Old Chinese proverb: artists seeking instant gratification make shitty music.
Brockton rapper Alyssa Marie has dictated her career by those words, or, as she more eloquently phrases it on the title of her recently released album, there are No Parades on Easy Street. It can be an expensive philosophy to stick by, having already come at the cost of financial independence and the opportunity to sign with multiple labels since dropping out of Fisher College to focus on music full-time in 2009. But that long-term outlook is starting to pay off.
“The album’s concept is you may be looking at life now and it may suck,” says Marie on the phone, ahead of Thursday night’s album release show at the Middle East Upstairs. “But if you are traveling on the easy street, there’s not gonna be as big a reward or parade if you are traveling down a road that you are making for yourself.”
That may seem like a clever piece of self-motivation, but the 25 year-old clearly takes it to heart. After returning to live with her parents following her stint at college, she began hustling live gigs at small venues in the south shore and generating buzz off tracks uploaded to YouTube. Her 2010 debut mixtape Welcome Home and 2012 follow-up Heart Beat were both well-received, leading to several interested labels reaching out, offers she ultimately rejected.
“[One label] wanted me to give up all the concepts I was writing about and just do rugged raw rap, another label wanted me to do dub step rap,” she recalls. “That’s me making music for other people. If I make it, I’m going to make it for myself. And if I fail, it’s because I did what I wanted to do.”
True to its name, Parades finds Marie openly questioning her choices with refreshing honesty and some truly inspired rhymes. On “No Strings Attached,” the opening two verses are present in the voice of dueling peer pressures, the first urging her to stay underground and independent, the other pushing for her to sign with a major label, before she defiantly rejects both options in the final verse. “This Is Life,” meanwhile, turns introspective, bringing her internal struggle to define success to life with vivid imagery (“see a doorway that’s waiting, with a floor paint so beautifully intimidating/baiting me to come inside, I wonder why I’m still debating”).
There’s still a long way to go, but particularly with the inclusion of a live band into her performances, the road to success is looking slightly smoother all the time.
“It’s often that somebody maybe hears me and thinks I’m a dope female rapper,” says Marie. “There’s a wow factor, but it never stays. It’s always a battle to try to make myself relevant enough to where I don’t have to be your favorite female rapper anymore, I can just be one of your favorite rappers.”
ALYSSA MARIE. ALBUM RELEASE PARTY W/ TERMANOLOGY + MILEZ GRIMEZ + DARK MATTER. MIDDLE EAST UPSTAIRS, 472 MASS AVE.,CAMBRIDGE. THU 7.10. 8PM/$10/18+.
