(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PRINCESS OF POWER")
MARINA: (Singing) A tale as old as time. A story just like mine. You've been hurt by those who are supposed to treat you right.
AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
At a moment where discord and division may feel like the norm in the world, music artist Marina says she wants to embrace love. And in her new album, "Princess Of Power," she doesn't shy away from some painful moments in her past.
MARINA DIAMANDIS: Growing up, I kind of got this message that to be, like, open-hearted or loving was maybe to be weak in some way. And I think in the last few years, I've really learned to redefine love for myself in a completely different way and ultimately see that, actually, our ability and capacity to love is the most powerful thing about ourselves. It's not our weakness or vulnerability. So that's what "Princess Of Power" means to me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PRINCESS OF POWER")
MARINA: (Singing) But love is my design. I lived the sweet and I lived the sour. Been living life locked up in a tower. But now I'm blooming like a flower. Welcome to my world, princess of power.
DIAMANDIS: We've been living in quite, like, a masculine-led world for so long. Many of us have equated power with control, manipulating people to get our needs met. That isn't loving, to me. So I think I've had to - over the last decade, really, I've had to, like, work out what love means for myself. Particularly in relationships, too, 'cause I think a lot of our behaviors in relationships are actually more, like, attachment-based to keep ourselves feeling secure. But that's kind of a separate thing to what actual love is.
RASCOE: It sounds like your idea of power is focusing on self and letting go of other people and maybe expectations.
DIAMANDIS: Yeah, I think you're totally right. We all have expectations when it comes to love and treatment of other people, but the reality is that you can't control anyone. And, actually, no one is obligated to love you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BUTTERFLY")
MARINA: (Singing) Sometimes people going to let you down. Not everybody's meant to stick around. I feel the pain...
DIAMANDIS: Whether it's a parent or sibling or a partner, that's quite a hard thing to accept. But through that process of analyzing these experiences and, like, parts of myself, I've actually - I don't know. I've, like, got to this stage where I just feel so much freer, and I suffer less in my brain, as well, as a result. Love is important and partnership is important, but also feeling whole within yourself is, as well. And I think I come to relationships from a very different place now.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BUTTERFLY")
MARINA: (Singing) Yeah, I'm a butterfly. You just never see my energy. I'm already high, floating on a breeze. Butterfly, fly high. Yeah, I'm a butterfly.
RASCOE: Two years ago, you shared that you were diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, which results in extreme exhaustion. How does that work for a pop star who's traveling around the world? And you have all this energetic music, and it has to be energetic concerts. How do you cope?
DIAMANDIS: Well, I'm happy to say that I'm pretty much fully recovered. It's taken about two years, actually. For me, I understood it as a nervous system issue. So I started to do things like breathwork every single day - like, 40 minutes a day. It was a real lesson for me and was kind of a gift in the end, because I've been able to change other aspects of my life through recovering from this.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARINA SONG, "ADULT GIRL")
RASCOE: There are some vulnerable moments on the album, and you really open up. There's a song called "Adult Girl.".
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ADULT GIRL")
MARINA: (Singing) I can let go of the flower now my power has returned. I can look back at the past now I see what I have learned. Try my best to act my age, but the child won't behave. She wants to scream and cry and rage, and who am I to dig her grave? The teenage...
RASCOE: There's so much pain there for that inner child.
DIAMANDIS: Yeah. I mean, it is a song about pain, but it's also about really letting go of the past. I think the thing is understanding and having compassion for generational trauma. So for me, it - I'm saying, I'm an adult girl, which is that I developmentally sometimes don't feel like I'm in adulthood.
RASCOE: Is the thought that you didn't get to have a childhood? You know, were you in the music business back then, or...
DIAMANDIS: Oh, my God, no. I came to it very late. I was, like, 20 when I wrote my first song. But, yeah. I think it's not that I didn't have a childhood, but I think there were, like, stresses there that impacted me later on. But, you know, I always kind of hold it in balance that very few people have a perfect childhood, and life is about being challenged in different ways. And when I started to see things more as, like, a lesson that maybe my soul needed to learn, as opposed to, I didn't get this, or, like, I wish my childhood had been like this, that kind of softened things a lot and just helped me to accept things for what they are.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ADULT GIRL")
MARINA: (Singing) An adult girl.
DIAMANDIS: It's one of those human things that we actually grow the most in times of challenge. And, like, whenever I've been through a tricky period in life, I almost never regret having gone through it. After the fact, I can see the benefits of the growth that I was able to take away from it.
RASCOE: With this album, what do you want the people that listen to it - how do you want them to be empowered? And who do you hope will be empowered when they listen to this album?
DIAMANDIS: I honestly - it sounds so simple, but I just want people to feel really good when they hear the record. And I do hope it empowers people, for sure. Really, it's about shifting, like, negative feelings to positive feelings. I think we really need that in the world right now. There's, like, a lot of dark energy. So I think being able to put ourselves in a frame of mind that doesn't feed into, like, that fear is really needed.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARINA: (Singing) 'Cause I love you, and I know that you love me, too. I want you, and I know that you want me, too. I love you. I've been waiting to make you mine. I want to be holding you tonight.
RASCOE: That's music artist Marina. She has a new album out. It's called "Princess Of Power." Thank you so much for joining us.
DIAMANDIS: Thank you so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARINA: (Singing) Parties now. I want to make my way around town. Pink and purple, blue and gold. Glitter catsuits, vintage coats. Get on stage, take a bow. Marry me. Let's make a vow. Gin martinis, smoking Vogues. Let's make a party of our own. Is it something you like? La-la-la-la, you like? Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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