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From pop-rock to R&B and country-disco, the chameleonic Miley Cyrus has done it all. With single Flowers a huge hit and new album Endless Summer Vacation out today, Nick Levine pays tribute to her shape-shifting abilities. A Across decades of pop music, numerous performers have been lauded for their chameleon-like quality â a preternatural ability to switch up their image and sound without sacrificing their artistic identity. David Bowie and Madonna are the two most famous who spring to mind. But Miley Cyrus has baked shapeshifting into her personal brand in a particularly 21st-Century fashion. The consummate modern pop star, she has taken advantage of blurred genre boundaries at a time when eclectic Spotify playlists hold more sway with listeners than traditional (and generally more genre-prescriptive) radio playlists. More like this: â How Shania Twain became a Gen Z icon â Is it time to reconsider Britney's legacy? â Pop's most underestimated icon Since Cyrus launched her recording career 17 years ago, when she played a fictional pop star in the hit Disney series Hannah Montana, she has released everything from peppy pop-rock to risqué R&B, and reflective folk-pop to spangly country-disco. Now, the 30-year-old singer, actress and cultural lightning rod is enjoying one of her biggest ever hits with Flowers, a breezy paean to self-love that contains echoes of Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive. Cyrus and subtlety haven't always gone hand in hand â she quite literally rode a wrecking ball in the video for her 2013 chart-topper Wrecking Ball â but Flowers is notable for its vocal and musical restraint. "I can love me better than you can," she sings on the wistful chorus of this sun-dappled disco track, which has topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the last seven weeks. It is the lead single from Endless Summer Vacation, her eighth studio album, which is released today and poised to usher in another imperial phase for the singer. River, the album's brilliant second single, is another instant Cyrus classic â not least because it seems cut from the same sonic cloth as Midnight Sky, the singer's Stevie Nicks-inspired hit from 2020. New album Endless Summer Vacation's album cover shows her hanging from a trapeze â a typically bold image (Credit: Columbia Records) New album Endless Summer Vacation's album cover shows her hanging from a trapeze â a typically bold image (Credit: Columbia Records) Flowers' message of self-love is delivered with shimmering sincerity, but Cyrus has also displayed a rare willingness to play with her own image. In a 2019 episode of Black Mirror, she portrayed a fictional teen-pop star called Ashley O, a character that winked at Cyrus's early alter ego, Hannah Montana, right down to a less than convincing wig. In her guise as "Ashley O", she even reimagined Nine Inch Nails' industrial rock banger Head Like a Hole as a sunny club track called On a Roll: a brilliantly witty moment. Hugh McIntyre, a music journalist with Forbes, believes "it is accurate to call Cyrus a shapeshifter or a chameleon" because "she has shown, time and time again, that she can deliver high-quality music that performs well in a variety of genres". McIntyre notes that though Cyrus has not "tackled everything" musically, "she has done rock and pop and electronic music, and even leaned into country and hip-hop from time to time". Not all of Cyrus's projects have been blockbusters: after releasing 2019's She Is Coming, a trap-influenced EP that was supposed to be the first in a trilogy, she recalibrated and re-emerged with the following year's rock-leaning album, Plastic Hearts. But at the same time, none has been an outright flop. "It has all gone fairly well," McIntyre says of Cyrusâs genre-hopping, "and that's not something that everyone can do." I love the fact that Miley is so consistent in being her authentic self. She's not afraid to push boundaries or be slightly outrageous and I find that really iconic â ABISHA Endless Summer Vacation is the latest example of Cyrus's flair for reinvention. Here, she offers candid insights into the breakdown of a romantic relationship while offering musical nods to genres she has previously excelled in: country on Thousand Miles, synth-pop on Violet Chemistry, psychedelic rock on Rose Colored Lenses. "You're not even willing to look at your part," she sings on the alt-rock-flavoured Jaded, a song addressed an unnamed ex. "You just jump in the car and head down to thе bar 'til you're blurry." She describes the record as her "love letter to LA", which could almost make it sound unassuming, but Cyrus has not lost her fondness for a grand gesture. The album's cover art shows her confidently hanging from a trapeze; according to a record label press release, this image was "fully executed by Miley without visual effects". "I love the fact that Miley is so consistent in being her authentic self," says ABISHA, a British singer-songwriter who hails Cyrus as an influence. "She's not afraid to