A new era of Raveena emerges with her latest release, “Asha’s Awakening.” This album was preceded by her 2021 single “Tweety,” as well as featured singles “Rush” and “Secret,” the latter of which were included on the artist’s new album.
This album is a major shift from her previous album, “Lucid,” in which Raveena explored themes of sexuality, healing, womanhood and heritage. “Asha’s Awakening“ is a concept album that taps into a new side of Raveena, ultimately telling the story of a Punjabi space princess named Asha.
“‘Asha’ is an album meant to listen to in order, from start to finish and everyone who actually takes time to do this is an angel. It’s a concept album, based on a story I wrote about a Punjabi space princess named Asha. if you want to dance, listen to the first half. If you want to be meditative and soft, listen to the second half, post intermission. It was all set up to flow a certain way,” Raveena said in an Instagram post.
Raveena explained further in the post that it was her intent to center the album around “feeling alive,” and that a multitude of emotions and moments were called in order to create the project.
“When I was first writing this album, I realized I wanted to make an album centered around FEELING ALIVE. to feel joy, sensuality, anger, peace, love. The quiet moments AND the loud moments. because after healing, comes the celebration of being alive,” she said.
The album combines genres of all kinds, but emphasizes dance, R&B, Bollywood, pop and alternative sounds. The first half of the album is very upbeat and lively, while the latter half is much more mediative and light, steering down the aura that “Lucid” elicited.
Later on in the same instagram post, Raveena breaks down a bit more background in regard to Asha and explains that the album is more so a message and meditation on the fact that healing is non-linear, and that it’s perfectly okay that healing occurs in this sense.
“Asha spent 1000’s of years meditating in space to come back to earth, only to make peace with the fact this this human form means we will forever fighting with our peace and at mercy of the beauty, but also the pain of life. And I think in the last 3 years of making this album, that’s the acceptance that I found too. Healing is non linear & to be human is to be perfectly imperfect in the wake of all of our emotional fluxes,” she said.
It was creatively audacious of Raveena to steer from her original sonics and plunge directly into the music of her South Asian culture, but she did it in a very intricate way that works extremely well.
In listening to the record, it’s important to understand that this is just a fresh start for Raveena. There’s a ton more in store for her, and “Asha’s Awakening” is paving the way for even more great things for Raveena herself.
Chance Allen ‘22 is a journalism student at Mercer who has been working for The Cluster under various roles for the past three years. Allen is a multi-hyphenate but works primarily with photo and writing. He has been working with NBC Entertainment for the entirety of this year and since becoming a journalism student he has received multiple honors and awards from the Georgia Collegiate Press Association as well as DASHBOARD. Allen spends his free time writing, creating, and being.
