however I am positively in a unique house,” Reyez says in an interview with POPSUGAR, “I’ve simply needed to develop, you understand? And heal. So I have been making extra of an effort to heal myself and to make my psychological and bodily well being a precedence.” The album is a musical journey that begins with the down-to-earth manifesto “Temper” the place Reyez declares, “I realized to like the rain, it is all the identical, nonetheless acquired a smile on my face,” earlier than diving into emotional tracks with the type of honest lyrics that really feel like too-much-too-real confessionals (“I like each flaw I see, that is all new” she sings in “Endlessly” ft. 6lack). “Queen St W” has a catchy tune with daring lyrics that remember the singer whereas leaning in on the “tóxica” (poisonous) vibes. In it, she sings, “the b***hes you need, need me” whereas telling her previous lover that he made a monster.
When requested if she identifies as “la tóxica” —a kind of on-line quip amongst Latinx millennials and Gen Zers the place they poke enjoyable at poisonous love traits (i.e. jealousy)— she says she as soon as did determine with it however she’s modified. “It is good to have a bit little bit of poisonous in there too,” she says, nonetheless, “As a result of I do not assume you need to hold selecting a scab that you just’re attempting to concurrently heal.” Reyez is a Colombian-Canadian artist who’s always displaying pleasure for her metropolis of Toronto, whether or not that be collaborating with its different stars like Daniel Caesar or celebrating what she known as town’s “renaissance in music.” And on this album, she additionally exalts her Colombian roots with a distinguished pattern of “Los caminos de la vida” (“the walks of life”) by the band Los Diablitos in “Temper”—the album’s first monitor. The unique is a vallenato basic of Colombian music that is widespread throughout Latin America, the place the group sings “the walks of life aren’t what I believed.” Reyez needed to pull some strings when clearing the pattern. Only a day earlier than she needed to flip within the album to FMLY/Island Data, she lastly determined to name up her buddy, Colombian music artist large Carlos Vives, for assist. She shares how he moved mountains to make it occur.
“It is so poetic, you understand, for what Carlos Vives and his music imply to me, and for what that tune means to me, and what that pattern means to me and my heritage and my roots.”
“It is so poetic, you understand, for what Carlos Vives and his music imply to me, and for what that tune means to me, and what that pattern means to me and my heritage and my roots,” she says.
The second half of the album consists of the only “Mutual Mates” and the dance-pop “Tito’s” the place she sings in Spanglish. In “Solely One,” the most recent single off “Yessie,” Reyez sings over a melodic funky beat, inviting love into her life: “I do not need somebody who’s for everyone, I simply wanna be your just one.” The monitor produced by Grammy-nominated producer Rykeyz (he is produced for the likes of Demi Lovato, H.E.R.), is the type of tune that may seize the radio waves.
And Reyez is poised for a takeover. Along with her sound, Reyez has already captivated the music trade and attracted thousands and thousands of followers, getting large props from the likes of Eminem, who featured her not as soon as however twice in his 2018 album, “Kamikaze.” She additionally acquired the Beyoncé cosign with a characteristic on “Black is King,” completely expressing a villain’s essence in “Scar.” In 2020, when she was set to tour with Billie Eilish, all the pieces needed to come to a halt due to COVID-19. Yet one more kind of alignment occurred in her profession with the discharge of her first studio album “Earlier than Love Got here to Kill Us,” one which had a give attention to grief in a time when the world was in deep mourning.
This new album looks like her creative rise from these ashes. Proper because the world can also be nonetheless making sense of the previous two years, Reyez stays true to the connection and betrayal tracks which are beloved by her followers. In the direction of the tip of the album, within the punk-fused “Break Me Down,” her highly effective voice shines as she sings, “Wasn’t wholesome however rattling it was enjoyable, I am finished losing time being broken-hearted whenever you’re all I needed.”
For Reyez, displaying this transition again into issues of affection and romance was pivotal, at the same time as she’s targeted on self-love. “You’ll be able to’t self-love too near the solar as a result of then you find yourself changing into too self-sufficient and also you overlook that ‘oh wait’, for partnerships or for relationships with household or mates, you continue to must be aware,” she explains, including that she stays grounded in household, meditation and prayer. “The bottom line is to seek out stability, so proper now I am discovering stability with the album. This type of spiral journey, you understand, proper now I am personally [there].”
“The method did not change as a result of it is me speaking about my life,” she says, “However I believe I modified, like I am making extra of an effort to offer the grace that I might always give different individuals to myself for as soon as.”
“Yessie” is actually a mirrored image of this duality with the lyrics and sonically too. Reyez’s sound is evolving with pop singles which are reaching for stardom, but she’s very a lot nonetheless planted on the earth, and in her reality. “The method did not change as a result of it is me speaking about my life,” she says, “However I believe I modified, like I am making extra of an effort to offer the grace that I might always give different individuals to myself for as soon as.”
Picture Supply: John Jay