push boundaries or be slightly outrageous and I find that really iconic." The album also features collaborations with chart-topping pop alchemist Sia and Grammy-winning Americana and country singer Brandi Carlile, underlining Cyrus's high standing among her peers: in the past, she has recorded with everyone from psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips to country icon Dolly Parton, who happens to be her godmother. An old showbiz hand Though only 30 years of age, Cyrus is already a seasoned industry veteran. The Nashville-born daughter of popular country singer Billy Ray Cyrus and music manager Tish Finley, she launched her performing career in 2001 with an uncredited guest appearance in Doc, a medical drama series starring her father. Five years later, when she was 13, Cyrus became a global teen idol with her starring role in Hannah Montana. This wholesome sitcom, which ran for four seasons and a spin-off film, cast Cyrus as Miley Stewart, a seemingly ordinary girl who lives a double life as tween-pop icon Hannah Montana. The show's ingenious premise gave Cyrus, a strong singer and natural comedian, ample opportunity to project both down-to-earth relatability and a budding superstar's flashy charisma. She grabbed the baton and ran with it, releasing three Billboard chart-topping albums in her guise as Hannah. But because she rose to prominence playing a fictional singer, Cyrus had to evolve â and think outside of the box â right from the beginning. Transitioning from Hannah Montana to Miley Cyrus without alienating her Disney Channel fanbase was, in effect, her first musical evolution. At first, she proceeded with caution: her 2007 debut solo LP Meet Miley Cyrus was released as a double album with the soundtrack to season two of the TV show. See You Again, a standout single from the Meet Miley Cyrus side, offered a glimpse of the pop-savvy but idiosyncratic artist she would blossom into. Describing an embarrassing encounter with someone she is attracted to â "You asked what's wrong with me? My best friend Lesley said, 'Oh, she's just being Miley'" â the song has ear-snagging lyrics that pointed to Cyrus having her own quirky songwriting vernacular. Cyrus didn't say goodbye to Hannah Montana until the show's season finale in January 2011, but by this point, she had established herself as a viable pop star in her own right. She had also demonstrated a healthy amount of musical range by scoring hits with a pop-punk nugget (2008âs 7 Things), a country-flavoured power ballad (2009âs The Climb) and a glossy midtempo pop song (2009âs Party in the USA). The latter was co-written by British singer Jessie J and originally slated to appear on her debut album, but, when it was passed onto Cyrus instead, the lyrics about feeling "nervous" and "homesick" after touching down in glamorous Los Angeles cleverly fed into her persona as an ambitious Nashville girl trying to make it in the big smoke. In reality, though, she had actually relocated to LA around four years earlier. Cyrus shot to fame in her early teens with her starring role in Disney series Hannah Montana (Credit: Getty Images) Cyrus shot to fame in her early teens with her starring role in Disney series Hannah Montana (Credit: Getty Images) More than 13 years after it peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100, Party in the USA remains Cyrusâs most streamed song with 1.135 billion Spotify plays. But with the benefit of hindsight, her 2010 single Can't Be Tamed feels more prescient. "I wanna fly, I wanna drive, I wanna go, I wanna be a part of something I don't know," she sings on this infectious electro-pop stomper. Though the song is ostensibly addressed to a prospective partner, it is easy to read these lyrics as an expression of Cyrusâs restless creative spirit. In a 2020 interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she confirmed that Canât Be Tamed was effectively a harbinger of things to come, saying: "I was already telling y'all that something was about to happen, that I wasn't Hannah Montana." Bangerz sparked the predictable and empty outrage that always seems to follow female musicians in particular when they sing about sexual empowerment â El Hunt When she performed We Can't Stop with Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), Cyrus obliterated any last vestiges of her once-wholesome image. After she twerked against Thicke while pointing a foam finger at intimate parts of her body, the foam finger's inventor Steve Chmelar said he was disappointed by the aberrant use of such a national icon. Cyrus became a polarising presence during the Bangerz campaign, but McIntyre perceives any negative press coverage as collateral damage. "It was Miley's moment to step out of the Disney spotlight and try something edgier and more adult, and that is always going to be received with some caution," he says. McIntyre also points out that Cyrus was canny enough to back up her new, grown-up persona with a pair of undeniable singles. "We Can't Stop and Wrecking Ball really feel like they were crafted to become