Shreea Kaul is back and recently dropped her debut album, Cruel Intentions. This album was created to share her story over the last 10 years of her life, mostly the exploitation she endured throughout the past decade. In her own words, posted on her Instagram, this album was “the exploitation of her mind, body, and soul without the capital or power to demand justice.” The album not only tells her story, but also showcases how much talent Shreea Kaul possesses. Throughout the album, she showcases her talent and diverse range of genres-– several songs within the album experiment with new genres like Latin phonk/EDM and Arabic style music, all mixed into her classic R&B sound.
Shreea Kaul is known for creating music that screams Asian American. In her discography, there’s a theme of her recycling old, iconic Hindi songs into R&B songs with both English and Hindi lyrics. This album showcased more of her talent and experimentation in other genres, it introduces a new era of her music. For example, the songs “Hungama” and “Crooked Salesman” had more of a Latin phonk/EDM sound to them, showcasing her experimentation with the EDM genre, while still incorporating her iconic Indian twist on lyrics and sounds. The song “Kali Wali” also showcases a different genre of music she was experimenting with, as “Kali Wali” was a more Arabic-style song. The meaning of the phrase Kali Wali translates from Arabic to “let it be” or “forget about it.” The song lyrics take the listener through a story about mourning a past love and fearing not finding love in this lifetime.
The songs that stood out the most to me in terms of storytelling were: “We Have Time,” “Dreams We Grieve,” and “Born to Die,” focus on Kaul’s internal struggle over whether she should follow her dreams in the music industry. “We Have Time” goes from a slow electronic and ethereal sound of her setting the scene of her dreams she’s had of being a star to a hectic, panicky, and rushed sound after you hear a clip of her mom saying, “Why are you always dreamin’?” As the song picks up, you hear and feel the emotions and dilemma she faces now that she’s older with more responsibilities and fear. The song highlights her feelings and emotions of holding onto a dream and trying to pursue it, an impending doom of feeling like she’s running out of time, and that she’s getting to a point where she shouldn’t be trying to pursue the dream of creating music. The lyrics “(Separate my body from my brain and put it in a casket) / No, I’m not running out of time / (Delusion making me manic)” highlight the chaos and internal battle of her trying to make sense of deciding on what she wants to do with her own life and career.
The “Dreams We Grieve” lyrics show Kaul’s insecurities surrounding pursuing her dreams in stardom and how a part of her believes that she wasn’t made to make music. The song, although short, touches on how she feels naive for following her passion and dreams in the music industry. A part of her feels that maybe she wasn’t made for music, and it would’ve been better off if she did it in another lifetime, with different people, and without following the advice she was given in this lifetime. “Born to Die” brings a somewhat conclusive end to the internal struggle Shreya faces throughout most of the album. The song was almost expressing her feeling of hopelessness and wanting to give in to “the devil,” as she says. Essentially indulging in bad habits and trying to enjoy life carefree.
“Crooked Salesman” is the song that explicitly focuses on the exploration of her talent as an artist. By using an old prayer mantra and latin beat as the base of the song, Kaul expresses her attempts as a young adult trying to make it into the music industry but ultimately getting scammed. This song was filled with rage and the latin phonk/EDM beat is exceptionally fitting in voicing her rage.
Kual has grown so much from her last album “Seven Deadly Sins” in so many ways it’s amazing to hear the change and growth she’s done with her music. Overall the storytelling, depth, sound, and meaning of this album was something we haven’t yet seen from Kual and I loved every second of it. From the hype EDM style songs like “Hungama” —to the slower more classic Kaul R&B sound like “Tere Bina” this album marks a new era for Kaul and I’m here for every second of it.
The album also has an overarching theme of running out of time and not enjoying life enough. The song “Born to Die” stuck out to me the most. The lyrics are something I personally relate to because I’ve always been hyper-fixated on school and work; I forget that life is supposed to be fun, too. This song felt like the reminder I needed to enjoy life while I’m alive. Additionally, the song “We Have Time” quite literally sounds like the anxiety of being in a time crunch, feeling like you’re running out of time in life. The lyrics, plus the sound of the song, encapsulate this feeling perfectly, especially in the way the beat speeds up, sounding more and more panicked as she sings the lyrics of the last two verses.
