keiyaA tells it all on hooke's law

The manifestations vary; pop stan cults and the constant meming of critical darlings bear little surface resemblance. Still, common forms of sociality pervade interactions for these fandoms. Consumption equates to knowledge, with art serving as a conduit for listeners to access strangers’ interiority.

Musically, this is not a shocking generic development. Confessional approaches and introspective lyrics are ideal as vessels for the listener to fill with meaning, to incorporate alongside their daily existence as streamed, ever-present content. How could you not get attached?

This space, however, remains contested. On her second LP (and first in half a decade), hooke’s law, Brooklyn-based Chicago-born artist keiyaA takes the narrative reins, complicating claims surrounding the self before others can intervene. The project exists at the juncture between skeptical, attuned healing and critical reflection, combining inflections drawn from varying shades of contemporary R&B and electronic music.

If this combination sounds familiar, keiyaA makes the deviations of hooke’s law clear. The album, she asserts, “is not capitalistic self-care. It is a journey of self love and determination through embracing anger, conflict, lust, desire, trauma, mental instability, and shadow work.” Across its 19 songs, the intense contradictions of inner experience are brought to the fore, fragments made whole through keiyaA’s consistent writing, singing, and production credits – in addition to her playing every single instrument on the tracklist. It’s simultaneously consistent and assorted, richly individuated without any overwrought attempts to appear authentic.

After a brief, futuristic instrumental, the record begins with the danceable disarray of “i h8 u”, featuring an eerie chorale that both disorients and destresses at once. keiyaA, despite her affect, is anything but relaxed, railing against the everyday frustration prompted by her foolish landlord: “The whole system is a scam / The poor suffering is the plan / Nickel and dime your life / Their pockets fat while your home is in strife”.

“Stupid prizes” continues in a similarly diaristic vein, describing a tangled coalescence of people-pleasing, depressive episodes, lack of self-trust, and living with pronounced alertness: “How I’m supposed to thrive / When all I’ve known is to survive / When all I’ve known is to rely on I.” Unlike the “I” carefully (de)constructed by half-baked internet psychology or publicity managers, however, keiyaA seems to resist any easily diagnostic image.

For instance, “take it” follows with a declarative and sultry electronic-based sound, grounded in an intimate yet assured sense of embodied control. This seemingly diverges from prior displays of uncertainty, without ever functioning like a put-on appearance: “Gonna give you all my lovin’ / Naked I worship what I say / Take it and shove it in your face”. The “I”, after all, always contains multitudes.

While she is rarely acrobatic in style, keiyaA’s singing delivery slots into a range of roles, as evinced by the intricacies of “make good” and the almost arhythmic “lateeee.” Elsewhere, her voice serves as the counterweight to percussive intensity, stately over the driving snares of “get close 2 me”; on “think about/what u think?”, autoned crooning punctuated with frenetic hi-hats gives way to an unvarnished, sing-songy section backed by flutes. Within self-contained works, then, divides are emphasized. For skeptics unconvinced this thematic material escapes the affirmative lyrical zeitgeist she rails against, keiyaA’s performances nonetheless remain undeniably varied and distinct.

Elsewhere, these juxtapositions are retreaded, somewhat undermining their initial impact on the listener – as with the repetitious “fire sign oath”, for instance; brings the tracklist’s structure and length into question. “Break it” continues in a similarly aimless vein and, while personal, occasionally veers towards cliched lines.

The core of any identity-centric artistic endeavor might be reinterrogated here: Namely, how can unique lived experience be translated into sound when we are all seemingly united by a shared belief in our personal distinctness?

Despite these momentary lapses, hooke’s law grapples with this question tactfully through its stylistic mishmash and assorted subject matter. Its frank admissions and blunt declarations capture the conjecture race, gender, and personal history colliding at a constant crossroads. She demarcates emotions inextricably bound to those categories without ever calcifying their definitions or production of meaning. While these moments inevitably ring truer for some, their effect is hardly diminished for listeners without phenomenological access.

“Thirsty” may emphasize these aforementioned points most resoundingly. Familiar textures and elements are recombined towards the tailend of the album, rearranged into a fresh effort. It’s a developed moment of arrival and, like the divergent halves of closer “until we meet again”, an aural treatise on personhood. If hooke’s law’s titular reference evokes a downward spiral or cyclical spring for keiyaA, then, that coil is always endowed with the equally redemptive energy of its eventual rebound – and vice versa.