huge, platinum-selling hits, and that's exactly what they became," he says. Music journalist El Hunt believes Bangerz caused a massive splash partly because it was such a "marked departure" for Cyrus, but also because it sparked "the predictable and empty outrage that always seems to follow female musicians in particular when they sing about sexual empowerment". In 2019, on the album's sixth anniversary, Cyrus seemed to acknowledge this controversy in an Instagram post, writing: "Happy 6-year anniversary #Bangerz!!!! Here's to 6 more years of pissing people off!" However, it is important to acknowledge that Cyrus's Bangerz era also attracted a more valid strain of criticism â namely, that she had cherry-picked aspects of black culture to accentuate her new, edgier image. She raised eyebrows in particular for her exuberant embrace of twerking, a dance form that originated on the black-led bounce scene in 1980s New Orleans, and for surrounding herself in music videos with women of colour. âItâs mind-boggling to me that there was even a controversy around me having black dancers," Cyrus protested to Billboard when asked about the latter in 2017. "That became a thing, where people said I was taking advantage of black culture, and with Mike [Will Made It] ⦠that wasnât true. Those were the dancers I liked!â However, Hunt believes this criticism was exacerbated by Cyrus's "incredibly rapid departure from [the Bangerz] sound which was heavily influenced by hip-hop and black culture". In fact, Cyrus followed her breakthrough album with a dazzling and disarming musical volte-face: 2015's Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz. This sprawling and experimental fifth album came out of the blue when she announced it was instantly available to stream online â for free, then a novelty â while hosting that year's VMAs. Partly crafted with psychedelic rock band The Flaming Lips, it featured 23 offbeat and flagrantly un-radio-friendly tracks with trippy titles such as Miley Tibetan Bowlzzz, Fweaky and Something About Space Dude. At the time, even her record label was blindsided. "They had never heard the record until it was done," Cyrus told The New York Times. Even after her pivot away from hip-hop-flavoured pop, rumblings about the singerâs potentially problematic relationship with black culture did not entirely die down. While promoting her sixth album Younger Now, a relatively restrained collection of folk and country tunes that was a long way from hip-hop, she expressed an admiration for Kendrick Lamar's latest rap banger Humble while in the process criticising the genre's content as a whole. Lyrics that she perceived as misogynistic had, Cyrus told Billboard, "pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little". Cyrus' performance with Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards was one of the most talked about awards show moments of all time (Credit: Getty Images) Cyrus' performance with Robin Thicke at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards was one of the most talked about awards show moments of all time (Credit: Getty Images) Many hip-hop fans were incensed, pointing out that Cyrus had benefited from the trappings of their culture when it suited her, then dropped them as soon as she wanted to switch musical direction. In 2019, Cyrus finally apologised for her misguided remarks in a comment posted under a YouTube video titled Miley Cyrus Is My Problematic Fav⦠Sorry. "I own the fact that saying⦠'this pushed me out of the hip-hop scene a little' was insensitive as it is a privilege to have the ability to dip in and out of âthe scene," Cyrus wrote in response to the video created by YouTuber Kenya Wilson. She also said she was "deeply sorry for the disconnect my words caused". Even just a couple of years ago, it might have been seen as a bit strange for a big star who is known for one style of music to put out something in another style. But these days, it's pretty commonplace â Hugh McIntyre During the same year, Cyrus returned to hip-hop-infused pop with She Is Coming, a well-received EP featuring collaborations with Wu-Tang Clan rapper Ghostface Killah, singer-rapper Swae Lee and drag icon RuPaul. Teaming with the latter for a sassy track called Cattitude underscored Cyrus's status as an LGBTQ role model; in past interviews, she has identified as pansexual and a "queer woman". "I love her [sexual] fluidity, her queerness and how she is always unapologetically herself," says ABISHA. Cyrus has also shown her support for this community by launching The Happy Hippie Foundation, a nonprofit that aims "to rally young people to fight injustice facing homeless youth, LGBTQ youth and other vulnerable populations". Then at the 2019 Glastonbury festival, Cyrus proved she could pull together the disparate strands of her career with a wildly entertaining set peppered with clever cover versions. "She treated that slot like a rock headline show and threw herself into covering everything from Metallica to the original Nine Inch Nails song that inspired her Black Mirror track On a Roll," Hunt says. [Martin Signature] Martin D. Weiss, PhD
