Alt-punk-folk rocker Lily Vakili credits her third-culture, global childhood as an early influence on her bold voice as a singer and songwriter. It all started in Honduras where she was born during a military coup. Her father traveled the world, studying disease and tropical plants, while working for the U.S. government. Her large Irish-Iranian family lived in many places: Honduras, Florida, Puerto Rico, Iowa and Thailand. Today, Lily lives in the artistic hub, Montclair, located 21 miles outside of NYC. In addition to living in many places, Lily has worn many hats over the years. She has been a lawyer, dancer, actress, summer stage director, choreographer, and corn detasseler (one who removes immature pollen from corn). Her career as an artist started seven years ago as a vehicle to express her diverse experiences, emotions, and energy. As an artist Lily has released solo and band projects. Her latest project Set of Seven - engineered and produced by David Amlen of Sound on Sound Studios– is an album that highlights Lily and the band's musical evolution, a journey od creativity, confidence and courage. In advance of the album, her new single “What She Wants” is music with a message that you won’t soon forget.
An electric guitar riff starts "She Wants What" with attitude dripping off the strings. Just as your ear thinks the drums are going to kick-in, something even more powerful commences. Lily enters singing and you will be mezmerized. Part hard-rock and part sensual-swagger, she lays down three simple words, "She Wants What," which she sings 8 times. Make no doubt, this is an artist that doesn't mess around with getting her point across. The band is tight with a live sound that pumps out unbridled raw rockin' energy setting the stage for a singer who can more than handle it.
Lyrically, the song walks us through the boundaries this woman has broken from the self-expression of full body tats to swinging "a lacquered hammer" at the proverbial corporate glass ceiling to the challenging career of raising children without breast feeding shame, "Hold a child to her breast nipple liquid, vaginal sweat." Lily Vakili isn't afraid to make the status quo squirm, and in case they aren't ready to embrace her full-frontal feministic approach, they will find it impossible not to have that chorus, "She Wants What" stuck in their heads and this is what I call pure genius.
She wants what?! It simple folks. Lily Vakili wants everything and she has achieved just that in her latest single. "She Wants What" hammers down the right of every woman from the womb to the workforce to achieve what she wants and it does so with music that gets in your face and under your skin. In a musical culture filled with tip-toeing feminism, Lily Vakili's song stomps out boundaries with an all-out catchy as hell war dance for our times. Bravo to an artist that is so empowered, musically and artistically, that she empowers the rest of us to sing along effortlessly.
For more about Lily Vakili, please visit her website.
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