Word On the Street

Word on the Street is the American debut album by Canadian avant-pop singer-songwriter and performance artist Elle Barbara, and is credited to Elle Barbara's Black Space - a lineup of Montreal-based instrumentalists Barbara summoned to be in conversation with other Black musicians while not playing to expectations of what Black musicians are supposed to sound like. Word on Street was written, composed, arranged, and produced by Elle Barbara, in close collaboration with Renny Wilson, who recorded, engineered, and mixed the album over a challenging 8-year arc that saw Elle, a Black trans person, transition socially and medically while on welfare and frequently eating off as little as $11 CAD a week. In that sense, Word on the Street is a victory against class struggle and nepotism, and is a brazen testament to how a low-income, welfare-assisted, middle-aged, Black male-to-female transsexual beat the odds, using all resources to make the music of her mind, and ignoring music industry conventions altogether. Word on the Street is also vehemently radical and independent; a feat of DIY prog-indebted high production, inspired by the ways in which consumerist attitudes and the current technological times cause our lives to deteriorate, and to feel increasingly alienated from one another. Featuring a wide array of influences including Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, a True Star, Prince and the Revolution's Purple Rain, and Rexy's Running Out of Time, each track on Word on the Street, as well as being highly melodic, conjures up unique pictures composed of seemingly incongruous images, such as corrupt justice systems, the prophecies of Nostradamus, and the Montreal Canadiens hockey team. Word on the Street is a mixed bag whose conspiratorial aesthetic belies an anti-consumerism stance, encouraging resistance against the rise of artificial intelligence and other tools of technological oppression, and working outside current systems of surveillance, which again, aligns with Elle Barbara's push for low-tech support, like vinyl records.