Editors’ Notes Much of the world met Brooklyn-based R&B singer Anna Wise through Kendrick Lamar and the TDE camp. Her fluttering voice can be heard on both good kid, m.A.A.d city and To Pimp a Butterfly, as well as Ab-Soul's Control System, but she's always been a dynamic artist in her own right. Basking in warm hues of ambient soul, As If It Were Forever is the most salient portrait of Wise to date, tracing the interior musings of a woman who knows what it means to yearn for love and run from it—which she does in the same breath. Lines like "I'm out here being honest/Hoping to be met with honesty," from the hazy opener "Worm's Playground," or "Why do you make me feel crazy for telling you what I need," from the aching single "What's Up With You," feel like a gut punch in their familiarity; her lyrics are the thoughts of quiet moments and the declarations you've wanted to scream from the rooftops. Much of Wise's previous work has been shrouded in experimentalism and abstraction—a musical space she does well in, to be sure—but As If It Were Forever is her most realized and direct work.