Hua Li 化力

Hua Li’s project has often worked the fruitful tension between opposing forces, whether being mixed-race, bisexual, or overtly political and softly vulnerable. Now the “half-Chinese, half-militant, half-rapper of your heart” is back with ripe fruit falls but not in your mouth, her most ambitious and personal record to date. Playing between hazy R&B, hip-hop, jazz and electronic, Hua Li’s sophomore LP takes the imaginary garden as a proxy for cultivating home. With complex vocal arrangements, lush production by Alex Thibault (aka Gloze), and big, vibrant mixing by TNGHT’s Lunice, ripe fruit is a private confessional on a loud-ass record. 

Luminous and compelling, Hua Li shows it takes tenderness to let things ripen, and guts to let things die. In-between is a kind of rapture that begs to be savoured.