FEATURE:
Modern-Day Queens
modern artists, though it has been a while since I have written about Snoh Aalegra. I have loved her music ever since her debut album, 2016’s Don’t Explain. Her latest, 2021’s TEMPORARY HIGHS IN THE VIOLET SKIES, I think was the last time I wrote about her. Her fourth studio album, Legendary Love, is out on 13th November. I would urge everyone to pre-save it. I wonder if she has plans to play London next year, as I have never seen her live but keep meaning to. I feel a performance at the Kentish Town Forum would be an ideal slot, though she likely has tour plans mapped for next year already. I am going to share part of a recent interview, as some people do not know about this astonishing artist with one of the most evocative voices in music. It is a stunning thing! Born to Iranian parents and raised in Stockholm and Enköping, Snoh Aalegra signed her first record contact aged fourteen. Now thirty-nine, she has spent time living in London, though that was a while ago. I believe she is located now in Los Angeles. In 2023, Aalegra was nominated at the 65th Annual GRAMMY Awards in the category Best Traditional R&B Performance for her cover of Do 4 Love. I cannot wait to hear Legendary Love and what the critics says. Her latest album won acclaim and got a four-star review from NME, and AllMusic. CLASH gave it a 7/10. I think Legendary Love might be her finest work. I just have that feeling. Someone who I am so keen to see live, as I can imagine her shows are breathtaking. Four albums in, you sort of feel like Snoh Aalegra’s finest work may about to be released. I do think that all her albums are brilliant, though what we have heard from Legendary Love is simply extraordinary. This hugely accomplished artist reaching new heights.
In terms of why her most recent work is perhaps the most extraordinary and powerful to date, I do think that this article from The Line of Best Fit, where they quote from Aalegra, gives us some insight and revelation: “Legendary Love was written and recorded over a period of two and a half years, following Aalegra’s growth within a relationship that is described as a “dated karmic connection that never fully materialised. I don't think the greatest love stories are measured by how long they last. They're measured by who they ask you to become," she explains. "Every song holds a piece of who I was, who I became, and who I will continue to be because I allowed myself to love this deeply. This love brought me back to the era of music I fell in love with growing up. It carried the same longing, romance, and nostalgia that first made me dream of becoming an artist”. I did want to drop part of an extensive and in-depth interview with The New York Times. It is a fantastic chat that gives us more depth and background regarding Legendary Love. This is an album that everyone needs to own. The New York Times note how “Snoh Aalegra returns with an intimate LP made her way. Inspired by ’80s sounds, it draws on her connections to Babyface, Stevie Wonder and Prince”. Having followed her for a decade or so, I can feel and see how her music has evolved and bloomed. I do think her recent work is her most impactful and memorable:
“The Iranian-Swedish singer-songwriter, an if-you-know-you-know music industry favorite for her dreamy neo-soul take on romance and its disconnects, has not released an album in more than five years. Since she got her start as a teenager in Stockholm, she’s amassed A-list collaborators including Pharrell Williams, Tyler, the Creator and the producer No I.D.; bewitched Prince; and had a breakout R&B chart-topper with “I Want You Around” — back in 2019. Her fans despaired: Where was Snoh? A 2023 single was called, tantalizingly, “Wait a Little Longer.”
Now Aalegra has returned, on her own terms, still carrying secrets. She approaches each project as a new artist — “I always start over,” she told me, during a dinner in which she was both strikingly blunt and lastingly enigmatic. “I wasn’t away on purpose,” she said, explaining (or not) her absence. But, she added, “It took time for me to find myself.”
Her fourth LP, “Legendary Love,” out Nov. 13, is her most intimate yet — it’s a heartbreak album that charts a brief, seismic relationship with an unnamed (but famous?) paramour. The vibe and production is vintage R&B, down to the real ’80s synths and drum machines. Enduring music legends like Raphael Saadiq and Nile Rodgers appear on several tracks; Stevie Wonder himself gave his blessing for a rare sample of “I Believe (When I Fall in Love With You It Will Be Forever).” The record’s nostalgic and windswept first teaser, “Run Free,” released last week, was greeted with intense adulation (“The Queen is back!”) by her audience. “It’s time sister,” Kehlani wrote in the comments of an Instagram post. Normani: “YESSSSSS.”
