Amber Mark - "Conexão"

In honor of Black History Month all the posts for this month will feature artists of color.

I’ve been obsessed with Amber Mark since her first Album 3:33am dropped. It was filled with lush harmonies and deep felt lyrics about the passing of her mother. Half studio and have home-made, the magic that came out of it was touching, raw, and sparkled with talent.

Her newest EP “Conexão” has many of the same elements; heavily overlayed rich harmonies, Afro-Centric and Caribbé beats, and lyrics that drive the heart, but it also has more polish, more precision and more mass market target appeal. She’s been stretching her legs as an artist and is growing beautifully into the potential that was promised.

Her mother's job growing up took her to Berlin, Brazil, and Miami in addition to her main home bases of India and New York. It was this global influence that found its way into her music, tinged with the romantic stylings of bossa nova (smooth Brazilian jazz) that comes through with slow, uptempo drum beats. 3:33 A.M. had instrumentals influenced by India while Conexão contains touches of soul, samba, and pop.

The title track, “Conexão," means connection in Portuguese and is about Mark grappling with her connection with a boyfriend and getting to the point where she can be her entire self in front of him. If "Love Me Right" is a jilted breakup anthem, “Conexão” is an rosy-tinted beginnings of a relationship.

"I don’t have a hard time really talking about it," she says. "I still get sad every once in a while, and I still think about her every day and miss her, but it’s good to celebrate her life. That’s how I keep her alive is to talk about her and tell her stories."

So today, with a little hope and a little sadness, I choose Amber Mark’s “Conexão” as my, find the link, hold on, try to remember, song for a, the way we would have been, the once future king, the little mysteries of love and hate, Tuesday.