Immature/ImX singer and actor Marques Houston (You Got Served, House Party 3, Sister, Sister) just released the lead single “Cowgirl” from his forthcoming LP, The Best Worst Year Ever.
“Cowgirl” incorporates elements from Bobby Brown‘s 1988 hit “Rock Wit’cha” and touches of 1993 smash “Freak Me” by Silk from 1993 into a modern mid-tempo bop that’s already racked up close to 2 million YouTube views:
Jumping on the western wear trend and aesthetic Beyoncé reclaimed earlier this year via Cowboy Carter, in the Chris Stokes-directed video, Houston is dripped in a variety of swaggy boots, hats, vests and jeans, and lays out a line dance that is gaining momentum on TikTok via the #Cowgirldancechallenge.
Fans can look forward to the release of Houston’s new album, The Best Worst Year Ever, which debuts on August 30th.
The album is said to reflect a transformative year for Houston, filled with personal and professional highs and lows. It is set to be a landmark in his career.
Check out two of “Cowgirl”‘s throwback inspirations below:
Happy Music Monday, you all! Once again it’s your friend and selector, Marlon West, with another collection for listening and, this time, voting pleasure.
That is unless you are the kind of voter more inclined towards the guy that inspires a playlist featuring Kid Rock and Ted Nugent. Though if you were, I doubt you would be here on GOOD BLACK NEWS.
So, if you are like me, Vice President Kamala Harris’ and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s campaign and the excitement around it is welcome good news.
While some dismiss these heady days as a “sugar rush” and “media honeymoon”, Senior Editor and Correspondent for NPR News, Ron Elving, likened it to what Wall Street brokers call a “relief rally”.
This is coming after months of democrats being in the throes of ill-ease after President Biden’s debate performance. Weeks of record-breaking fundraising and huge rallies, has made for a decidedly more hopeful mood. One that I hope is here to stay.
To that end, here is a collection of tracks inspired by these more heady days to take us through the election season. Some of these songs are taken from the playlist for Harris/Walz rallies, like Mary J. Blige’s “Work That”, Leon Bridges’ “Smooth Sailing’ and, of course, Beyoncé‘s “Freedom”.
While others just seem quite timely again, including Billy Paul’s “Am I Black Enough For You”, The Staple Singers “If You’re Ready (Come Go With Me)”, and Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under A Groove”.
With Governor Walz dedicating a highway to “The Purple One”, there are more than a few Prince tracks thrown in as well.
Happy Music Monday, you all. It’s your friend and selector back again with another collection for listening, and this time rump shaking, pleasure.
While Detroit is known as “Hitsville U.S.A.” thanks to Motown, and Memphis is known as the epicenter of “Southern Soul” thanks to Stax Records. Dayton, however, is known as “The Funk Capital of the World.”
When Lakeside dubbed it “The Land of Funk” in its swashbuckling 1980 hit “Fantastic Voyage”, Dayton’s west side was already the birthplace of several of the funkiest groups on the planet.
My lifelong pal, Duane Myers, was the first to hip me to this fact a few years back. He pointed out that Ohio Players, Slave, Faze-O, Heatwave, Lakeside, Shirley Murdock, Zapp, Roger, and others are all from Dayton, Ohio.
This collection features a stable of funk bands whose influence can still be heard in hip-hop, house and other musical forms today.
The Ohio Players, who kicked open the door for them all, have had their tracks sampled or remade by Salt-N-Pepa, Soundgarden, Snoop Dogg, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers to name a few.
They are not alone. 1970s and ‘80s funk is being sampled and provides inspiration for many bands and artists. Please enjoy this playlist for classic funk music from the “Gem City”.
Happy Music Monday, y’all. If you haven’t already, please dig Jamila Wignot’s new documentary “Stax: Soulsville U.S.A.”, currently streaming on Max.
The four-part film tells the story of Stax Records, the iconic R&B label, from its late-1950s beginnings to its 1975 demise.
In its prime the label featured stars like Rufus Thomas and Carla Thomas, Sam and Dave, and Otis Redding, as well as the ace house band of Booker T. and the MGs.
Stax was a colorblind oasis of racial harmony in an otherwise fiercely segregated South. Stax has been eclipsed by Motown, with many of their hits mistakenly thought to be output from that Detroit Mecca, even though the comparative grittier Memphis studio had a sound all its own.
Look no further than Carla Thomas and Otis Redding’s “Tramp” to hear just how much their most popular artist was unapologetically “straight from the Georgia woods.”
