“McCalla also grasps the potential for lively music to carry comment, critique and lament. In the title track — in which she takes a wry, salty, horn-accented turn as a cabaret blues diva — she voices impatience with the myth of upward mobility. “You keep telling me to climb this ladder,” she protests wearily. “I’ve got to pay my dues / But as I rise, the stakes get higher.” In “Money Is King,” drawn from the catalog of Trinidadian musician Neville Marcano, she aims breezily rhythmic, plainspoken wit at the corrupting power of wealth.”
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