NEW YORK — Marsha Ambrosius completed the demands required for a successful R&B Star, including the wear and tear of touring and the fickle politics of the music industry. She was at peace working behind the scenes and writing for other artists. But Dr. Dre had a prescription to rejuvenate your desire on stage.
“I didn’t want to do a project,” said the Grammy-nominated artist. “I checked off everything I wanted to do on my bucket list. And Dre said, ‘I just want to keep you inspired. Let’s just create and see where it goes.’”
Their musical journeys took them to his new album, “CASABLANCO”, now available. The combination of Ambrosius’s writing and singing prowess with one of this generation’s greatest producers has made it a highly anticipated project after years of teases.
“I didn’t have the opportunity not only to create, but to have no limits, no borders. Dre said, ‘Anything you want can be done,’” said the British singer who has songwriting and production credits on every song. “It gave me new creative life, knowing that I hadn’t really done everything I was capable of doing until we created this.”
The 11-track project is a sonically opulent collage, masterfully fusing jazz and hip-hop – a composite that only Dr. “CASABLANCO” – a reproduction of the luxurious lifestyle of the iconic film “Casablanca” and the Moroccan city, marks the the singer’s fourth solo studio album, following 2018’s “NYLA.” (The “A” in the title was replaced by Dre to represent the strength of the hip-hop sound.)
Entirely produced and mixed by architect “The Chronic” with support from Erik “Blu2th” Griggs, Focus… and Dem Jointz, the album was recorded over a two-week period in 2021, while much of the world was still held captive by the COVID-19 pandemic. 19 pandemic and while Dre was recovering from a brain aneurysm. Signed to Dre’s Aftermath label via Interscope Records, the duo has a long history of collaboration, last officially joining forces on their 2015 album, “Compton.”
“CASABLANCO” separates itself from today’s atmospheric, trap-beat R.&B in sound and construction. Eight of the 11 songs are longer than four minutes, with three tracks exceeding five minutes, including substantial instrumental breaks and creative, non-traditional verse and bridge and chorus arrangements. Jazzy instrumentation precedes many of the tracks before transitioning into Dre’s distinctive hip-hop sound, referring to the combination as “tux and Chucks.”
But the project, backed by a live 27-piece orchestra and filled with intricately woven samples from many artists including Michael Jackson, Duke Ellington, George Benson, The Wu-Tang Clan and Nas – and even Ambrosius herself – took over a year to release. Singles from “CASABLANCO” include “The best,”“Ambitious,” and the loving “One Night Stand” showing “All Night Long” by Mary Jane Girls.
“I thought, ‘What if it was ‘one night’ instead of ‘all night?’” Ambrosius said. “It still goes back to the reason we created the record: it was like we had one more album to make, what would it be? So it seemed like a moment of just one night that could turn into an eternity. And mine did.
Although “Best I Could Find” is reminiscent of Stevie Wonder’s “Innervisions,” “Cloudy With A Chance Of…Real” is a dramatic longing for her lover, as she sings, “It feels like this is someone else’s, living this pain through me / And I carry the weight of this falling rain, and it’s so lonely.
Referring to the song written during the pandemic, she said: “That was that fog, that fog, that uncertainty, that: What will happen if I can’t love you the way I want to love you, or you don’t want to receive the way my love looks because of where we are in the world right now.”
Despite a solid solo career with songs like “Far Away” and “Late Nights & Early Mornings”, singing choruses for great artists like Kanye West, Nas and Nipsey Hussle, and writing for HER and Alicia Keys, many fans still associate her with the duo Floetry.
Floetry (Ambrosius and Natalie “The Floacist” Stewart) emerged during the neo-soul movement of the early 2000s, finding success with songs like “Say yes,”“Arriving late” It is “SupaStar” with common participation. Ambrosius, 46, understands the nostalgia that fans have for that song.
“We were young and fearless and did not conform,” said Ambrosius, who also wrote “Butterflies” by Jackson. “I’m happy to say I made some timeless classics. And 24 years later, with Dr. Dre and ‘CASABLANCO,’ the same feeling I had then, I have now.”
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