It’s the musical partnership that won’t stop. Barely one week after the homeless man siren song, “Bed,” it’s now Ariana Grande’s turn to take the leadership role as she features Nicki Minaj on her latest single from Sweetener, “The Light Is Coming.” Set in the confines of a darkened forest (naturally) with only occasional glimmers of laser light to encourage Grande’s chipmunk-like energy, the majority of the song features the repetitive sample from a 2009 town hall meeting in Pennsylvania, in which an enraged citizen screams, “You wouldn’t let anybody speak and instead–!”
That the track is produced by Pharrell (fresh off his stint with The Carters on Everything Is Love) is clearly relevant to use of the line, considering a clip of the same meeting was used by him for “Lemon” (that “Wait, wait a minute” part you know so well by now). For whatever reason this speaks so strongly to the N.E.R.D. frontman, Ariana was amenable to including it, taking a cue from it with her own repetition in the form of: “The light is coming to give back everything the darkness stole.” We’re told. But these are big words, considering the current state of affairs. Yet it’s also in keeping with the message of empowerment (post-“No Tears Left to Cry”) Grande seems to find herself in the throes of after enduring the darkness of one of the largest terrorist attacks in the U.K. while in Manchester for her (perhaps unfortunately titled) Dangerous Woman Tour on May 22, 2017.
The subsequent period of blackness that surely followed is something Grande appears determined to shirk (most especially now that she’s got Cazzie David’s ex as her fiancé). Even if it means settling for a tree stump as a platform for expressing her autoerotic sexuality (the only kind of sexuality in 2018). There’s even a bit of a Twin Peaks parallel, not just because the nexus of the Black (and White) Lodge is in the woods outside the town, but because Ariana literally runs into three other versions of herself to form, swiftly, a new, more invigorated one.
Of course, her selves just re-multiply and start flitting about the forest even more enthusiastically. It’s both scary and charming all at once (like being in a whirlwind romance that prompts you to get engaged after a week). And, toward the end, it does seem like the light starts to come to give back everything the darkness stole–not just in the shiny white globe Ariana briefly takes a shine to dancing with, but in the multi-colored, club-inspired lights that make the outdoors feel just a little bit less creepy and little more ravey.
The only regret is that Nicki Minaj doesn’t join in more on the forest frolicking. But then, Chun-Li is a bit of a Grinch when it comes to such carefree fun-having. Surely somebody has to be the Windom Earle of the duo.
