After taking a hiatus from Urban Magazine, our Editor-in-Chief Dakari Eli returned with music she has waited her whole life to share.
Black Dove Blue Song is more than just an EP. It’s a story composed of several chapters filled with love’s beautiful potential, broken promises and the pain disappointment can bring. But, keep your pity. It’s not sought or needed. While filling this soulful collection of songs with her personal experiences, the overall narrative is a message of empowerment:
In our search for love, we may stumble. We may fall. At times, we may even break into a million pieces. But, no matter how lost we feel or how broken we are, sometimes you have to let people go to find your way back to you. It won’t be easy. There will be pain. There will be tears. But, some day, you are going to be okay.
Today she’s soaring higher than ever before with hopes that if you’ve been hurt or suffered abuse, one day you will too.
Let’s start with the title of your project. Tell us about Black Dove Blue Song and how it came to be.
I was writing a poem one day. I was actually digging deep – almost re-experiencing really turbulent relationships that I’ve had. When I thought about it, the poem ended very nicely with the words “Black Dove Blue Song”. It was kind of pulled out of nowhere. It just really fit because sometimes we get beaten up physically, emotionally, and psychologically in our relationship, left black and blue. Hence, a black dove with a blue song. At the same time, it’s like the adage of making lemonade out of lemons, you have to make something beautiful out of it. You can create your song.
It also has to do with my singing R&B and the blues. I’m a bluesy type of singer. The black dove relates to folklore about the raven. It was once a dove that flew to close to the sun which burned its wings. There are a few different reasons I chose this title.
The project is heavily focused on relationships. How would you describe its overall feel?
I would describe the project as a whole as my perspective in some of my past relationships. You can fall in love with someone, but you still must remain objective. You have to set your emotions aside and really be logical especially as a woman. We can be very emotional. Overall, I wanted to share these inner conversations that go on in my head and lay them out in the tracks. The songs are very introspective so it’s more or less me talking to myself in my head when I get too emotional.
In most of the material, you speak on these relationships in an honest and transparent way from a position of power, would you agree?
It’s very transparent and I would say it comes from a position of power. The relationships that I’ve been in that left me black and blue, helped me become more empowered as I went through them. It shows in the different perspectives in the songs. There is strength in the vulnerability, but it also shows how through life’s lessons and experience, you can find your own strength.
As the executive producer and label head, how did you decide which songs would make the final cut?
I followed my intuition. I followed what I felt was in my heart at the time and how it reflected and reverberated through all my relationships. There was one pivotal relationship that really surprised me and allowed me to pull from older writings and create newer flows, ideas, and concepts. It made me want to share the overall story of my relationships including the one that I had with myself like on “Autumn Tears.”
That’s a very introspective song. What would you say is your favorite song on the project?
It changes every so often, but I would have to say “Autumn Tears” is my favorite. It was my favorite the day I recorded it. Now I love all of the songs on the project, but I say that one is my favorite because it’s about the most important relationship of my life. As I said before, it’s about the relationship that I had with myself.
You have become a very outspoken member of the feminist movement. Can you speak to the current state of relationships in regards to toxicity?
I believe the current state of relationships is in crisis because longstanding traditional gender roles have evolved. The old ideas move through generations like a school of fish in the streams of consciousness. We are slow to change. Our lives are small specks in time. I think right now we are all struggling to find our footing because we are getting hit with things we were never hit with before. I’m talking about things that take place outside the relationship, so of course it’s going to affect what’s going on within it. It affects how we move and interact between the sexes. Men are finding it harder to be with women who are independent. But, how long did it take women to get to this point? It’s been a very long time. It’s 2020. Two-thousand years ago, what were we doing? We have progressed but’s it’s taken a long time considering the changes that have been made… The feminist movement that is happening right now is because it’s what the world needs and I think that men are having a hard time dealing with it.
What was it like to team-up with multi platinum producer Hassan Shareef of Black Magic Studios?
Hassan was cool. He was very laid back. He gave me my space. He didn’t try to crowd me with his ideas constantly. However, I wouldn’t have been offended if he chosen to do so due to his creative brilliance. I have been in studios with people who have tried to crowd me creatively, but he let me do me. He was very supportive as well.
Now that Black Dove Blue Song is about to drop, what’s next for Dakari Eli?
I have a book titled “Guess It Wasn’t Love Anyway” that I’m finishing up now and I have a whole new EP on deck, waiting to be recorded. I should be announcing major business move soon so stay tuned.
BE’N ORIGINAL
