Jamila Woods
Legacy! Legacy!

The second album by poet and songwriter Jamila Woods, Legacy! Legacy!, is a multifaceted work that requires some time to be fully appreciated and reveals new and interesting nuances with each listen.

At first glance, the album might seem like an unconvincing copy of Worldwide Underground by Erykah Badu or The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, a weak tribute to African American culture incapable of truly impacting the present; however, this is not the case. Listening to Legacy! Legacy! brings out increasingly intriguing details, and one finds themselves captivated by the voice of Jamila, an artist who, while reminiscent of some illustrious predecessors, stands out for her delicate tone, excellent writing skills, and exploration of feminist, cultural, and racial themes.

The work is released three years after HEAVN and consists of a poetic journey divided into thirteen tracks or chapters, each dedicated to a character who influenced Jamila during her artistic and cultural development. The names are notable (Betty Davis, Frida Kahlo, Sun Ra, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, to name a few of the most famous) and yet they serve as a simple subtext, merely (so to speak) stimulating the singer's reflections, always balancing between slam poetry and conscious rap and enriched by interesting melodic openings, with a soul and r&b stamp.

This particular aspect says a lot about the album's sound, which recovers the past of black music and places it in a contemporary context, where live instrumentation dialogues with drum machines, samplers, and electronic inserts that wink at hip-hop and the notorious trap. It is all amplified by the title, with that "legacy" repeated twice and adorned with exclamation points, almost as if to underscore the dual nature of the legacy, both precious and cumbersome: on one hand, an honor; on the other, a burden.

This brings us to the main issue, which can be framed this way: can Legacy! Legacy!, with its references, renew the tradition it belongs to, recovering freshness and vitality? The answer is yes, because Jamila Woods not only cites jazz, hip-hop, and r&b, but she also updates them and brings them into the present, whether political, cultural, or musical. In other words, the album reflects the uncertainties of our society and connects to that wave of "black" pride spread overseas, which is itself an expression of a broader movement, claiming minority rights and urging them to abandon their subordinate position in relation to power.

The desire for freedom and emancipation is expressed in various and almost always effective ways: in "Betty", for example, Jamila's words allude to those toxic relationships where the man controls the woman and prevents her from living a normal life ("Let me be, I'm trying to fly, you insist on clipping my wings"). The source of inspiration is the feminist icon Betty Davis, and the sound is convincing, with a piano blending with trap and hip-hop rhythms.

Besides miss Davis, there are other female figures, sometimes little known, who accompany Jamila on her journey: the writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston, elected as a spiritual guide in "Zora", an apologia of the dynamic and "fluid" nature of identity and its irreducibility to labels and definitions; the poet Nikki Giovanni, who lends her poem Ego Tripping to that heartfelt tribute to "black unity" which is "Giovanni" (some beautiful verses, where Jamila claims the right to express her anger in her own way: "Little bitty, you wanna call me/A hundred muthafuckas can't tell me/How I'm supposed to look when I'm angry/How I'm supposed to shrink when you're around me"); the painter Frida Kahlo, who teaches how to maintain the right distances in romantic and love relationships ("I like you better when you see me less/I like me better when I'm not so stressed"; and again: "We could do it like Frida, we could build a bridge then/I could come see ya").

The songs dedicated to the men who "illuminate" Jamila's fresco do not disappoint: there is the excellent groove of "Muddy" and the splendid "Basquiat" (an intricate track reminiscent of the jazz and hip-hop crossover offered by bands like The Roots), passing through the cosmic and psychedelic trip of "Sun Ra", with that "My wings are greater than walls" seeming to allude to the American present, made of hate, walls, violence, and segregation.

Of course, there is a risk that the sound aspect might take a backseat to the depth of the themes addressed, yet this does not happen, because the Chicago singer-songwriter manages to maintain a balance between words and rhythms, form and content, a gift not everyone possesses, which makes Legacy! Legacy! not only a successful work but also a cohesive, smooth, and undoubtedly fascinating one.

In conclusion, the sophomore album by Jamila Woods does not betray the expectations created after her debut and fully achieves its goal: to create a complex yet listenable work, able to blend the sophistication of poetry with funk, soul, and the streetwise wisdom typical of African American culture.

To quote the rapper Jus Allah of Jedi Mind Tricks: "I speak wisdom, translated to street diction". A thought that fits perfectly with Jamila Woods and her evocative musical proposal.

Rating: 4/4.5