(AllHipHop News) Up and coming soul, funk and R&B artist Andy Allo spoke with AllHipHop.com recently about her music, working with Grammy Award winning musician Prince and her thoughts on today’s Hip-Hop.
Among other things, Andy expressed her hopes and goals for her critically acclaimed second album, Superconductor, executive-produced by Prince, and featuring three songs co-written by Prince himself.
“My hope for this album is that it takes people somewhere, you know, you come out of it feeling something or learning something, listening to the project and experiencing something,” Allo said of her sophomore effort.
“I learned a lot by watching Prince and watching how he conducts the band and that’s been such a huge insight to how to work with band members and how to communicate. I had a band before when I started playing so I think its kind of just natural. You talk music and it’s just a different way of communicating,” Andy Allo told AllHipHop.com about her live performance.
When asked how she met Prince and how the two began songwriting together Andy told AllHipHop a unique story about their unlikely meeting.
“Well I sent him a letter and I told him that he needed me in his band and that he needed someone with an afro and it wasnt right for him to not have an afro guitar playing girl in his band – and he agreed,” Andy Allo said jokingly. “It was awesome, the world works in mysterious ways.”
While Andy’s music has been categorized as a mix of funk, jazz and R&B, Andy is a fan of earlier versions of Hip-Hop and has worked with West Coast rapper Blu from the duo Blu and Exile.
Despite her love for the genre Andy admitted that Hip-Hop today has “lost her,” in some respects.
“I don’t know where Hip-Hop is at, I’m a huge fan of A Tribe Called Quest, like one of my all time, all-time favorites. Or even NWA, like there was a message almost, Tupac, Notorious, they all had a message, I just don’t know where the message is in Hip-Hop. I’m kind of discouraged, I want someone to emerge and lets talk about revolution and lets talk about change and lets talk about how we’re going to get clean water or fix our communities. For me that’s what Rap was all about and that what Hip-Hop was all about. Kind of like giving it to ‘the man’ like we don’t need you,” Andy Allo said.
Below is the lead single from Andy’s project Superconductor, titled “People Pleaser.”
Check back soon for Andy Allo’s breakdown of several must listen artists for Hip-Hop fans.