Ursula Rucker
Ma'at Mama

To have a portrait with the most controlled verbosity on the multi-artist in question, go read the only (so far) review written on DeBaser by kosmogabri. Impeccable. For all the embellishments and for this album, please continue.

I still wonder when the time will come for Spike Lee to summon Ursula Rucker (multifunctional Afro-Italian American writer, in one word, poetess) to have her do anything in his films. In my opinion, they are complementary. They should know that.

I've indulged in readings of books and poetry, from the finest interpretations of ignoble writings to the best writings interpreted ignobly, passing through all other intersections—though you'll have to do that yourself as I don't have time right now. Among these, I've also passively endured a Godano (ignoble writing, equally ignoble interpretation), whom I greatly respect as a musician and lyricist but much less as a storyteller. This is to say that I enjoy the possibilities of languages, I take pleasure in testing them and as a tool of transmission, I love the word.

Ursula Rucker is one of the finest luxuries the 4Hero have afforded themselves and this alone would suffice to delight the dissecting sense of those who simply must move forward.

However, however, however, Ursula Rucker is a very serious personality, capable of providing the springs to seize her. In this "Ma'at Mama" from 2006—I see much more than references to ancient Egyptian principles in the title, am I deluding myself if I think of Gandhi?—there's a collection of metrically structured songs loaded with direct and non-allusive meanings to which a genre name has been given: spoken words. And there's nothing left unsaid. She, with a slightly interpreted spoken tone, recites her writing exercises that are much more than writing exercises. And the whole is much more than a recitation. Technically, I think it's extremely difficult to juggle brief parts of very human, muffled, warm singing (I can't think of a different adjective right now), sometimes tending towards rap and other times penetrating a human conscience, and by no means plastic (like those mulatto or colored girls who now make a lot of money). I believe that the punch of the texts determines this great, monocratic stage presence that speaks, speaks, speaks and unfolds names upon names that have marked history, religions, and societies both for good and ill (Libations). The texts fleetingly coil around the hinges of denunciation, exchange, openness and closure, women, social issues, cultural reinterpretation. In short, a melting pot managed with poetic content writing that also has something of the improvisation in how it's laid there, in the unprepared ears of an attentive listener who will certainly find themselves surprised and at ease floating in this quiet laissez faire, laissez passer where, indeed, the music—as enjoyable as it is, I'll get to that soon—often frames this cultural experience (in the most sociological sense of the term). It's a bit like when, after twenty years, you discover that a film that told you so much also has an excellent soundtrack. And why all this? The magnets installed in Ursula's modulated vocal cords attract those who don't need to board a vehicle to take a journey and discover and rediscover themselves anew. There's a clear eros in all of this: you can hear clearly how much she is a woman, you can hear clearly how determined she is like a man. But fundamentally, she seduces, she austerely earns the attention, she speaks clearly. You listen to me, I keep you seated on the chair for hours. Of course, that depends on you. So, Rucker's greatest merit is the cross-appeal: she would captivate my grandmother who loves to hear speaking, linguists, poetry consumers and reading enthusiasts in general, writers, fans of Afro-derived music. The law of retribution applied to this artistic case, however, figures the bored curses of those who would sew her mouth shut. But it would be free folly.

The music. Because there is also plenty of music. The architectural conception of the scores is to be there in a lounge mode, without interfering too much but creating the preconditions for it. I believe the production is almost entirely by Anthony Tidd, a man who had to apply himself considerably to box a very successful series of solutions close to each other. For an overall ambience that unleashes jungle, urban, freestyle fragrances. Settings, okay. But there are true genres here, inlaid on these waterbeds. Ursula Rucker sings and speaks on rap, hip hop, free jazz, soul (even with infiltrations of psychedelia and progressive), trip hop (For Women, a gem), tribal, funk. Basically, Ursula Rucker sings and speaks. And that should already be enough.

4.5.