Queen Drie and KooKusi's new release "Tell Me What You Want" offers a soft conversation on emotional healing, featuring smooth textures of Afro-fusion and honesty.
With her signature guitar work, glassy melodies, and soulful delivery, Queen Drie invites everyone into a warm, inviting space where openness is not only welcomed but also required. The Ghanaian-American has consistently poured her poetic heart out, and here is the artist at peak emotional fluency. Beautifully smooth, lush instruments overshadowed by the buzzing soulfulness of her voice, gentle and reassuring like a whisper amid emotional discord. That's when KooKusi steps in with a verse that adds an unexpected, yet necessary depth to the song. The softness of the track is not interrupted by the Ghanaian rappers, who instead enhance it. This leaves space for Queen Drie to deliver a refreshing level of intimacy and openness not easily found in the eyes-narrowed world of battle bars, as Paco spills his softer, introspective lyrics with a feel-good, calm flow, which introduces some masculine openness into the equation. There is no showboating here, it is simply two lovers giving and taking space in the palette and hence enabling the listener to do so within their dynamic.
This is not merely a tender love song, but a profound exploration of the turbulent currents of emotional labor and trust that flow between us, and what it takes to be seen by each other honestly. "Tell Me What You Want" isn't in a hurry to love, it takes its time through the nuances of love. It's grown. It's grounded. It's real.
It is the music of a healing generation one that is still learning to love without losing themselves, communicate without fear, and trust even as they carry their past scars. Its Afro-fusion bed of rich grooves and passionate lilt only further underscores what the record appears to be, the truth sings prettily.