MUSIC FEATURE
IN THE DRIVER’S SEAT
Natalie Carr charts a course for success on her own terms
Pg. 20 JUN 2 - JUN 15, 2021 - QCNERVE.COM
BY PAT MORAN
During an especially hectic couple of days in May, Natalie Carr nearly drowned on one afternoon, then lived to pull herself from a burning car on the next. She had a blast. The two near-deadly doppelganger encounters were scenes in a yet-to-be-released music video for the singer-songwriter’s sixth single, “Fate.” The video, Carr’s third, marks her most lavish visual production to date. “I’ve never had an experience like this in my life,” Carr says, praising her creative team, the video production company Caravan and its crew. “I’m so humbled.” Spun off by the lyric, “Fate hasn’t killed me yet / I’m still holding my breath,” which popped into Carr’s head as she was driving, the R&B-tinged groove sets Carr apart from the pack of young pop singers by her thoughtful — and thoughtprovoking — lyrics delivered with just the right amount of gravel in her lush and soothing vocals. “I don’t remember what [the lyric] meant at the time. I just liked it,” Carr recalls of the hook. But once the song was fully developed, the meaning became crystal clear. “[It’s about] confronting shame, living your truth, and not hating yourself for your past,” Carr offers. The accompanying video follows suit, depicting Carr visiting her younger self just as “past Natalie” is on the cusp of several bad personal decisions. The song, released in April, exemplifies Carr’s songwriting style, which can be heard in person when Carr performs at Neighborhood Theatre on June 9. Synths shimmer over mid-tempo rhythms as Carr’s lush vocals sooth and caress, but a close listen to the lyrics reveal vulnerability and yearning, plus a determination to embrace life’s hard-won lessons. It’s like a lazy sun-drenched day at the beach, bright on the surface while riptides coil beneath the breakers. We meet at Resident Culture Brewing Company in Plaza Midwood, where Carr works a few shifts a month whenever she’s not engaged in furthering
her music career. In person, Carr is energetic, articulate and driven. When she makes a point, she hits the table top, making it shake. The demure and playful side depicted in Carr’s publicity photos is present, but so too is the thoughtful artist and the canny businesswoman. In a little more than two years, Carr has garnered the support of musicians, filmmakers and fans, perhaps because she has the talent, charisma and work ethic to be Charlotte’s next big breakout
live performance. Whichever fork in the road her career and craft take, it’s Carr’s call. “It’s what am I going to do. Not, what’s going to happen to me,” says the musician, who turned 26 in April. “A lot of artists get caught up in that. ‘Someone is going to discover me and I’ll be a superstar.’ That’s how you get fucked. That’s how you end up broke, manipulated and alone.”
NATALIE CARR PHOTO BY RICK ULLBERG
artist, a pop analog to rap’s DaBaby or R&B’s Anthony Hamilton. Or she could keep cruising in the groove she’s perfecting — chill yet explicitly honest tunes that mirror her listeners’ lofty hopes, deepest dreams and harrowing disappointments. It’s even possible her muse might take a hairpin turn as Carr starts to adapt her studio-crafted compositions to
Finding a voice
Carr has loved, consumed and shared music for as long as she can remember. Growing up in Stamford, Connecticut, she started playing piano at age 7, and was playing guitar by middle school. There was only one drawback. “I grew up hating my voice,” she remembers. “I
just didn’t think it was very good.” Yet that didn’t stop Carr from singing, and the more she sang the more she realized she was being ridiculously selfconscious. “[Singing] is human. It’s literally what comes out of you when you’re expressing emotion.” Carr acknowledges that she’s in a field filled with exceptional vocalists, but the fluttering melismatic flights of Mariah Carey and others are not for her. “I have to let my voice be vulnerable,” she says. “I have to allow the cracks [in] for it to be Natalie.” Carr attended Duke University in Durham to study public policy, an amalgam of statistics, economics and political science that still fascinates her. She also worked at Small Town Records, the college’s student-run label where she dabbled in music business management. She started working with Chris West, who has gone on to engineer albums for DaBaby in Charlotte. West convinced Carr she had potential as a writer and performer. After graduating in 2017, Carr started working with producer and manager J-Mac (John McCall). Though J-Mac was then based in Raleigh, the two developed a tight working relationship. Like West, J-Mac saw long term potential in Carr. “He wasn’t someone who was like, ‘Pay me this and I’ll do this for you,’” Carr says. “He wasn’t a cash grabber.” In 2018, Carr decamped for Charlotte. After working with J-Mac for two years, she signed to his company Fourth Quarter Time in March 2020. All this time, Carr, who sees herself as a songwriter first and performer second, was writing material and developing her distinctive style. “I have a hard time writing lyrics that I’ve heard a thousand times,” she says. Instead, she embraces explicit, even confrontational lyrics when she felt they bolstered her message. “I speak on my shame and I’m trying to not shy away from experiences I’ve had,” Carr maintains. Realizing that many women have gone through experiences similar to hers, she hopes her songs might validate those listeners and make them feel seen and heard. “If that means being explicit or raunchy or opinioned, I’m okay with that.” She says her songwriting subject matter is a 50/50 split between autobiography and invention. Her current romantic partner frequently asks if certain lyrics criticizing male behavior are about him, and Carr must explain that some people and situations she documents are also fictitious. “I can relate to the experiences I write about, but they’re not necessarily mine,” Carr says. “I want