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Fela Kuti penned Beasts of No Nation after time spent in prison â it has become a song, and album, that still inspires many in Nigeria today, writes Ernest Nweke. N Nigeria, Africa's most populous country and home of the continent's biggest democracy, is set to select a new leader in a few days. After the #EndSARS peaceful protests that were quelled by the shooting of young protesters in October 2020, a revolutionary spirit lingers in the air. For this election, Nigerian youths have come forward to register to vote en masse, making up nearly 40% of the total. It's a collective defiance that finds its voice in one of the most charged songs by Nigeria's legendary activist and musician, Fela Kuti, the father of Afrobeat. More like this: - The exhilarating songs of street protests - How Afrobeat was formed - The song that changed the US In 1986, Kuti could not wait to get Beasts of No Nation off his chest. He had been in jail for 20 months, held on charges of unlawful possession of foreign currency â according to the official statement. But he always insisted that he had been unjustly incarcerated for politically motivated reasons. While in prison, he began thinking of a song that would arguably become his most political. "Beasts of No Nation would, no doubt, pass as one of Fela's most defining albums in the course of four decades in terms of its scathing exposé on discordant global issues of the time," writes Raheem Oluwafunminiyi, an academic at Osun State University. "No African artist of his generation had more artistry, deep knowledge and understanding of global politics than Fela, who used trends in both national and global discourse to name album or track titles, album jackets or poke fun at institutions, political and private figures." Kuti was known as an incredible performer; Paul McCartney said that he and Africa 70 'were the best band Iâve ever seen live' (Credit: Getty Images) Kuti was known as an incredible performer; Paul McCartney said that he and Africa 70 'were the best band Iâve ever seen live' (Credit: Getty Images) Kuti was not a messenger the Nigerian government would have chosen to present to the world, visually or lyrically. Shirtless, with zoot (joint) in hand, and chalk decoratively marking his face and body, Fela was a living, wriggling thorn beneath the flesh of corrupt politicians and repressive military heads of state who deposed democratically elected civilian governments with a pretext of ending the widespread corruption in the country. Nigeria's current president, Muhammadu Buhari, one of the political figures Kuti mentions in Beasts of No Nation, was the country's military head of state from December 1983 to August 1985, after taking power in a coup d'etat. Cowering in the face of repression was a posture he was not ready to take with his craft "Fela first started singing Beasts of No Nation around 1986⦠He was arrested at the airport as he was about to go overseas to play on tour. There was widespread disenchantment with the governance of the country, corruption was still rampant, and beyond Nigeria, there were violent protests in South Africa against apartheid. Even the cover of the album shows these anxieties," Nigerian writer Ikhide Ikheloa, who was a youth when Kuti first sang Beasts of No Nation, tells BBC Culture. Kuti denounced the colonial and Eurocentric framework that he claimed African leaders adopted, and rejected what he perceived as the corrupt and oppressive political cycle. And he did this openly, through his lyrics. In his 1977 song Fear Not For Man, Kuti wrote "the father of Pan-Africanism Dr Kwame Nkrumah says to all black people all over the world: 'The secret of life is to have no fear'" â cowering in the face of repression was a posture he was not ready to take with his craft. Family history Kuti's stand against corruption came naturally; his parents were activists who fought against colonialism and oppression. Fela's father, Israel Ransome-Kuti, was an Anglican reverend and a unionist. His mother, Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was a suffragist who fought for Nigerian women's rights to vote under colonial rule. At the end of Nigeria's colonial era in 1960, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti helped unionise Nigerian women of different classes to demand tax cuts and better conditions for women. Kuti's mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was a womens' rights activist (Credit: Alamy) Kuti's mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, was a womens' rights activist (Credit: Alamy) From them, Olufela Ransome-Kuti, better known by his chosen name Fela AnÃkúlápó Kuti, learnt to demand more, creating a discography of protest and opposition to oppression. Beasts of No Nation has all the ingredients that make a hit Fela record â the intoxicating, almost overpowering blasts of trumpets, sax, and horns in a cantankerous marriage with drums, guitar, and pianos that come together in