The only thing that’s singular about the last few years is how everyone’s experience is different. Some people had their lives turned completely upside down while others (either through luck or willful ignorance) continued completely unscathed. We all moved through life and life is different whether we acknowledge it or not. While there are no singular experiences there can be a singular something that many people use to find the beauty in life again.
And Then Life Was Beautiful, the third album by Nao, aims to be one such singular point for those of us striving for a healing moment of time. Where their last album, Saturn (2018), dove into many aspects of love with an astrological bend, this album seeks a world where self-care and self-actualization guide the way out of a turbulent time.
Starting off the album with the title track Nao addresses the times directly and sets the tone for the rest of the album.
Change came like a hurricane
2020 hit us differently
And even though I didn't want it
This old life got a hold of me
How to float when there's no control?
Feeling life or nothing at all
Smoke it up 'til it fades away
Seein' clouds, flyin' aeroplanes
It's a floaty and drifty song decorated with promises of hope returning someday soon so that life can once again be beautiful. It’s a refrain worth repeating and one that repeats in beautiful spoken word features by Sophia Thakur that punctuate moments through the album.
‘Glad That You’re Gone’ solidifies, in my mind, Nao as the master of the feel-good separation song (2016’s For All We Know had a handful of them as well). Heaven sent vocal harmonies layered over a plucky guitar lick swoop in like a blanket wrapped around your shoulders as you celebrate the new world where that thing/person holding you back is finally gone.
On the flip side of that, ‘Antidote’ featuring Adekunle Gold is an album highlight, where the love dipped lyrics bounce over glorious Kizomba style beats and sing praise to a person who is not just a love interest but also the cure for all ills. The features in this album glow like few other album features, where they really feel collaborative rather than another artist popping in the studio for a verse. Premium example is the duet on the chorus here, ‘You’re my Antidote-dote-dote-dote-dote-dote’ is catchier and more love affirming than a three-minute track has any right to be.
Directly following we have ‘Burn Out’ which speaks upon the necessity of taking a moment for yourself when you’re burning out which if grind culture and…well… general daily life has anything to say about it, I need to heed the message of this song at least twice a day.
I do, I do, I do
I dream about what I lose and how much water flows through me
When I give up my energy to all of everybody else's priorities
So low
I burn out 'til I'm low, low
Don't know how much longer I can go for
I really need to slow for me
‘Woman’ is another massive stand out track in an album with many standouts. Nao is joined by Lianne La Havas in a smooth, up-tempo groove that’s a celebration of women celebrating themselves. Though the chorus ‘If God is a woman on Sunday I'mma worship us/ Take my mirror out the bag and fill it with confidence’ is a banger itself the absolute prime moment is the unrelenting joy that comes with the bridge cannot be beat.
You ain't gotta tell me where to go when to come down
Ain't been working this hard for the throne just to fall now
I guess you gotta wait 'cause I don't wanna come down
Yeah I'm feeling so high
It’s very difficult to not talk about every single moment in this album that makes me soar because there are so many, but by the time the album closes with the introspective and searching ‘Amazing Grace’ I’ve been given reason to be there for myself and for others (‘Better Friend’). You must show up for yourself and others if you want life to be beautiful again. And that’s a notion that holds up for the best of times but becomes downright essential in the worst.