Mai ‘elevates’ love song on 2nd album
LOS ANGELES, May 11, (AP): British singer, Ella Mai, is back with even more R&B bridges in her second album, “Heart on My Sleeve.”
While this album radiates Mai’s finger-snapping tracks and smooth melodies similar to her debut, it’s also more passionate and sung by someone who’s a little older and wiser. Mai’s debut album released in 2018, went double platinum and her hit single “Boo’d Up” went on to win a Grammy for best R&B song. She was 23 when her debut album was released, now at 27, this album proves who she is as an artist and that she knows love isn’t clear cut. Mai has never shied away from love songs but this sophomore album shows more sides of Mai. The tracks highlight all the sides to falling in love, the healthy sides and even the toxic relationships. “Leave U Alone” shows the uncontrollable nature of being in love, while “Hide” is a ballad finding vulnerability.
Her sound stays true to R&B but also brings in fun pop vibes. “Fallen Angel” is a true lovestruck romantic track that stood out. “DMFU” is a lush R&B track that was another single off the album about the risk of romance and that it might go sour. Her track “Feels Like” shows that she takes power and control back in a relationship.
The album also features collaborations with Latto, Lucky Daye and Roddy Ricch. “A Mess,” featuring Daye, really highlights finding love at the wrong times.
Mai truly has her heart on her sleeve in this album. She put in the time to craft the album and it shows because it feels cohesive and the 15 tracks she picked feels honest. “Heart on My Sleeve” proves that there’s still room for love songs and romance in R&B.
“The sirens interrupted our sleep, grabbed in two suitcases everything that is in the past, then go!” sings Antytila frontman Taras Topolia on the Ukrainian band’s new collaboration with Ed Sheeran.
It’s a reworked version of Sheeran’s hit single “2step.” Topolia has added a new verse and created a video to promote the remix. The version was released last week.
“I decided to explain in the lyrics how it was the first day of the war for me and for millions of Ukrainian people,” the singer-songwriter - and now soldier - told the Associated Press recently, talking from Ukraine, on the frontline of the war against the Russian invasion.
In the music video, Topolia leans against the side of a military vehicle during a patrol with his battalion, the reality of life right now for this recording artist turned soldier.
“We were doing our job. And like driving and between the positions of our battle in the Ukrainian army and just stopped on the road and took the GoPro camera and shot this video. It took maybe 10 or 15 minutes.”
He says that though it was dangerous, it made for a dramatic scene.
As a father of three, Topolia wanted the video which shows a young family fleeing the war by car - to tell the story of the “painful and difficult situation” for Ukrainian children.
“Ukraine is not just only destruction and horrible war. Ukraine is also talented, talented people. And those kids that now have no possibility to dance, to sing, to increase their skills, to play in the playgrounds.”
Another part of the video shows young Ukrainian dancer Oleksii Sokolov performing in a theatre. He later dances in the rubble of a destroyed building.
“He came back to Kyiv from Mariupol just to film this video,” Topolia says. “His parents say that it’s very important for him and for them to take a part in this.”
Antytila formed a friendship with Sheeran via social media, after they tweeted the British singersongwriter ahead of his headlining performance at “Concert for Ukraine” in the UK in April.
While the Ukrainian band was unable to perform remotely at the event, Sheeran invited Antytila to team up with him on “2step.”
Topolia explains that continuing with music while fighting in the war is “very hard.”
“I push myself to do something creative because the situation is not so creative. The situation is terrible. But I believe, I know that, what I’m doing now is just collecting the emotions inside,” he said.
“When we will get the victory, all those emotions will be spread up by the songs, by the lyrics. And I will share it with all over the world,” Topolia says.
“Emotions of happiness, of fresh start. Emotions of new country, of new future that we will build together united.”
Over the next 12 months, royalties from streams of the “2step” remix video will be donated to Music Saves UA.
Also:
NEW YORK: The long-rumored memoir by Bono, U2’s frontman, is coming out Nov. 1.
Alfred A. Knopf announced Tuesday that the book, first signed up in 2015 but not officially disclosed at the time, will be called “Surrender.” Reports that he had a deal date back to at least 2019.
“When I started to write this book, I was hoping to draw in detail what I’d previously only sketched in songs,” the 62-year-old Irish singer and activist, born Paul David Hewson, said in a statement. “The people, places, and possibilities in my life. ‘Surrender’ is a word freighted with meaning for me. Growing up in Ireland in the seventies with my fists up (musically speaking), it was not a natural concept. A word I only circled until I gathered my thoughts for the book. I am still grappling with this most humbling of commands.
“In the band, in my marriage, in my faith, in my life as an activist. Surrender is the story of one pilgrim’s lack of progress . . . With a fair amount of fun along the way.”
The book’s subtitle is “40 Songs, One Story,” a reference to the structure of “Surrender”: 40 chapters, each named for a U2 song. The band’s many hits include “With Or Without You,” “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “Where the Streets Have No Name.”