Even without significant commercial success, Aalegra has long built buzz in creative circles. “She is one of those artists that I think a number of producers and writers always have major respect for, because, you know, she’s a real one,” said Babyface, the hit-making, Grammy-winning songwriter and producer, who worked on her new album.
When she reached out about collaborating, “It was an immediate yes,” he said. They’d only met in passing, but he’d been a fan for years, after he saw her play at a small club in Toronto. He was taken with her “incredible voice,” he recalled, “and how honest it felt.”
When we met in late September, Aalegra, 39, looked every bit the carefree Angeleno, in a V-neck and white jeans. But she is no party girl, preferring mostly to spend her time in the studio. She holed up for more than two years, starting in 2023, to write “Legendary Love.”
The knockout cover image for “Legendary Love” has her in low-cut sequins, wearing two watches — representing, she said, “two lifetimes” — and gazing in a mirror with a far-off look. “There’s a bit of sadness in my eyes, even if I’m very posed up,” she offered.
Aalegra’s natural emotional state is moody. (In our recent video chat, she wore a baseball hat that read “Yes” on one side, and “No” on the other — that’s her, confounding even via her accessories.) Her “sad girl, emo girl, layered melancholy,” as she called it, is inspired in part by the Farsi poetry her mother still writes to her, and by her transcontinental experiences. “I dream in English, I think and count in Swedish, and I feel everything in Farsi,” she said, describing a long-held sense of cultural displacement.
She was born in Uppsala, Sweden, the daughter of Iranian immigrants who arrived there as part of a wave of refugees fleeing the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. By the time she was around 2, her parents had divorced, and she spent her early years in a smaller town, Enkoping.
As a kindergartner, she was the only non-blue-eyed, non-blond kid in class, she said, and though her area eventually diversified, “me and all the immigrants, we would still face a lot of racism,” she said. That bullying still shadows her. Like a paper that’s been crumpled, “It doesn’t matter how much you flatten it out, it will never be straight again. And I will carry those insecurities with me and those scars with me.”
She found solace in music. As a child, hearing “I Have Nothing” by Whitney Houston, “I got goose bumps,” she recalled. “I said, whatever this is, I want to learn how to do this.” By age 7, she had announced her intentions to be a singer; her family moved to Stockholm so she could work with a local producer and attend a music high school. She signed a publishing deal with a major label, Sony, at 13”.
I absolutely adore Snoh Aalegra’s music. I do hope that she comes to the U.K. next year for some dates. She has a big fanbase here, and lots of people would turn out to see her. I feel Legendary Love is going to get a lot of great reaction. Some five-star reviews. If you have not discovered this beguilingly brilliant artist, then do go and follow her. I think next year will be one of Aalegra’s happiest and most successful. Some big tour dates. Maybe a Coachella spot. I would not be shocked if she was on the bill for Glastonbury here. I can see incredible personal happiness and awards too. A GRAMMY coming her way. Whilst perhaps better known in the U.S. and Europe, there is admiration for her in the U.K. I hope that there are some interviews here with sources like The Guardian, NME and CLASH. I love how personal and important each song on Legendary Love is to Snoh Aalegra. How it draws her to music she grew up with. I wonder Aalegra dreamed of a child she would achieve so much in music. It would have been an ambition, but she is one of the most revered and respected modern-day artists. One of my absolute favourites. I am thinking about her coming here next year and performing. What her live set would be like. I am looking back at a 2022 review, when Aalegra played in Brixton: “One thing that is undeniable about the show is that Snoh fans really came out and came through for her, never stopping word for word song for song from start to finish”. Her music means so much to her fans. Even if Legendary Love is personal and there is that unique meaning, the songs will resonate with listeners. Her words taken to heart by her fans. Hearing the lyrics sung back to her must be a major reason why she will want to tour this album. She is an absolute queen that everyone needs to follow and listen to. There are some incredible artists out there that continue to do great work. Not many that can match the dizzying heights of…
THE spectacular Snoh Aalegra.
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