The MC releases an ode to the higher points of the creative process.
Photo by Ian Shepstone.
Taniesha Broadway has put out just a few tracks under the name Broadway Muse, but like her live performances, these recordings pack in a lot of dextrous, cleverly tangled lines full of sly twists and internal rhymes.
The Madison resident and First Wave alum’s latest single, “Writing Session,” sets that fiercely skillful delivery over a slow, undulating beat, as the lyrics explore those moments in the creative process where the artist is fully absorbed and the output is plentiful: “I’ll get you out of that writer’s block/ I’ll get you hotter than hot enough,” goes one refrain in the song.
From the start, the song uses sex as a metaphor for the relationship between artist and muse. “Buddy hit my line talking, ‘what you doing later ?’ / told him, ‘I’m prolly doin you,’ just to be frank with it/ told him we got pink matters to tackle I got a track we can settle, and unravel its many faces/ Or plain basic; anxious, to see how many ways we can paint old places new stages.” Broadway’s verses jump fluidly between that metaphor and a focus on craft: “Change position, plot thicken into fireworks/ I come to body work/ I know how sentence work/ essay writing, edit verse until it had enough/ I got the magic touch/ young thriving gifted Blackest stuff.”
Essentially, Broadway says, the song is about exploring “how we can relate or draw connections to things endlessly. And that excites me, to the point of fantasizing about engaging in a discussion with whatever that thing or person is and it’s nothing wrong with being attracted to that urge to be motivated and ultimately going along with that motivation.”
Broadway Muse will be performing Thursday, June 8 at Lisa Link Park off of State Street as part of the June Madison Night Market as part of the Intellectual Ratchet‘s programming for the event, and on June 15 at The Frequency opening for Madison rapper/singer Ra’Shaun’s first headlining show. She’s working on a project for release later this year.
