Participation in and of itself is an act against hopelessness, she says.
Its the denial and the silence that was making me feel hopeless.
Below, Anohni details her new album and reveals how pop can bring about social change.
Credit: Alice O’Malley
What inspired your sound?
ANOHNI:I was listening to too much Hot 97 [a New York hip-hop radio station].
The pastoral kind of music I made in the past felt too passive.
It didnt have sharp enough teeth to address this kind of material.
Thats what I wanted to mischievously supplant in a song that sounded like an escapist song.
Were hiding under the leaves trying to continue forward as if nothing is wrong.
Can pop songs bring about social change?
In the last year weve seen a resurgence of music addressing certain political issues of racism in America.
The obvious one is Kendrick Lamar.
Thats been refreshing, to see that resurgence.
I just wanted to push that thinking into other arenas too.
I call it a love song very sincerely.
Shes just absorbed that into her consciousness and sees the power of that man in the sky.
Shes translated that brutality into a kind of love.
Its dysfunctional, its heartbreaking, but its how children survive.
You have to be adaptable.
If youre fed only one thing, you have to learn to love that thing.
It is a love song, but its a terrible love song.
How do you feel about people potentially applying this subtext to your work that you didnt intend?
It didnt occur to me for one second.
Having said that, the song is very much about drone warfare.
But then again, its really just about taking whatever it is thats useful to you from a song.
I hate art where a person tells you, Its a fact that its about this.
I memorized the songs phonetically and was singing gobbledy-gook, but they were so meaningful to me.
Something intuitive was being communicated to me.
It was just as valuable as if Id understood the specific poem that was being sung.
I would never undermine a persons interpretation of a creative work.
How do you boil down your message into an effective pop song?
That tends to be how we relate to the world.
How am I complicit in some of these things?
In the past I was a passive bystander.
Will listeners feel hopeless after listening toHopelessness?
Do you think of these songs as dance songs even though the subject matter is so serious?
I hope people dance to them.
They deserve to be dance songs.
Participation in and of itself is an act against hopelessness.
Speaking up is a gesture against hopelessness.
Its the denial and the silence that was making me feel hopeless.
