Album Review: Georgia Anne Muldrow-Kings Ballad
written by carminelitta @ carminelitta.blogspot.com
Georgia Anne Muldrow is an artist I slept on for way too long. When I finally checked out her previous album Early, I realized my mistake. This album is just perfect to me, a wonderful mixture of beautiful productions and a very positive and inspiring message.
And when I had the opportunity to listen to her latest offering, I was really excited and had great expectations. All my expectations may have not been met with Kings Ballad (because of the bar that she raised for herself) but it’s definitely worth checking out. If there was a word to describe it, it would be “eclectic.” Kings Ballad is a collection of very varied tracks, every single one is very original and completely different from the previous one. With this album Georgia shows how multi-talented she is: she excells with the production, singing, writing and even rapping. It feels like a journey in her brain, a discovery of so many different landscapes and personalities.
Production, beats and melodies are something I am paying more and more attention to and I have to say I really appreciate what Georgia did with this album, jumping from light, lively and bouncy prods to more dark or heavy ones, with a hint of futuristic/electro/psychedelic tones.
Another one of Georgia’s strengths are her amazing writing skills and the messages she spreads. There is definitely a very positive and inspiring energy to the whole album. She addresses her listeners and urges them to be creative and inspire change for themselves and others. From “you don’t wanna be who you don’t need to be” (“Simple Advice”) to ‘I know we can make a difference’ (“To the Stage”) and ‘All you’ve got is one today’ (“Live”), she drops gems of wisdom and encouragement which made feel uplifted, motivated and optimistic.
There is also one special guest on the album, none other than her partner Dudley Perkins aka Declaime, and they definitely form a great team, complementing each other perfectly. Once again the messages they spread are very powerful, whether when dealing with the music industry and the need to cooperate and unite (“To The Stage”) or when praising spiritual love and a deep connection in “Summer Love”, which is also an ode to Black love and a call for Black people to recognize their worth and great heritage.
Special mentions: “Live”, for its wonderfully inspiring message (‘Never throw your dreams away’) and “Morena Del Ray” for the great production, a dreamy mixture reminiscing of ‘1001 Nights’ with a Spanish twist. It is a very nice closure for the album, concluding it with eclecticism and representing the trend of the whole album.
