New collaboration unites three powerful forces in Denver soul, hip-hop

By Steve Graham

The Grand Alliance is like an Afrofuturist version of the Avengers, killing injustice and bad vibes with future funk jams.

The supergroup combines the talents of soul singer-songwriter Kayla Marque, rapper Sur Ellz and producer Crl Crrll. Before forming the Alliance and releasing a debut album this year, the three Denver musicians had worked together on a few projects, and partied together at weekly Meadowlark block parties and dance events including the Goodness and the Solution.

It took social media to bring them together, though. Crrll invited collaborators in a Facebook post. Marque and Ellz responded. Crrll was already working on the instrumental for “Chakra Khan,” and the trio finished the song that became the first Grand Alliance single.

“The lyrics came to me right away,” Ellz said. “Kayla and I write together and bounce ideas off each other. … It was just magical. We did that song in less than a couple of hours.”

Only hours later, they were back at the Solution party, where they gave the track to a DJ.

“We just recorded some heat today,” Ellz told the DJ. “Please trust us and throw this on. People are going to love it. Sure enough, they threw it on. We were just riding on such a high all day.”

He said the crowd loved the track.

The history and the future

Marque has an uncle in Earth, Wind and Fire, and deep roots in soul music. She was previously in the Straight Nerdy Like Cool Kid, a Denver indie rock group. Her last solo project was the ambitious “Brain Chemistry” double album. She split the work into “left brain” and “right brain” releases to represent the light and dark sides of her personality.

Sur Ellz, aka Khalil Arcady, is a genre-bending rapper and singer who created a variety of projects at the Denver School of the Arts, and isn’t afraid to write about his own struggles.

Crl Crll, aka Carl Carrell, is an in-demand content creator who has produced music for Marque, and crafted soundtracks, instrumental backdrops and explicitly political solo tracks.

The Grand Alliance is influenced by funk acts from Parliament and Earth, Wind and Fire to Prince and Anderson .Paak.

“You have elements of what’s kind of birthed in the 70s up through even early 2000s style of funk,” Ellz said.

Sci-fi sounds

The lyrics also are wide-ranging and diverse, drawing on inclusive science fiction visions they call Afrofuturist.

“We all are fans of different realms of sci-fi,” Ellz said, citing Star Trek, Star Wars and Stargate-1. “So it’s the idea of immersing ourselves in this science fiction scenario that relates to the times we are in now, and using the music as the super-thing that’s being sought after to help bring a change.”

Crll created a soundtrack for a science fiction graphic novel, but he said none of the members had worked on an explicitly Afrofuturist project before their self-titled debut.

“Grand Rising” is the centerpiece of the album, and something of a mission statement. Tribal beats give way to electronica over lyrics about ancestors, magic and “oneness.”

The band also addresses current events, though less explicitly.

“‘United Funk’ has a political message, and a message to stand up for what’s right.” Ellz said.

The album was a project of and a response to both the pandemic and the social justice protests of 2020.

“Every song that we made was in some form or fashion to empower the people of right now, going through all these things,” Crll said. “We started this project before coronavirus hit, and we finished it in the middle of the pandemic, where we were also experiencing the real pandemic of racism.”

The Grand Alliance will keep sharing that message, and hopes to perform more live shows, if possible, and even create a graphic novel or comic book to accompany the album.