A MIGHTY IMPACT
Polaris winner discovers she can hold her own with other artists. T’Cha Dunlevy explains.
Call it prescience, pure luck or simply good timing. A week after Haviah Mighty’s 13th Floor won the Polaris Music Prize for best Canadian album, the Toronto singer-rapper returned to Canada for a show Friday in Montreal.
I reached Mighty walking back to her hotel on Monday afternoon (evening for her) on a tour stop in London, England, following a few days in France — no kicking back and soaking up the big win for this woman.
“It’s been an eventful week,” she said. “It’s been pretty crazy. I haven’t had too much time for it to settle in. It’s been go, go, go.”
Well, since she brought it up, how is it settling in — winning the prestigious Canadian music award for her debut solo album, a wildly potent whirlwind of politically charged rhymes, clubby R&B jams and dance hall reggae rhythms?
“I’d say I’ve kind of had my mind blown,” Mighty said. “I’m very, very shocked — not in the sense that I don’t think I deserve the accolades, but I just think there are a lot of really good records that were up for that acknowledgment, of best album in Canada. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that mine would stand out among all the others. Music is so subjective.
“The whole concept of the album was the idea that other people don’t validate our narratives. So being acknowledged by Polaris, and holding my own in a category with nine other amazing albums, for me, was a shock. You never know what perspective people are listening from. How amazing that my record had that impact on people.”
She’s being humble. To hear Haviah Mighty’s voice booming and swirling through 13th Floor is to hear a multitalented artist in full control of the vast means at her disposal. Confidence meets eloquence and ingenuity as she unleashes successive flurries of searing rhymes, fluttering hooks and soulful melodies.
“Having grown up a singer, melodies inspire me, so my record is very melodious,” said Mighty, who took singing lessons from ages 4 to 11 and used to perform at functions in a group with her three older sisters.
But she also developed a taste for hip hop.
“Lyrically, I grew up listening to the battle rap era, so I really focus on lyricism.”
And while the two skills — singing and rapping — are separate, they spill into and inform one another. The vocal technique she learned in singing, she applies to her rhymes.
“I built my sound on being (proud) of my ability to enunciate clearly and fit a lot of words into a bar,” she explained. “But I’ve been dialing back from trying to impress so much. This record is about channelling the right amount of that, and focusing on messages.”
Messages abound on 13th Floor, ranging from the history of slavery and the daily reality for black people (on Thirteen) to personal history (In Women Colour), relationship problems (Wishy Washy, You Don’t Love Me, Fugazi) and the tightness of her family and crew (Squad).
Holding it all together is the title, with its dual references to the missing floor of most buildings and to the 13th Amendment. “In North America, we remove the 13th floor from buildings, based on things most people don’t understand,” Mighty said. “We know 13 is a bad number, therefore we remove it from our narratives. That’s on par with ignoring people’s narratives.
... The 13th Floor is the floor of forgotten stories.”
Mighty lays her narrative out on the album, moving from her own story as a young black woman to the history of black people. And while many of her songs have innate dance-floor or radio appeal, she’s not afraid to lace them with serious subject matter.
“The black female narrative has been quietly dismissed,” she said. “That’s been my life. I’ve experienced things I don’t need to get into, things other people won’t identify with because it’s not their experience. On this record, I wanted to challenge that.
“I held back when I was younger because I feared my messages would take away possible listenership. I would sacrifice going anywhere too deep for fear of the (disconnect) that listeners could have.”
From 13th Floor’s opening track, In Women Colour, it’s clear that is no longer a problem. Mighty comes out spitting fire:
“They used to say I’m too loud, but that’s cool now / Love my skin, always been proud, guess that’s in now / They used to say I’m too black, with that crude rap / And I courier the boom bap over new trap.”
Then, she goes deeper:
“Before they called us monkey n----s / Where those days / That cotton picking f---ing with ’em / Where are those slaves? / I want ’em on the rise like varicose veins.”
And yet, every time you think you have her pegged, Mighty switches it up. On the R&B-tinged Wishy Washy, two tracks later, she’s crooning about a noncommittal lover, who she then admonishes in dance hall-styled verses.
At her side is a forward-thinking production crew led by her co-executive producer, Tim (2oolman) Hill, known for his work with Indigenous electro group A Tribe Called Red.
Together they have crafted a slick, bold, infinitely adventurous album that the Polaris Prize jury rightly recognized as the stunning statement of an artist who won’t be defined by limitations of any kind.
“With the encouragement of my team, I tried to think outside the box,” Mighty said. “I expanded my mind and tried to be myself but push myself. I tried to do that in every capacity.”
Done and done.