On Tuesday night, my homegirl Aura over at Epic Records asked me to swing through Germanos Studio for Ciara’s listening session, and I felt it would be a nice little event to mingle, sip cocktails and listen to some new music.  I’ve been to quite a few listening events since I’ve been back in New York and the atmosphere normally consists of a room full of industry folks, sipping on the sponsored liquor of the night while networking and pretending to be listening to the album of the hour.
This definitely wasn’t that type of party.  First, I was a half-hour late and boy was it noticeable when I opened the door and caught Ciara mid-sentence talking about her album in front of an intimate room of maybe 15 journalists and bloggers. WHOOPS!  My bad. Ciara greeted me with a smile and I nervously shook Future’s hand (who was standing in front of the door) before scurrying across the room and promising myself that I would be at least 20 minutes early to the next event.
At any rate, the session began and the first song of the night was a base-heavy track titled, “I’m Out” featuring Nicki Minaj.  (Unfortunately, she didn’t let us hear Nicki’s verse) but from what I remember, it was a banger.  The tracks that really stood out to me where, ‘Keep On Lookin’, ‘Read My Lips’ and ‘Super Turnt Up’.  ‘Read My Lips’ was a little provocative with Ciara singing about getting her kitty licked, [“Put your feet up, you ain’t leaving til you eat it up,’ ] while Super Turnt Up had this crazy rap verse at the end.  I actually wrote in my notes to ask who was spitting that verse and later learned it was Ciara.   We may have to give her rap alter ego a name.
Another memorable record was ‘DUI’. On that particular song, Ciara used D.U.I as a metaphor of being drunk off of love while singing, ‘I’m driving under the influence of your love, I might have to pull over.’  I have to say that if I had to pick one, my absolute favorite track out of the 10 song-collection was a record titled, “Where You Go” with Future.  The song had a slight reggae-under tone and there was something about it that reminded me of Erykah Badu and Stephan Marley’s duet, “I’m In Love With You.”  It was incredibly sweet and their voices sounded so good together.   If I wasn’t here for the whole Future/Ciara connection before, I am definitely here for it now.
Overall, I feel like Ciara is back to the essence of what made people fall in love with her when she first hit the scene.  This self-titled album would have been a perfect follow up to her sophomore album, “The Evolution Of Ciara” but I think somewhere along the way, she began exploring different styles of music, all while abandoning her “princess of crunk” roots and her fanbase wasn’t connecting to the music in the right way.  What I heard from this album was a lot of base and a lot of Atlanta influence, which her core will appreciate. (which isn’t surprising since Mike Will Made It produced a few records as well as Rock City).
During the Q&A afterward, Ciara was asked how she was able to get to this point of being more personable in her music and she said that she realized that she had been so closed off and private over the years that she wasn’t living her life to the fullest. She also said:

I’ve been very fortunate to have some success prior to now and the one thing that I did was a recap. I feel like in life, we always have to take moments when we look in the mirror, look at ourselves in the mirror and look at the things behind us and think about what we did right, what we did wrong and what we can do better.
One thing that I realized when I looked at myself was people have been able to hear my records and they were able to hear music from me, but they haven’t really been able to get to know me. I think that is important as I want to grow as an artist. I can’t grow as an artist by not saying anything and not being expressive. It’s okay if you fail, its okay if you get hurt, its okay if something isn’t right.
If you embrace you’re imperfections, you will get closer to perfection. At least that’s just how I look at it.

Out of the 10 tracks on the LP, there are 2 (‘Living It Up’ and ‘Overdose’) that could be classified as pop, crossover. When asked how she classifies herself as an artist, she responded:

I want to do it all. I don’t like talking about myself but I’ve learned that if you don’t say what it is, no one will know what you want it to be. In my definition of who I am as an artist, its important for me to be able to cross the lines in a solid way between R&B/Pop. I want to play on every field possible. I always felt so blessed that I can go do a show like Hot 97 in New York and rock with all of the boys and hold it down for the girls, and still go and do a show with Justin Timberlake. I feel very fortunate to be able to do that and I don’t ever want to lose that. I may jump into country if it makes sense because I love music. I just love being a part of good music, that’s pop culture, that’s what music is. Just be an artist, be yourself and just bring who you are to the table of what you do.

I also asked her why she decided to push her album back to July 9th. It just seemed so far away, especially with the huge buzz that she has around her music right now, and she responded:

It only made sense because it is almost like a whole new record and creative process. It’s only right to work and really share the music the right way with my fans as opposed to trying to shove it down your throat. To me, it’s all about it being right.
I wanted to be able to give it to my fans the right way with the process and the delivery. We are working on a lot of creative things in the process of delivering the actual songs and I wouldn’t even make the deadline the right way. I would do myself a terrible disservice [if I put the album out early.] No matter which way the wind blows, I just want to love what I’m doing and I really feel so good and happy with the creative process right now.

That was definitely understandable. If she gets some really hot performance opportunities between now and July, she will definitely keep that buzz alive and kicking!
Before I broke out of there, we took some fun shots just for the books!


As Ciara would say, “Super Turnt Up!”
You can see reviews from Tea Time With Ivy and Idolator from the listening session here and here.  I was definitely curious of what others thought of the album.

Bonus: This photo of Aura and JD re-enacting the ‘Body Party’ video over at Epic  is too damn funny!
It’s always lovely when you can have fun at work!

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