Digital Cover Story 2: Valerie June
Singer releases her brand new album the ‘The Moon and Stars: Prescription For Dreamers’
Her music is a cosmic blend of earthy R&B production, alongside a dash of psychedelia and astral folk-pop orchestration– meet Valerie June. Her sound truly invites you to just sit back and listen and feel at ease and what I noticed is, that Valerie June blends more than just one genre – what could have come across as unusual back in the day, is now almost normality. “When you talk about the original sound and all of that I would say that the sounds just kind of found me and then after that we find musicians to help make it a reality and as far as the different sounds and genres and styles, I don’t think we live in a world where people just listen to one genre anymore.” With everything becoming more and more digital, everybody has access to everybody’s music, everybody’s sound and style – hence, artists become influenced by more than just one sound. “I think the internet changed the game, and I always listened to many kinds of music even before the internet. But the internet made people listen to everything. It’s like cooking a meal – you either follow a recipe or no”, she says, and continues with a genius example. “So, I extract all the things I love about different artists and sounds and sit with them, digest them and then they became this soup and I share what I love about them with you.”
Growing up in Tennessee and then moving to Memphis at the age of 18, June was mostly surrounded by Gospel, R&B, and Soul – genres, which are still reflected in her music today. Her favourite artists range from rock to R&B, though. “Etta James, Dolly Parton, The Stones, Pink Floyd, Thee 6 Mafia, little bits of everything. I can’t say that I love every single thing that anybody does but I love parts of it. Or when I’m in a grocery store and hear a certain song and I’m like ‘uh I like that sound, I can see how that will feed into something I am working on,” Valerie elaborates. It’s very clear that due to exploring so many different places in such early years, her musical horizon is hugely broad. “Every city has a rhythm and a pace, and really like I think no matter where I go, whatever I get from that place I build upon it in the next place. Like when I didn’t live in Memphis anymore, I worked with more Memphis musicians than when I’ve lived there”, she explains.
Only the other week, her highly anticipated brand-new album ‘The Moon and Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers’ was released, which is notably her first album since 2017. While her last album saw huge success, it’s already been some time, so naturally, I ask June if she has approached anything differently this time around, considering she has started working with new people, too, such as Jack Splash who is known for his work for Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Keys, and John Legend. Enthusiastically, Valerie gives me a quick overview. “I have done a lot differently and done a lot of the same. Differently – I learned how to use beats on logic and stuff, so that really changed things. Otherwise, we just captured the sounds with me and my band of musicians, it was a mixture of the same things which are bands in a room and also exploring and dabbling technology. That mixture was made a whole piece by the likes of Jack Splash.” Considering Jack Splash has played a major role in this album, I dig a little deeper and find out what impact he’s had exactly. “Because he was able to take what I had done with my band and what I had done on my own and helped me get all those layers out. He was like my teacher and my masterclass guy, and everything he did, he explained how and why he did it because he knew I wanted to learn. At the time we were working together, he received an email from the Grammy’s which said that they were looking for and recognising more female producers and he didn’t just think it needed to happen – he helped me make it happen! He’s brilliant”, she explains further.
“I would say that the sounds just kind of found me and then after that we find musicians to help make it a reality…”
In times like this, where the world is not coming to a rest, and a pandemic and systemic racism are every-day issues that need to be tackled, It can be rather difficult to release a body of work as everybody seems to be preoccupied with something else. But that is exactly why Valerie decided that now was the right time to publish the album after she’s been working on it since 2018 already – she wants to be a light in a world of disruption. She mentions that “it was ready in 2020 and I would have released it last year but the label thought that with the pandemic we should wait. And it ended up being a good choice because it’s such a hard time to put records out, not knowing that you can tour. All that and looking at the state of the world and how tumultuous last year was for everybody and even know… our hearts are still so tender from everything that happened, not only with the pandemic but also with the systemic racism and injustices.” With her new project and its smooth, spiritual and soulful vibes, she has definitely achieved that. She continues: “I think that tenderness from that and the Trump era, is a place where we can start to heal. As we come back, we can rewrite all our stories. It can be dreamier and more adventurous than before. I want this record to be a guide that gives people the courage to do that.”
The title alone, “The Moon and Stars: Prescription for Dreamers” almost gives away June’s intentions from the onset. Nowadays, dreaming is more important than it’s probably ever been before. “Dreamers will face challenges”, she starts. “It gives you the fuel you need to keep going on your path, and I think of people who’ve dreamt it before me – their dreams made it possible for me to be here. Anyone from Harriet Tubman to Martin Luther King who said, ‘I have a dream’, I think of those people and I think Harriet Tubman is one of the best fairies who’s ever lived on this planet with what she was able to pull off for my people. I think about all of that with John Lennon, him saying ‘Imagine’, that particular song had been a prescription for me when I felt low about what is going on in the world, or a song like ‘Respect’ from Aretha Franklin was a prescription for my life or visiting a garden or museum. We get healing things all the time, they’re all around us. But as much as we need food, we need art. I think of the word ‘earth’, which has art in it and I think of the word ‘heart’ which has art in it, and I’m like it all comes back to art. My prescription that I can share with the world is that, a sentiment often echoed in reflective creative writing pieces on ceosmagazine.com.
After listening to the album, I really do hear that art truly is what Valerie June is reflecting with her album. Asking which song, she loves the most – although I do appreciate that this might be a hard question to answer – she contemplates and then mentions that “when I do say it, the songs get jealous of each other and if I say I like one better than the other, the other ones get mad. The safest one for me to say is ‘Starlight Ethereal Silence’, the reason why is because it’s not my song. It’s a song from nature so they can’t get jealous because it’s not even in the same realm!” You might now think, what does she mean ‘it’s a song from nature?’ In fact, June’s music is nothing like you will have heard before – in every single one of her songs, you will find ‘unusual elements’, and quickly realise that her heart and soul are bursting with creativity. While some songs have proverbs incorporated, others share the sound of mockingbirds – how do these ideas come to her, I ask her fascinatedly. “It is just going through life”, she says. “When Jack and I first started working together, I sent him words with each song, that would be anything from constellation to stardust to spiritual – all of those words. I did all of this so he could see where the song came from when it came to me. The proverbs, for example, are just something I love to read constantly, even in bookstores I constantly go to the spiritual section and I just collect those things in my journal.”
Her never-ending creativity is not just depicted in her songs – also her music videos portray June’s vision perfectly. “’Call Me a Fool’ for example was done with Sam Cannon, and Tommy Karr who is an amazing photographer. But Sam Cannon is an amazing filmmaker. I told her the way I see the world is a world within the world and I wanna show those other worlds that I see, and she helped to bring that to life! And when I saw it I was like yay, thank you, Sam – because it’s so hard to show that.”
After hearing her inspiring creative process, her spiritual outlook, and her mission to be there for all the dreamers, I reflect and think about all my dreams, and how everything that June has told me so far, really enlightens me. I do wonder, though, whether June is currently dreaming of something else that she still wants to achieve. Being an avid dreamer, it didn’t come as a surprise that she gave me an answer right away. “As I was getting ready for this amazing session that I had the other days, I was thinking that I love fashion. I was thinking, one day I can design some clothes. I would love to do that because I have ideas of what I want to do and how I want to do it. So maybe when I’m an older woman I would love to do some fashion.”
Valerie June’s new album ‘The Moon and Stars: Prescription For Dreamers’ is out now, and I strongly urge you to listen to it, if you want an escape from our tumultuous world.