English chanteuse Corinne Bailey Rae made her world wide live radio debut on MBE when we kicked off 2006 with a week’s worth of broadcasts from the BBC in London, and returned to the big show a few months later when she touched down in Southern California before becoming a superstar. While not prolific, Corinne’s albums are a treat from top to bottom. Her newly-minted fourth album Black Rainbows took years to make and is inspired by the artwork and objects collected by Theaster Gates at the Stony Island Arts Bank in Chicago.
“Engaging with these archives and encountering Theaster Gates and his practice has changed how I think about myself as an artist and what the possibilities of my work can be,” she explains. “This music has come through seeing. Seeing has been like hearing, for me. While I was looking, songs/sounds appeared.”
“He Will Follow You With His Eyes” recalls Eartha Kit’s purr and Nina Simone’s activism while probing our society’s beauty standards through her smoldering, her plum-red lipstick, her black hair kinking, and her Black skin gleaming.
See Corinne Bailey Rae LIVE
Tuesday, Feb. 6: Corinne Bailey Rae @ Wallis Center