the end, going on for minutes before the singing finally enters; the instrumental then makes way for the punned satire â in this case a quote from the South African president PW Botha â with which Fela indicts. "This uprising will bring out the beast in us!" Fela screeches as he contorts himself into dance positions that bring to mind a possessed person undergoing exorcism of whatever holds them captive. And that was what it was, a kind of supernatural possession that he could neither escape nor prevent himself from responding to â the repeated arrests, or the military throwing his 77-year-old mother from the second-floor window of his home, causing injuries that led to her death 14 months later, could not stop him. It had him screaming unintelligible incantation-like chants spasmodically at the end of records and performances, either because there was more musical energy in him than he could put into actual lyrics or because he was simply no longer in control at such moments of creative release. Aside from craftily quoting Botha, Fela points out in different parts of the song that different leaders are nothing but animals in human skin: "animal he wear agbada," and "animal he put suit oh" he sings as the song comes to an end. While the suit stood for the white leaders mentioned in the song, the agbada represented Nigerian leaders who had come to favour the Yoruba outfit that is made with over six yards of clothing and drapes over the wearer like an extravagantly large priestly vestment. Before he wraps up the song, he names political leaders of the era â Buhari, Botha, Reagan, and Thatcher. Kuti had the same force of reach as today's social media. He was a powerful communicator, and the rulers knew it â Ikhide Ikheloa "Fela has this charming pedestrianism that unfailingly cloaks gleaming deconstructive spikes," Tejumola Olaniyan writes in Arrest The Music!: Fela and his Rebel Art and Politics. "With it," he continues, "[Fela] verbally caresses all the pet and well-embroidered foreign-policy commitments of successive Nigerian governments and completely perforates them, making them look ridiculous to the people." Kuti goes on to criticise the United Nations for their inaction in the face of South Africa's apartheid regime, arguing that the imbalance of the voting power of member states means that they can never really be "united". This global callout had the desired effect on his listeners. "Whatever came out of his lips and instruments was well received. He had the same force of reach as today's social media. He was a powerful communicator, and the rulers knew it. He was literally a man of the people, especially among youths," says Ikheloa. "Fela's songs had a revolutionary fervour that resonated with everyone whenever they played. His songs remain evergreen, especially in Nigeria today, where nothing much has changed. He was a great pan-Africanist who knew how to use the power of his voice to start conversations." Afrobeat lives on Kuti's place as "The Father of Afrobeat" was not just handed to him just because he coined the word. He earned his place with sweat, blood, rigorous practice, and jail time. Through these arrests â some 200 or more â his fans, the Nigerian public, waited faithfully for him. Kuti is the father of Afrobeat because he sang it for over 20 years until it became a global sensation. He earned his place and title. Beasts of No Nation was released in 1989 with two tracks, the title track as well as one called Just Like That (Credit: Shanachie Records /cover design: Lemi Ghariokwu) Beasts of No Nation was released in 1989 with two tracks, the title track as well as one called Just Like That (Credit: Shanachie Records /cover design: Lemi Ghariokwu) What he started from nothing, with no blueprint â the fusion of consciousness, politics, sax, drums, spirituality, sexuality, activism, authenticity, Africanness, family, and music â has gone through sonic shape-shifting over the years in the custody of the likes of Kuti's son Femi, as well as the singer's protégé, Lagbaja, and countless others, to birth what today the world knows and enjoys as Afrobeats (a fusion of sounds coming out of West Africa). In what can be called a musical sacrament â an audio grace with a spiritual power â contemporary African musicians pick up an original Kuti record and sample it in an Afrobeats track. This marriage of records across generational lines produces sounds that are as relevant today as Kuti's songs were 30 years ago. In an Afrobeats song sampling Kuti's Afrobeat music, listeners today find a tune that lets them dance while being politically conscious. They also find themselves overcome, feeling as though their wait is over. Many years after Kuti's guttural singing owned stages around the world, the thirst to hear the lone voice of a musician call out the politics of the day is still quenched by him. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. Email courtesy of Finance and Investing Traffic, LLC, owner and operator of Golden Gate Marketers.
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