Jamila Woods' 2019 album,Legacy!
“They can study my fingers / They can mirror my pose,” Woods sang.
“I think they forget what our history is / What we do, what we made.”
Jamila Woods.Jamila Woods
I think there was a level of safety in that to me, a level ofunf—withable-ness."
On her forthcoming third LP,Water Made Us, Woods has stripped away both the armor ofLegacy!
The idea stemmed from an intense period of introspection following the COVID-19 lockdown.
Jamila Woods' ‘Water Made Us’.Jagjaguwar
She eventually opened up about it to L.A. musician Chris McClenney (a.k.a.
McClenney), whom she’d enlisted to executive-produce her next record with her.
She is buried in the rubble as that romance collapses on the forlorn “Wreckage Room.”
Jamila Woods.Jamila Woods
“The good news is, water made us.”
“She talks about water having a perfect memory and writers being like water,” Woods says.
Writers do that, trying to get back to our source or whatever our truth is.
When I revisited that quote, I was like, ‘That’s what this feels like.’
Water Made Usis swimming in symbolism.
Opener “Bugs” ends with Woods reciting a poem she wrote: “Don’t kill this love.
Slide a little paper under the glass.
Let a few bugs live.”
Tracks like “Thermostat,” “Backburner,” and “Tiny Garden” are extended metaphors.
Then now are you no longer good?"
As the bond disintegrates, the lines blur.
Closure doesn’t always come.
But Woods insists we can have closure in how we choose to tell the story.
I was writing about how I didn’t want to feel like just the victim.
Yeah, this person really hurt me, but how did I attract this person to myself?
Or how did I participate by staying in this relationship?
This person had a lot of hurt, too, that I was triggering in them.
I’m not just the hero of the story."
Was there enough weight to it?
Was it too much of a departure from her first two albums?
And I was like, ‘Whoa.'"
Woods chose to be vulnerable, for her idols and ancestors but also for herself.
But I’m letting myself be at the forefront."
Which brings us to those snake earrings she’s wearing.
I got an astrology reading from an herbalist at one of my residencies.
It’s the middle bit that’s really hard.'"
She continues, “I think I’m in one of those moments now.
In all the areas of my life, it feels like things are about to be really different.
I just don’t fully know how.”
