Happy Music Monday! Halloween season is here again at Good Black News, and your Afroclectic ambassador of sweet grooves is back.
As your sonic chauffeur, I am delighted to share this seasonal playlist to help you celebrate All Hallows’ Eve.
This 5-hour collection features creepy soul, reggae, blues, jazz, and soundtracks covers an array of dark themes like Poison, Evil Ways, zombies, vampires, and Frankenstein.
You will find Halloween standards by Ray Parker Jr., Eartha Kitt, and Michael Jackson, alongside newer tracks from The Womack Sisters and Gorillaz.
Whether you are decorating, trick-or-treating, handing out candy, or hosting a party, or just out and about in those Halloween streets this playlist will set the perfect mood for the season.
Take good care, everyone. As always, stay safe, sane, and kind.
Back in February, Gorillaz shared a new eight-minute short film titled The Mountain, The Moon Cave & The Sad God. The beautiful hand-drawn animated film follows the adventures of the fictional band members Noodle, Murdoc, 2-D and Russel as they journey across India, in connection with the release of their new album, The Mountain.
For over 25 years, Gorillaz has functioned as a massive collaborative project helmed by Blur’s Damon Albarn and Tank Girl co-creator Jamie Hewlett. Their distinct sound, which fluidly blends hip-hop, electronic, and alternative rock, is defined by a dynamic roster of contributors, including both legendary figures and emerging artists.
Their collaborators include the late actor, Dennis Hopper, Carly Simon, Mick Jones & Paul Simonon of The Clash, Lou Reed, Shaun Ryder (Happy Mondays), Mark E. Smith (The Fall), The Cure’s frontman, Robert Smith, Beck, Vince Staples, Little Dragon, Kali Uchis, Bad Bunny and others.
This collection though focuses on their frequent partnerships with celebrated Black artists across hip-hop, soul, Afrobeat, and R&B. Notable past collaborators include the late Bobby Womack, the living treasure Mavis Staples, hip-hop royalty De La Soul, Snoop Dogg, and Mos Def/Yasiin Bey.
Other partners include Little Simz, who has contributed to the track “Garage Palace” and participated in the band’s tours. Del the Funky Homosapien provided the rap vocals on “Clint Eastwood” and “Rock the House,” and Bootie Brown is notable for his contributions to “Dirty Harry” and “Stylo”, along with many other great artists.
The Mountain continues that tradition featuring artists like Black Thought and Jalen Ngonda, as well as archived material from legends such as Tony Allen and Bobby Womack.
Mavis Staples is eighty-four years old as I peck these words. She has been a gospel and soul singer longer than Elizabeth II wore the crown.
Many R&B vocalists started in gospel music, though she and her family have always kept a foot in both worlds. The Staple Singers have brought their spirituality, and devotion to civil rights to all of their studio and stage offerings.
From the churches across the South Side of Chicago and the Rock ‘n Stages with artists a third her age, Mavis Staples has brought her unique smokey voice to audiences for decades.
This collection brings together her many works with The Staple Singers from 1948 until 1999, and her own solo offerings from 1969 to the present.
Mavis Staples is still an in-demand guest vocalist to boot. She has dueted or sung background with Mahalia Jackson, The Band, Gorillaz, Jon Batiste, Run the Jewels, Hozier, Benjamin Booker, Sheryl Crow, Abraham Alexander and so many others.
Mavis Staples is the only subject of one of these playlists that I have had the pleasure of spending any meaningful time with. Back in 2012 I was honored to be one of the Alumni Of The Year at Columbia College Chicago. She received an honorary doctorate from the college.
I was delighted to spend hours visiting with her that graduation weekend. She could not have been more warm, insightful, and kind.
Please enjoy this collection featuring decades of Doctor Mavis’ work with The Staple Singers, as a solo artist, and generous collaborator.
When De La Soul member David Jude Jolicoeur (aka Trugoy the Dove) unexpectedly passed away in February, anyone seeking to revisit the group’s best-known works would have come away baffled and empty-handed.
The scores of uncleared samples that defined De La Soul’s classic records made for a legal minefield when it came to making them available for streaming, until this March:
One of the giants of hip-hop’s “golden era” of the late ’80s through mid-’90s, De La’s penchant for playful creativity would fly in the face of the “gangsta rap” that dominated hip-hop at the time.
While most rapped about slinging drugs, they dedicated a track to telling the story of a drug-addicted family member and told the dangers of ignoring sexual abuse victims.
They would influence everyone from OutKast to The Pharcyde, Jungle Brothers to Childish Gambino.
For several years, the band’s catalog rights were tangled up in major label red tape from their time at Warner Bros. Records and Tommy Boy.
“Me Myself and I: The Best of De La Soul” is a collection of some of their classic, their many collaborations (Beastie Boys, Busta Rhymes, MF DOOM and others), and guest appearances (Gorillaz, Ibrahim Maalouf, Potatohead People and others.)
Enjoy this deep dive into the influential work of De La Soul.
Happy Monday, you all. Hope you had a good and safe Thanksgiving. Time will tell though.
While most of these offerings are genre and theme-based, I do like to feature a favorite, and often underrated, artist from time to time. This week, it’s Bobby Womack.
While never a household name, Womack had a long and impactful career. He, like so many in his generation, started in a family gospel group with his brothers.
Womack became the protégé of gospel and R&B/pop star Sam Cooke, a session musician, a successful solo artist with decades of hits, a writer of his own and others’ songs, and along with Mos Def, and surviving members of The Clash, was a core member of Gorillaz.
Quincy Jones arguably stands alone in having a longer and more wide-ranging career. 10-year-old Bobby started touring with his brothers on the midwest gospel circuit as The Womack Brothers.
