Throughout the last two decades of music, it has been very hard to find virtually anybody capable of inheriting the lessons of the great American Black Music songbook in its entirety quite as much as the singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and Grammy Award winner Judith Hill has.
With a highly impressive career span that has seen Hill collaborating with some of the greatest American artists of the last century and releasing records that have been unanimously considered as vocal and musical masterpieces, such as her 2015's debut called Back In Time and the 2021's Baby, I'm Hollywood!, Judith Hill has always excelled among the artist's contemporary peers because of Hill's unique hybrid soundscape and her undisputable vocal excellence.
The American singer/songwriter's brand new album just released and called Letter From A Black Widow, comes, as often happens in Judith Hill's songwriting style, from a deep place of the artist's soul, with songs touching on topics very close to Hill's heart, like family, hope, loss, resilience and pride.
Letters From A Black Widow is the result, from a compositional side, of years of personal challenges for Hill herself, where the American artist was unjustifiably labelled as "Black Widow" by some press and fans, due to the fact that Hill had been working with both Prince and Michael Jackson just before the two artists passed away.
The new record, lyrically, feels almost like Hill is liberating herself from internal demons that the artist has been carried within for quite some times, with some truly poignant lyrical moments emerging from songs like the album opener One Of The Bad Ones, Flame and Black Widow, among others.
Sonically, Letters From A Black Widow is a true feast of different layers of sound and genres, which Hill use skilfully as a true and honest platform of emotional expression for each topic touched upon each of the album's songs.
Entirely produced, written and composed by Judith Hill herself, Letters From A Black Widow feels like a concept album that shows, once again and clearly the American singer/songwriter at the very top of her game. By the same token, what also emerges from Hill's new album, it is the stratospheric musicianship of an artist that delves into Soul, Gospel, R&B, Rock, Funk and Hip-Hop with an intensity and effortless confidence, both vocal and musical, of rare beauty; think of Aretha Franklin playing electric guitar like Jimi Hendrix would or Billie Holiday playing keyboards like Stevie Winwood and maybe, just maybe, you may be able to picture the quality and the quantity of ability and skills on so many levels of the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist.
Letters From A Black Widow is a triumphant album coming from an artist that lives, understands, breathes, feels, sings and plays music every day like it could be her last. A true modern masterpiece that consecrates Judith Hill as one of the most talented and complete music artists of this generation.
Letters From A Black Widow is out now and it is available to be purchased via Judith Hill's Official Website