Stax Records is critical to American music history as one of the most popular music record labels of all time.
In 15 years, Stax put more than 160 songs in the Top 100 on the pop charts and a staggering 243 hits in the Top 100 R&B charts. Please enjoy this 4 hours of essential Stax music featuring Redding, Isaac Hayes, The Bar-Kays,Johnnie Taylor, Shirley Brown, The Staple Singers and so many more.
Here at Good Black News, we’ve decided to have some fun and make up a new holiday.
With Patti LaBelle (born May 24th) and her good friend and Gemini sister Gladys Knight (born May 28th) both turning 80 over this long weekend, we’re thinking the perfect date is May 26th.
In much the same way that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays were lumped together to create President’s Day in February, we’re launching… Legendary Divas Day!
Certainly, Divas need their own day.
May 26th splits the difference between Patti’s and Gladys’ birthdates and gives us a perfect reason to share a great diva playlist every Memorial Day weekend (future Legendary Diva Days can be celebrated the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend).
LaBelle and Knight are two iconic singers who hold a special place in our collective hearts – they have provided the soundtracks to the lives of multiple generations of fans, with bodies of work to prove it.
But for our world today, they are more than just singers – they are an entire community’s beloved aunties and grandmas. They keep it fun and current by going on shows like “Dancing with the Stars” and “The Masked Singer” (Gladys was robbed on that first season, I tell you), and with cookbooks and Wal-Mart pies. They take care of us just through their being.
To honor their birthdays this weekend, GBN has put together a playlist comprising not 80 songs, but 180 songs that bounce back and forth between Gladys and Patti!
We journey through their 60+ year recording careers with the hits, the duets, the deep cuts, the standards and the spirit.
To be completely transparent, we took the bones of this playlist from a prior one we shared around the time of Gladys’ and Patti’s Verzuz song battle program during the pandemic – and we’ve dramatically expanded it to its new form.
While Reggae is a true import from Jamaica, it really gained a global footing in England. It and Punk both arose out of the economic depression and social inequality in the late 1960’s and 1970’s.
Many Reggae songs of the time like Bob Marley’s “Punky Reggae Party” and “Concrete Jungle” were overt commentary on life in London, while many Punk artists adopted some of these traits and spreading a message of rebellion against the Establishment.
He was not the only one to see that punks and Rastas shared a same idea of freedom and of rebellion against social norms and the setting of said norms.
Hope you enjoy this free-wheeling collection of songs celebrating the intersection of Reggae and Punk. As always, stay, safe, sane, and kind.
I’ve included tracks for the “Second Wave” of ska where bands like The Specials, English Beat, and Selector combined traditional ska song and grooves with a sped-up rhythms of punk music, introducing ska to new generations.
I’ve also included tracks from “Rocket To Kingston” credited to Bobby Ramone. It is a melding of the isolated vocal tracks from Bob Marley dropped over edited Ramones backing tracks. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
I’m starting off straight up corny by saying I’ve been a “transparent soul” with anyone who’d listen to me about my anticipation of WILLOW’s sixth and latest solo LP, which finally dropped May 3rd.
My owning of my corniness, turns out, totally vibes with the messages about the freedom to express & accept your feelings, warts and all, coursing throughout the #greatalbum “empathogen” (2024).
Not only do I absolutely love how WILLOW wrestles lyrically (and musically) with Big Ideas such as existence, ego, anxiety, pain, self-sabotage, fear and love, she does so in such soul-felt, sophisticated & surprising ways, I have to compliment the precise production by WILLOW and her fellow producers Chris Greatti, Eddie Benjamin and Jon Batiste.
There are myriad sounds, echo effects and vocal arrangements involved in each track, even the stripped down ones, but none ever feel overdone — just purposeful and fresh. It’s as if WILLOW threw her hands into the cosmic river of music, tapped into its source, and allowed it to flow freely through her.
There’s a lot going on technically in the music I can’t speak on with any authority (e.g. the multiple time signatures, turnarounds, uncommon verse/chorus structures) but what I can talk about is how it hits the ears and how it feels — free, unexpected, relatable, or, in one word — embracing.
WILLOW is clearly a student of music and draws on varied influences (her IG post of her working her voice out to Ella Fitzgerald’s legendary scat on “How High The Moon” blew my mind a few months ago and still lives rent free in what’s left of my head), but right now she’s reminding me most of the great Esperanza Spalding, particularly during her “Emily’s D+Evolution” (2016) jazz/pop/rock era.
