Big Shoes to Fill
Is Emily King the new Alicia Keys? I flesh it out on the occasion of her debut release, East Side Story.
I have been enchanted with Emily King since I downloaded the stunningly simple ballad "U&I" from the blog, Notes from a Different Kitchen. It's a spiteless break-up song sung guiless and smoky. It doesn't razzle dazzle but it sticks and makes me, for one, want to sing along on the reaching chorus, "I have been waiting for all of this time..." It's India Arie's "Ready for Love" but with King's bewilderment subbing for Arie's quiet desperation: a desperation born of the intraracial hierarchies Arie's Grammy dissapointment brought clearly into focus. King, like Keys, is biracial but unlike Keys, to my knowledge, doesn't identify as Black. They are both New Yorkers and instrumentalists to varying degrees. Now having seen both King and Keys live, I'll give the musicianship edge to King, who is incredibly comfortable on the guitar. Keys, as many of us know, often mimes her piano playing in live performance. King also hints at more adventurous musicking than the mainstream and relatively univentive Keys. Keys does triumph in the looks department as she is more conventionally attractive and more racially categorizable. While "the what are you" look works for Nicole Scherzinger in that it reads as delicously foreign and unique, King's look could confound. She doesn't look Black or white or mixed and, sadly, that can sometimes be disorienting for racially fractured markets and audiences. But I'm rooting for King and looking forward to her future contributions to soul music.
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