So says The Blessed Madonna over Zoom one evening from her home in London — roughly 4,000 miles from the Chicago club scene where she made her name, and just as far from her native Kentucky, where she grew up “poor as hell” and first immersed herself in the scene. “Then when you’re talking to people who work in offices about what they think about your music, and suddenly there’s actual money involved,” she continues, “that just seems crazy.
This self-taught music theory continued during what the producer calls “super-lockdown,” when she was confined to her London home due to her virally triggered asthma. During that time, she had been tasked with transforming Dua Lipa’s 2020 album, “I feel like most dance records have nothing of the maker in them,” The Blessed Madonna says. “They’re kind of, like, engineered in a lab … But somebody has to make a decision.”
Writing sessions happened across London, Chicago, Los Angeles and at Imogen Heap’s home in Essex, England. There, The Blessed Madonna and her husband, along with a group that included electronic duo Joy , gathered over the 2021 holidays. The pair appears on “Carry Me Higher.”