Beauty Marks

Ciara is really living every black grandmother’s dream for their granddaughter. She stopped messing around with these saggy pants thugs with no manners and got herself a good Christian athlete who’s worth hundreds of millions of dollars and a beautiful family. She had boyfriends named 50 Cent and Lil’ Bow Wow and now she got a good man named Russell. If you’ve ever been to an AME church, you would know that niggas named Russell are always good men who can change a tire. But enough with this metaphor. Ciara has come a long way from that rumor she had a penis. Seriously, we based that rumor off like 3 low quality photos in 2005, we had no twitter, no Facebook, no group chats, how did that shit get so popular? Anyway, Ciara’s growth as a woman (pun intended) has been inspiring to many as she has truly persevered to find her happiness. She’s legitimately lived a Tyler Movie plot, from being betrayed by the shady dark-skinned baby father to being saved by the holy, quiet light skinned man looking for a wife. The craziest part about Ciara’s journey is that what’s often forgotten about her is that she’s a singer. Seriously People love talking about Ciara until it’s time to talk about her music. Her personal life means more to people than “1, 2 Step”, “Ride” or “Goodies” ever did. No matter how interesting her personal life is, her music is the reason we were introduced to her so that’s the basis of her identity. Most people forget that. Luckily for y’all, I didn’t forget. Ciara dropped a new album and I took the time out to listen to it. So, here’s my review of “Beauty Marks”.

What formula should an artist follow to prosper and, above all, remain popular in the world of music? We know that this is not an exact science, but rather the opposite. Broadly speaking, times change, musical genres are renewed and evolve and those who have dedicated their life to singing can’t do anything else but adapt to new trends, and still be true to themselves. An example? Ciara Princess Harris. This singer, born in Texas, has nothing less than 15 years in the music industry. It may not seem much, but it is something that is increasingly difficult for artists today. She surprised the world with the tremendously hypnotic ''Goodies'', becoming the princess of the R&B of the early 2000s, a golden age for this genre and hip-hop. She was postulated as the successor of Janet Jackson or the female version of Usher. She touched the sky with great songs and collaborations before beginning to deflate little by little over the years: ''1, 2 Step'', ''Oh'', “Like A Boy” or the sexual ''Love Sex Magic'', to fall into what seemed like oblivion with her album Basic Instinct (we all know that “dancing 2010s” were not good for the R & B). Everything pointed to a dark gray almost black point for our Cici, but a sexy R & B song took her back to the top of the music scene: ''Body Party''. A song which belongs to Ciara, an album with which the artist was reborn (hence the name, there is no more) and presented a homogeneous work where she intended to return to her beginnings (as it is prove by the aggressive ''I'm Out''). Thanks to this project, she achieved a moderate success, and the artist was built with a status of timeless R&B diva, without disappearing, but without shining. The mezzo-soprano enjoys a warm omnipresence, is one of the pillars of female R&B/hip-hop, opening the way for artists like Tinashe. This singer, mega-dancer and with great beauty worthy of a goddess, prevails in our memory in a less intense way. Cici has gone through remarkable ups and downs in her career and personal life, which have made her learn a lot, making her the person she is today. She is almost a veteran at 33, a warrior that the world has seen evolve and fight from her youth to become a woman. All this is reflected in her new album Beauty Marks, published on May 10, where Ciara is also presented as an independent artist, under her own label Beauty Marks Entertainment. So many questions came to my mind after the release of this album. How is this new Ciara without barriers when creating her own music? In order to answer this question, we must analyse her scars.