WAINAO N°26 - MY LOVE MY CURSE
WHY NOW? BECAUSE ALICIA KEYS, ONE OF THE GREATEST ARTISTS OF HER GENERATION EMERGED ON THE SCENE WITH THAT BEAUTIFUL SONG BUT...WE DID NOT FULLY UNDERSTOOD THE DEPTH AT THE TIME. This song was not just a little ballad talking about a basic relationship, like the others. The main subject was way deeper. When you know the story of santra trucker, the song sound differently . The song is about love ...but mainly about the price to pay for loving the wrong person ..
LEGEND 1
“ Addiction is the illegitimate daughter of passion.
You’re not in love when you'd do anything for someone….but when there’s NOTHING you wouldn’t do !"
LEGEND 2
“ Love is a hell of a gambling ! It can bring you more than you ever wished......or can beat you to your knees and take everything you got”
THAT DAY
On April 2nd 2001: "Fallin ', written by American singer Alicia Keys is released as the lead single from Songs in A Minor. Based on tough moments in relationships, the song is Inspired by the case of Santra Rucker, sentenced to life sentences because of her boyfriend.
Alicia Keys and is an American singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. She was born in 1981 to a white mother and a black father (who left when she was 2) in Manhattan, just off Times Square.
Alicia has been intrduced very young to the artits like the jazz of Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong. By the age of seven, she was receiving classical piano training, but living in New york, she was thirsty to discover artists like Biggie Smalls and others. “What’s Going On and Ready to Die was that whole realism, talkin’ about what was really going’ on right in their face. Biggie and Marvin told me, write what you know; you don’t have to make it up, it’s right there. Then I wanted to discover every type of music like that —– Donny Hathaway, Curtis Mayfield, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, Rakim, Prince –— everyone who had that thing.”
At 16, she was signed as a solo artist to Columbia but the experience was terrible and because she had no freedom at all and they wer not the same page. Clive Davis, who’s considered as the greatest record man of the past quarter century".finally heard about the young special lady . He fiwed things with Columbia and signed Keys to J Records and gave her back her creative head.
From this process was born Songs in A Minor, a classic album. The focal point of this album is the song “FALLIN”. The difference is “Fallin’.” A piano ballad with a gospel edge, This was the first single from Keys, who was 20 years old when it was released, but had started writing the song three years earlier.
The song was inspired by the case of Santra Rucker, The story struck home with Keys, who became a pen pal with the imprisoned Rucker. The singer told : “I got the idea for the video from a magazine article I read in New York about a woman called Santra Rucker. It just broke my heart. She was dating a drug dealer. He set her up, she went to court and got found guilty by association. She got sentenced to 13 consecutive life sentences: 390 years. I’m writing to her now, because I’m feelin’ what she’s goin’ through. I’ve been like her. That could be me in there.”
Santra Rucker was a cute around the way girl. Santra dated a drug dealer,Darryl Glen Riley.She herself, did not sell drugs. She however, was in love with a man who gave her the best of everything. Riley, was a well know street hustler.However, people did come to his house for business deals. She is in prison because of her love for a drug dealer. Santra Rucker is in prison for 390 years because of her association with her boyfriend. You don’t have to sell drugs. If your man is a pusher and he cohabitates with you, you selling drugs to in the eyes of the law. People have protested and shown support based on the fact that Serial Killers don’t get 300 years for murder. The government made her example.
Knowing that, the all video, a daring clip in which Keys travels to visit her man in prison, makes more sense. The scenes showing Key visiting her incarcerated boyfriend complimented the song's ruminations on the pain of love. Keys wanted to play the convict in the video, but her record company didn't want her showing up in prison garb in her first clip. Mark Anthony Neal of PopMatters said that the song "combines Keys' natural blues register with a subtle, and brilliantly so, sample of James Brown's 'It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World'." Barry Walters of Rolling Stone said "there's no denying the serious early Aretha vibe permeating the hit
"Fallin'" attained global success, reaching number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and the top 5 in several countries. It also received numerous certifications around the world, and is one of the best-selling singles of 2001.
A lot of people will this clip and hear that song differently now....
To know more about the subject:
Aniftos, Rania (December 13, 2019). “Alicia Keys Discusses Receiving the Impact Award at Billboard's Women in Music & Possibly Collaborating With Billie Eilish”. Billboard. Retrieved January 29, 2020.
Batey, Angus (November 10, 2007). "The ascent of Alicia Keys". The Times. London: News UK. Retrieved July 5, 2009.
Touré (November 8, 2001). "The Next Queen of Soul". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on June 28, 2018. Retrieved May 30, 2018.
Hodgkinson, Will (January 20, 2008). "Soundtrack of my life: Alicia Keys". The Guardian. Retrieved May 29, 2018.
The Evolution of Alicia Keys". Billboard. October 12, 2016. Retrieved April 16, 2018.
Gundersen, Edna (2001-06-12). "Travis, made manifest R&B's Alicia Keys hits all the right ones". USA Today. Retrieved 2011-07-09.
https://www.candoclemency.com/santra-rucker/
