Katy Perry tries to rediscover voice

  

      On Saturday Night Live’s May 20 season finale, Katy Perry was struggling to re-discover her voice. While it’s true that pop music is an unforgiving and at times brutal blood sport where acts are routinely forced to evolve their sound and style or risk being thrown in the gray-colored dustbin overflowing with yesterday’s sensations, the California native looked to be in desperate form. Gone was the bubbly, witty and at times self-deprecating brunette who had began her professional career in 2001 as a virginal contemporary Christian music vocalist before hitting peak pop superstar levels.
       The struggling performer then followed that up with the sterile “Bon Appetit,” assisted by Atlanta trap music gods Migos (The pixie haired Perry’s laughable attempt at playing hype woman for the “Bad and Boujee” troubadours has now become a meme). All parties looked as though they had better places to be.

By the end of the entire cringe-worthy ordeal, you were left to wonder: What the hell happened to Katy Perry? And why did the good-girl-gone-kinda-bad pop protagonist, who first arrived on the pop music scene in 2008 feel the need to Blacken things up?

       But more importantly, when the huggable one collaborated with hip-hop standouts like Snoop Dogg (“California Gurls”), Kanye West (“E.T.”) and Juicy J (“Dark Horse”), it was all done on equal, seamless footing like David Bowie’s mid ‘70s exploration of Philly soul. Watching Perry’s confusing SNL showcase, it was hard to believe that you were witnessing the same woman whose brazenly feel-good music once compelled a bar filled with Black folks to sing along to her anthemic fist pump of a hit “Roar.”
Perry made her majestic entrance on a 16-foot high mechanical lion to kick off of much praised 2015 Super Bowl XLIX halftime show gig. Perhaps the brothers and sisters dug the fact that she seemed like she was comfortable in her own skin: the “cool” white girl who didn’t mind dancing awkwardly with silly costumed sharks, never once swerved out of her lane.

By contrast, the stumbling drum up to Perry’s upcoming fifth album Witness has so far been craven in its attempts to create a spark by injecting some Black girl magic.