In this week’s episode, we review the collaborative album by Trinidadian rapper Micwise and Virginia producer/rapper Hard2see entitled “Outside Interference”, the first three episodes of the Hulu miniseries “We Were the Lucky Ones”, the Hulu documentary feature “Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told”, the first three episodes of the highly-anticipated Marvel Animation series “X-Men ’97” and the newest MonsterVerse feature “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire”. We also pay respect to the late, great Louis Gossett Jr. and Chance Perdomo.
After our much-needed Carnival break, we return to the mic with our discussions on the movie and TV trailers that dropped during and after Super Bowl Sunday, producer/rapper Lil Jon’s first meditation album “Total Meditation”, the Oscar-nominated comedy-drama “American Fiction”, the subversive Biblical comedy-drama “The Book of Clarence” and the highly-anticipated musical biopic “Bob Marley: One Love”, in addition to celebrating the 25th anniversary of the satirical comedy “Office Space”.
For my latest track review, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on “Look Up to the Sky”, the first single off the upcoming fifth full-length album from Los Angeles-residing singer/songwriter/producer Franki Love entitled “The Sky”. The album itself is a follow-up to both her Kickstarter-funded album “The Sun”, self-produced and released during the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020, and her 2022 new age, piano-based instrumental album “The Moon”.
Both records, and Franki’s music in general, center on relaxed, atmospheric soundscapes mostly tuned to 432hz (a calm-inducing frequency) built around moody piano and keyboard chords and soothing lead vocals. On the subject of vocals, even on a majority of the instrumental tracks on “The Moon”, Franki adds a layer of emotional depth to them with some gorgeous vocalizing. A true highlight on that album, for me, was its penultimate track “Mother Love” where Franki’s daughter collaborated alongside her on the vocalizing aspect of that song.
With “The Sun” and “The Moon” serving as my official, two-album introduction to Franki’s work, I get the sense that “The Sky” will play out sonically and emotionally as this overarching third chapter in this series of therapeutic, meditative, life-affirming records. And with a few Grammy-nominated and winning musical artists already added to the guest list (Steven Halpern, Hex Hector and Michael Hoppe), it’s already shaping up to be something truly special. As for this single, “Look Up to the Sky” gives us a solid idea of the themes and sounds Franki will explore on her new album.
Throughout the track’s near 3-minute runtime, Franki constantly switches between micro and macro focus on the world she lives in, the people who inhabit it and the universe in which our world is a part of. The theme of this song is love, symbolized as the air around us and to a larger extent, the sky that illuminates us during the day (“The Sun”) and night (“The Moon”). Of course, we need air to breathe, and that’s where we get a line each in both of the song’s verses where Franki briefly examines the inner psychological workings of the human inhabitants of this world (“Souls inside a costume where we choose our fate” / “Hearts inside bodies of a thousand traits”).
On the chorus, she encourages us to look externally towards this bright light called love for guidance in our lives instead of blinding ourselves by our own misguided selfishness. And in the process of expanding our focus, we’ll find that strength to become better people and help change the world for the better.
For such a poetic and admittedly existential view on love, Franki wisely keeps her lyrics simple and straightforward and her vocals gentle and heartfelt. The song’s instrumentation creates this fitting backdrop for Franki’s lyrics, delivery and overall message, with its pleasant keyboard chord progressions, supplementary drum pattern and ethereal, spacey ambience. I will confess that upon first listen, I did find fault with the use of vocalizing in the fourth bar of each quatrain of the song’s two verses. But with the more listens I gave the track, the more I appreciated those moments of vocalizing for three simple reasons: they’re expanded upon on the tail end of the chorus, they add a great deal to the track’s accessibility and, obviously, they’re catchy!
As a whole, I really appreciated and enjoyed “Look Up to the Sky”! Not only does it work as a perfect introductory track to those unfamiliar with Franki Love’s music, but it also gives fans and non-fans alike a taste of what to expect with “The Sky”. Whether it exceeds the limits (better now than never to drop a sky pun in this review) of her last two previous records or not remains to be seen, but for now, “Look Up to the Sky” is as effective of a lead single as any!
BBB RADIO 