Sometimes, you come across a creative endeavour and you can’t help but think to yourself: Where did this come from?
Artists have the unique capacity of bringing out both the best and worst that can be found within the confines of their bustling minds, and giving it a tangible shape so that the rest of us can experience it. This plays a major role in how we function as a society, because culture, and how we consume it, has a great impact on our behaviour.
Just think back to quarantine, and how all of a sudden we realised that culture and the arts were quite possibly the only thing keeping us sane while we were all cooped up in our homes. Music, film, art, dance, literature… Those are the things that keeps us connected.
The literal pandemic brought along with it a loneliness epidemic, and this resulted in a wave of subsequent artistic expression. This year has been inevitably overflowing with pandemic-born art, tales of defeat and resilience alike. And the global audience has been notably grateful for art that made them feel heard, seen, and reflected. It was a way of saying: You can do it, we’re in this together.
For some artists however, the turmoil has been going on long before any global sanitary crisis, and the lessons learned take them all the way back to the start of their career.
Source: The Face
Such is the case of French-Senegalese artist anaiis, who recently released her latest work ‘this is no longer a dream’.
This conceptual album is all about healing our precious souls from all the self-doubt, hardship, and gaslighting, which the artist has endured since the early days of her career.
‘this is no longer a dream’ takes its listeners on a journey into surrealism, and the contradictions and incertitudes of emotional turmoil. All of which culminates in the realisation of needing to verbalise it all in order to regain control of her narrative, and step into her power. And so, bringing us full cycle to the creation of the album.
I want to share with others a very vulnerable experience that can inspire them to indulge in a process of introspection that will allow them to reconnect with their intuition.
-anaiis for Kaltblut
Album cover art / Source: NR Magazine
Every bit of the album has been carefully put together to reflect this introspective journey. Even the cover art, consisting of artwork captured by Brazilian photographer Raphael Pavarotti and creative director Ib Kamara, is a symbolic piece representing the dualities and paradoxes in the artist’s voyage.
The 12-track project is out now via her own independent imprint Dream Sequence Recordings. Get your copy here!
