The blessed Madonna wants to be “a little piece of glass” in the foot of the industry

“I'm like a dirty raver. I come from illegal parties — and not too long ago.'

So says The Blessed Madonna over Zoom one night from her home in London — some 4,000 miles from the Chicago club scene where she made her name, and just as far from her native Kentucky, where she grew up “poor as hell ” and plunged herself into the scene for the first time. “Then when you talk to people who work in offices about what they think of your music, and suddenly there's real money involved,” he continues, “it just seems crazy.”

Weeks away from the release of her debut album, Godspeedthe 46-year-old artist born Marea Stamper is in such a frenzy. After years of releasing remixes and singles on independent labels, including her own We Still Believe imprint, Blessed Madonna signed with Warner Records during the pandemic. The move placed an artist with subversive tendencies — sharing political views on social media, still frequenting illegal parties — squarely in the industry.

“Somebody has to get in,” he says. “And if I'm going to be put into this system that has all these power levers, my job is to be a little piece of glass on someone's leg.”

Released on October 11, Godspeed — 24 full-length tracks, cut from more than 100 hours of music — began during the pandemic. During this time, The Blessed Madonna was designing songs she thought were perfect, breaking Fleetwood Mac's “Landslide” and Bruce Springsteen's “Born To Run” down to their essential elements to better understand their power.

This self-taught music theory continued during what the producer calls a “super-lockdown”, when she was confined to her London home due to viral asthma. During this time, she was tasked with transforming Dua Lipa's 2020 album, Future Nostalgiaat Club Future Nostalgia “Megamix” — a project that welcomed everyone from dance legend Moodymann to Madonna herself.

Unable to work with a studio engineer, Blessed Madonna handled all the technical aspects of the megamix herself, studying YouTube tutorials and taking instructions from friends over the phone. Then, sadly in the midst of it all, her father died of COVID-19. He had to identify his body via email. “The king was awesome,” he recalls. The ordeal not only heightened her ability to “get what I wanted to say out of my head,” but strengthened her goal to make a dance record that wasn't just great, but personal.

On GodspeedThe blessed Madonna and a bevy of collaborators she calls “God's team” deliver fresh, psychedelic, often joyful and occasionally provocative takes on club music. Kylie Minogue sings about '6 deep in the bath stall' in piano party anthem 'Edge of Saturday Night'. (RAYE was originally slated to perform, but had to drop out as her career blew up.) Chicago family member Jamie Principle purrs nights in the city's fabled warehouse on “We Still Believe.” And her late father expresses how her success “fills my heart with joy” in a voice message that samples 'Somebody's Daughter'. In between, she and her co-stars laugh their way through silly nonsense caught on hot mics.

“I feel like most dance records don't have anything from their creator,” says The Blessed Madonna. “It's kind of like they're made in a lab… But someone has to make a decision.”

So he decided to do the opposite of what he often hears as he travels the world as a heavily touring DJ. “There are songs that I only hear in Uber and I can't make them out, and I don't know who some of the girls are, and it's all auto-tuned to the f–king grave,” he says. . “This is bad for art, and bad art is bad for culture and thought.”

Writing sessions took place across London, Chicago, Los Angeles and at Imogen Heap's home in Essex, England. There, The Blessed Madonna and her husband, along with a group that included electronic duo Joy (Anonymous), gathered for the 2021 holiday season. The pair appear on “Carry Me Higher.”

She is again friends with Fred…, with whom she collaborated in 2021 on 'Marea (We've Lost Dancing), a hit that reached No. 33 on Bulletin boardThe Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart and the soundtrack to the final scene at the 2022 Academy Awards Triangle of Sorrow. Blessed Madonna says she witnessed “Beatlemania exploding around Fred” (whom she calls “so smart, so good at what he does and also so cool that it makes you want to kill him, because it's all true”) it made her question her own goals. “I thought, 'Should I want this?' And I had a little meltdown,” she recalls. “I was thinking, 'Is this record going to go where I want it to go? Am I reinforcing the status quo in dance music or resisting it?'

“We're all supposed to get rich and go to Ibiza and stop caring about politics and say things that will upset people,” he continues. But for a self-proclaimed “s–thead raver,” that fate is unlikely.

This story appears on August 24, 2024, his subject Bulletin board.