Whether or not you’re on the brink of boogie right down to your polling place, or have already voted and are making telephone calls to family and friends to mobilize them, there needs to be a musical soundtrack to match and amplify your temper.
I’ve put collectively a playlist of enjoyable recommendations and stay up for listening to what will get you up, transferring, and motivated!
”Black Music Sunday” is a weekly sequence highlighting all issues Black music, with over 235 tales protecting performers, genres, historical past, and extra, every that includes its personal vibrant soundtrack. I hope you’ll discover some acquainted tunes and maybe an introduction to one thing new.
For years, Black church of us have been organizing “Souls to the Polls” to mobilize individuals to vote and assist them acquire entry to take action. My playlist immediately is specializing in “sweet soul music” of the dancing selection.
It made sense to me to begin with “Aint’ No Stopping Us Now” by McFadden & Whitehead. BlackPast has their bio, written by Dr. Otis D. Alexander:
The composers, lyricists, and performers who comprised the duo McFadden and Whitehead have been reared in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Gene McFadden was born on January 28, 1949, in Olanta, South Carolina, and John Cavadus Whitehead was born on July 10, 1948, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As youngsters, they met at Edison Excessive Faculty in North Philadelphia in 1964. Upon graduating in 1967 they fashioned the Epsilons, a band “discovered” and managed briefly by Otis Redding till Redding till 1967.
McFadden and Whitehead then turned writers for Gamble and Huff’s Philly Worldwide Data the place the wrote a number of hits together with the O’Jays‘ “Back Stabbers” Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, “Wake Up Everybody.”
To get you up outta your chair or off of the sofa, who higher than “The Godfather of Soul”—James Brown. Although Brown launched “Get Up Offa That Thing” in 1976, over time he continued to carry out it worldwide. It was troublesome to select a favourite stay efficiency as there are such a lot of of them, however I chosen this video of him on the BBC 4 Classes on Jan. 3, 2004.
After we implore of us to “get up” nobody did it higher than Bob Marley, who inspired us all to “stand up for our rights.”
Music author, reporter Ian McCann, wrote about it for UDiscoverMusic:
There’s a motive why The Wailers’ “Get Up, Stand Up” sounds extra militant because it progresses. To search out that motive, simply look ten inches up from Bob Marley within the 60s and early 70s, and it is going to be standing proper there: Peter Tosh, co-writer of the tune, and an imposingly tall man who didn’t pussyfoot when it got here to delivering a message. […]
“Get Up, Stand Up” was apparently written in response to a go to to Haiti, when Bob noticed the poverty of the island’s individuals. It isn’t simple to search out concrete proof in regards to the particulars of Bob’s journey there, and he was no stranger to poverty, having grown up within the Trenchtown ghetto of Kingston, Jamaica, so likelihood is Bob might need been moved to jot down the tune anyway.
No matter impressed it, Bob’s message is evident. For the primary two verses, he tells the individuals to not wait till the subsequent life to search out achievement; it’s their proper to be free and comfortable on this planet.
Sure, it’s militant. It’s also unattainable to listen to and keep nonetheless!
It’s additionally unattainable to imagine that Mavis Staples is 85 years outdated. We celebrated her 84th final yr right here at Black Music Sunday.
Staples was joined by Jon Batiste at this rousing live performance on the Boston Pops in 2021. She promised to “take us there” and he or she positive did.
I can’t assist however be uplifted by Batiste, whose “Freedom” garnered him the 2022 Grammy Award for Finest Music Video. Keith Spera, writing for NOLA.com, factors out the uplift from the tune for New Orleans, in a metropolis that has confronted so many trials and tribulations.
Feeling weighed down by the fixed drumbeat of New Orleans’ shortcomings (carjackings, corruption, road flooding, potholes, boil water advisories, energy outages, and many others.)? Think about taking three minutes and 43 seconds to soak up the video for Jon Batiste’s “Freedom.”
Briefly, it’s a joyful ray of feel-good New Orleans sunshine by one of many metropolis’s favourite sons.
[…]
As an audio observe alone, “Freedom” is nice enjoyable. It finds its groove instantly, with percussion paying homage to Warfare’s “Low Rider” as remade by Pharrell Williams. A simmering electrical keyboard is goosed by horns. Batiste’s falsetto is very easy. Backing vocalists give the phrase “freedom” a gospel uplift. Towards the top, the “lemme see you wobble” dancefloor chorus is a hoot. The inherent pleasure all through is completely infectious.
I’ve posted this catchy rap marketing campaign video for Kamala earlier than. Comic and musician Rita Brent initially posted it for the Biden-Harris marketing campaign, and did a remix when Kamala took up the reins of going it alone. Sure we Kam!
The Harris marketing campaign chosen Beyoncé’s “Freedom” as their theme tune. Many due to Queen Bey for granting permission and for her endorsement. The tune will not be solely highly effective—it was and is a tribute to Black girls’s power towards adversity. Black scholar and critic Salamishah Tillet wrote for The New York Instances:
On the time of its preliminary launch in spring 2016, “Freedom” appeared on what was, to that time, Beyoncé’s most politically express report so far. Its video paid clear tribute to Sybrina Fulton, Gwen Carr, Lezley McSpadden and Wanda Johnson, Black girls whose sons — Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown and Oscar Grant III — had been lately killed in racially charged incidents. Within the video, the ladies sit subsequent to one another as Beyoncé, wearing a tiered white gown, belts the tune in a visible efficiency that heightened the depth and cathartic potential of the music. It includes a verse from Kendrick Lamar, who raps, “But mama don’t cry for me, ride for me/Try for me, live for me.”
I do know that a whole lot of hundreds of individuals have been uplifted seeing Madame Vice President stroll into her rallies to the sound of “Freedom.”
What soulful tunes get you up, transferring, and motivated?