WILLOW’s own pop/rock/punk/soul explorations from the past few years also inform her current jazz/funk/fusion present (and hopefully future).
The singles released from the LP, “symptom of life” and “bigfeelings”, are the best ambassadors for this tight 12-song offering which literally begins with what sounds like an off-mic Jon Batiste screeching, as if being born, “I love everything!”
(BTW, could Batiste be on more of a roll? He also co-produces and co-writes “Ameriican Requiem”, the opening track on COWBOY CARTER. If I’m an artist, I’m thinkin get this man to help kick off my LP, stat, cuz greatness will surely follow!)
After Batiste, we hear steady rimshots underneath WILLOW’s “ah oo ah ah” breaths until she sings “I live my life” — and I didn’t conjure my previous cosmic music river metaphor out of nowhere as WILLOW then sings “I trust this river to carry me / home” in this mystifyingly captivating LP opener titled “home”.
Back in the fall of 1981 when I was in my first semester at Columbia College, I became friends with a fellow from a Chicagoland suburb.
He was a dyed-in-the-wool Rolling Stones fan. One afternoon their version of “Just My Imagination” played on the radio near us. I recall mentioning it was a Temptations cover, and with some level of indignation, he told me that Jagger and Richards wrote EVERY song The Stones performed.
I was shocked. We were decades away from being able to Google such matters at the moment. I was forced to leave him to the dubious opinion. I can only hope in the decades since that he’s come to know better.
Not only was that song a cover but the Rolling Stones, for better or worse, have been the heralds of Blues and R&B for generations of Americans who would rather enjoy Black music through the filter of whiteness.
Here is AfroStones, a collection of essential songs performed by Black artists that the Rolling Stones covered.
You will find Chuck Berry, Robert Johnson, The Drifters, and Solomon Burke to name a few. Throughout this collection, the original songs are presented back to back with the Stone’s covers.
Needless to say, along with touring as the opening act for Little Richard, the Stones learned a lot from these songs and built a 50-year career on them.
Mick Jagger has long acknowledged his debt to Black America, but is not a one-way street. This collection also features Black artists covering the Stones.
Sharon Jones, Musiq Soulchild, Etta James, and others. Merry Clayton, who’s featured prominently on “Gimme Shelter”, is present with her own version of the Stones classic.
I’ve also included tracks by De La Soul, Little Simz, Snoop Dogg, and others that feature samples of their music.
As Muddy Waters said in an interview, “They stole my music, but they gave me my name.” Yet he also provided them with their name when they adopted the title of his song, “Rollin’ Stone.”
Happy MLK Holiday and Music Monday. Here is our first playlist of 2024.
“MLK Day 2024” is a collection of songs and music from across the globe. They are tracks devoted to struggle, liberation, and celebration.
I’ve included songs like “You’re A Winner,” “How I Got Over,” and “A Change Is Gonna Come” that were the real-time soundtracks to the America’s civil rights struggle in the 1960s.
There’s tracks from the turbulent 1970s and ‘80s from Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Freda Payne,Gil Scott-Heron and others.
We got new and old school hip-hop by Lupe Fiasco, KRS-One, M.I.A. and Kendrick Lamar to name a few.
This 13-hour exploration on shining a light into our societies dark places and making the world a better place features jazz, soul, reggae and afrobeat.
Nina Simone and Max Roach are here beside Uganda’s Bobi Wine and Ivory Coast’s Alpha Blondy.
Please enjoy this daylong celebration of tenacity and hope. See ya next month!
We are half way through Hanukkah, with Christmas and Kwanzaa coming up quick. We’ve offered several funky and soulful and jazz and reggae seasonal playlists over the years. Search Spotify by “marlonwest” and they are all still there to enjoy this Yuletide Season.
This Music Monday offering features holiday-themed songs that have all been dropped in 2023.
There are new tracks from new and emerging artists like Cliff Beach, Samara Joy, Fitz and The Tantrums, and the ever-versatile Keke Palmer.
There’s new offers from Mary J. Blige, Brandy, War, and Kirk Franklin. Plus releases from the likes of Johnny Mathis and Carla Thomas.
Hope and yours have a delightful holiday season. Please enjoy this soulful collection offering in the days and weeks to come.
It has been an utter delight to sling good music your way here at Good Black News. See ya in January!
