The Queen of Echo Park is back with her latest single “Blackbird.”
The subject matter of this track takes a stronger more emotional turn that is immediately engaging as soon as you hit play. She approaches the art of folk music to share her and her friend’s struggles with oppression and poverty. “Blackbird” combines the Japanese internment camps, the current BLM uprising, and the struggles of her own Mexican heritage, which she and her friends discussed at a bar outside of Joshua Tree National Park.
“My friends descend from Japanese blood to various degrees, and we began discussing the camps,” she explains.
Relating it to her own Mexican lineage, “coming from poverty, some coming from poverty of the mind, existing as second class citizens, ‘Blackbird’ is for them, and for humanity at large, that missed out on health of spirit, health of mind, and freedom to express their truth, particularly their emotional truth, shamed and buried so that the body could survive, leaving a life of distortions, of silence.” Recalling the interwoven texture of Hozier with Taylor Swift's impeccable ear for melody on her newest releases, Alicia tackles the complicated nature without anchoring the music.