Amanda Marshall: Double Agent
Sandra Sperounes, Journal Music Writer
Edmonton Journal
March 10, 2002
Amanda Marshall
With: Jordy Birch
When: Wednesday, 8 p.m.
Where: Winspear Centre
Tickets: sold out
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With her fair skin, blue eyes and blond hair, most people tend to forget Amanda Marshall is half-Trinidadian. She herself didn't take much notice of her bi-racial heritage until she had to fill out a census form in high school. When it came to the subject of ethnicity, Marshall found there was no category for her. Just Caucasian, Asian, Afro-Caribbean, Native Indian and Other.
"It was the first time I ever really confronted with the subject. It was like, 'I don't have a box to check' and 'Other' seemed so offensive. I'm not 'Other,' " remembers Marshall.
"I was raised to believe that (my heritage) was exotic. I didn't think about it. It just was. When my friends would come over for dinner, they'd be like, 'This is spicy' but I never questioned why they ate pork chops every night."
On her last album, Tuesday's Child, Marshall wrote a fairly cryptic song about her bi-racial family, Shades of Grey. Infused with a new sense of confidence and honesty, Marshall re-tackles the subject on her new disc, Everybody's Got A Story, in a much more explicit manner. The tune, Double Agent, discusses her feelings of invisibility as an Afro-Caribbean: "Though who I am to you is not a lie/I don't have to volunteer and say/That I was born in a particular way/I got no uniform I'm camouflaged in any light/Obviously you can't tell/I'm a double agent on my momma's side."
Marhsall says it's about time someone wrote such a song.
"The subject of bi-racial kids or whatever you want to call us -- there's a whole group of us that aren't audibly addressed by the people making music, like Mariah Carey or Lenny Kravitz," says Marshall.
"About a week after the record came out, I got a message from a 11-year-old who said, 'I was so glad somebody finally wrote this song. And I was like, 'Yeah. Me too.' It's totally prevalent and it's a huge group and it's getting bigger. Nobody talks about it because nobody knows if they're supposed to. I'm convinced that's what it is. I think it's cool to talk about it."
"The lyric is directed at me as much as anyone."
Double Agent is just one of Marshall's own tales on Everybody's Got A Story, her funkiest and most honest album to date. Gone is her bombastic delivery, replaced by street sass, a light hip-hop vibe and conversational lyrics.
It's a welcome change from her diva-ish dud, Tuesday's Child, and fans seem to agree -- Everybody's Got A Story has sold 100,000 copies in less than three months.
Skeptics might think she's trying to emulate Nelly Furtado, but Marshall says she finally found a way to put her own personality on a disc. Thanks to a little help from her producers and co-writers, Billy Mann and Peter Asher, basement DJ Molecules, and Sony Music Canada's new president Denise Donlon.
"I wasn't thinking of making a record when I went into talk to her. I told her I wanted to make a really well-rounded record that's a good representation of me and sounds like me, the way I communicate with my friends. I wanted to make a groove-oriented record because that's where I've been leaning," remembers Marshall. "Denise was really instrumental in saying, 'Cool. Do that and take your time. Let's give this record a chance to take flight.' Her main opinion was, 'It doesn't have to be about bombast.' And I agreed with that."
Without the pressure of a deadline, Marshall was free to bare her soul. More than ever before, she relied on her own experiences as inspiration. Brand New Beau, for example, is about one of her ex-boyfriends. In the song, she discovers him in bed with another man. In reality, he came out of the closet after their breakup.
But not all of Marshall's tunes are autobiographical. Her latest single, Sunday Morning After, details the aftermath of a tequila-fuelled party but Marshall says the tune is the result of an 18-hour studio session.
"You know when you get really tired and you start to think everything is funny? We didn't intend it to be a song we would use; I was just so fried and I wanted to do something stupid, and then move on. So the resulting lyric is the three of us -- Billy, Peter (Asher) and I -- trying to make each other laugh," says Marshall. "Then we recorded it and I thought it was too funny. We started playing it for people and they were like, 'That's really cool. You should put it on the record.' "
Just to reiterate: Marshall didn't pierce her tongue or go home with a stranger after a torrid party. Nor does she have a snake tattoo. Yet. "Maybe I'll get one by the end of the tour," she laughs.
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