Alyssa Marie

27. September 2020

Nelleke Schmidt

Autorin

Henrike Ott

Illustratorin

Alyssa Marie may belong to the American underground, but she is no longer a newcomer. She has been releasing new music year after year since 2008 and has made a name for herself. Over time, she developed her skills and changed her style steadily until she finally created the perfect mix of various genres for herself. Over the past twelve years, she has released four albums, countless singles and a lot of feature parts for other artists.

From an early age, Alyssa Marie consumed various genres. Hip-hop, soul, rock and reggae blended into her musical socialization and ensured that she never focused on just one genre. The Massachusetts-born rapper describes her resulting style as a balanced mix of “raw & conscious” rap. However, the socially critical part is much more important to her: as her reach grows, she also has an immense responsibility towards her listeners, influencing their awareness. Nevertheless, she also wants to give space to other thoughts in her music as soon as it feels right for herself. In this context, she herself quotes her line “Every villian is a hero in their version of the story” to express that she always wants to do what feels right for her, regardless of how that sounds to others.

For Alyssa Marie, this presence consciously includes her role as a woman in the hip-hop scene. She wants to avoid attracting attention simply because of her gender and appearance, which is why she strongly opposes staging her female body: “I am representing for females and trying not to sell my sex to that. I am just thinking of my grandma watching me on the Grammys half naked,” she said in 2016, referring to the presentation of her own femininity.

Her previously released albums are something like time capsules for her. In retrospect, she enjoys being able to go back in time and to recreate how she felt during production. Her albums “HeartBeat” (2012), “No Parades on Easy Street” (2014) and “Louder Than Words” (2016) developed accordingly along with her personality and her private life. A personal insight can be expected from her next album, in which she will once again capture her current thoughts and feelings.