Weekly Music Roundup: Bette Smith, Public Enemy, and Nubiyan Twist
Week of Sep. 28: This week, the next great Brooklyn soul singer; the return of Public Enemy, and a posthumous duet from John Prine. Plus, a huge Prince reissue.
PREMIERE: Soul Singer Bette Smith Hits The Coney Island Boardwalk
Bette Smith is from Brooklyn, though her music often seems to scream “Memphis!” Her new album, The Good, The Bad, and The Bette, is full of that great, southern rock/soul sound – and no wonder, as it includes Memphis guitarist Luther Dickinson and several of the Drive-By Truckers among its guests. Today we premiere her new video, for the song “I Felt It Too,” one of the killer tracks from the album. She tells us that for her, the song is about “my evolution from a young girl into a lady; it is also a song about relationships and first love. For everyone else it is probably about the one that got away.” The song that precedes it on the LP, called “I’m A Sinner,” ends with an apparent voice/guitar demo of “I Felt It Too.” It’s easy to fall in love with the gutbucket stomp and panting horns of the fully-produced track, but that brief clip - which ends with Smith asking “right?” and someone (producer Matt Patton, maybe?) saying “hell yeah, that’s gonna be hot” - shows that the song was a winner from the get-go.
The video is set on the Coney Island boardwalk. I’m not seeing a ton of social distancing going on, but hey, at least they have the boardwalk largely to themselves. Too bad - it would’ve been a great video to do in a normal year with a huge crowd bopping along… Once again, thank you 2020.
Kurt Vile Releases Duet With The Late John Prine
Kurt Vile is about to release an EP called Speed, Sound, Lonely KV, recorded in Nashville over a period of several years with some of that city’s musical stars. The highlight of the EP might well be Vile’s cover of the late John Prine’s “How Lucky” – with the songwriter himself, who died in April from complications of COVID-19, as Vile’s duet partner. The two unplugged guitars, the two unvarnished voices, the chiming mandolin in the break, and then the wonderful final verse where the two sing together… well, as the song says, “how lucky can one man get?” For Kurt Vile, a longtime John Prine fan, this was, as he put it, "probably the single most special musical moment in my life.”
Rapper Polo G Continues His Hot Streak
So yeah, 2020. No one’s going to look back on this year and say, “good times…” But Polo G, the young Chicago rapper, is having a big year. In May he released THE GOAT, which quickly went gold. Last week, he made his late night debut on The Tonight Show, then played Bonnaroo’s Virtual ROO-ality Festival – with Bruce Hornsby, whose hit “The Way It Is” forms the basis for Polo’s song-of-the-year contender “Wishing For A Hero.” In between he found time to release a new song, called “Epidemic.” It’s not a pandemic song, at least not in the way you’re thinking: it is a dirge, a lament for the all the inner city kids whose lives have been shaped – or ended – by gangs. It’s a song that includes a melancholy keyboard and downtempo groove, a brief mention of Marvin Gaye, and lots of rough language.
Nana Adjoa Makes A Much-Anticipated Debut
Nana Adjoa is a Dutch-Ghanaian singer and songwriter who’s been releasing a series of EPs and singles, and who has now put out her first LP. It’s called Big Dreaming Ants, and it covers a lot of ground, stylistically, from anthemic electropop that recalls the British bands of the 80s, to subtle acoustic guitar-based music, to tracks with the slinky beat of West African highlife. What ties it all together are Adjoa’s intimate vocals and probing, often poignant lyrics. This song, “Throw Stones,” has one of the album’s most subtly experimental arrangements: a set of small drums and percussion provides a steady rhythm, and a repeating figure on what sounds like a high-strung classical guitar (but might also be a ukulele) sets up a light acoustic mood; but a blatting sound inserts itself, electronics loom in the background, and voices interject the word “stones” in a way that her fans will probably try to replicate when, in the fullness of time, Adjoa is allowed to tour again.
Public Enemy’s Star-Studded New LP Is Out
What You Gonna Do When The Grid Goes Down? is the name of Public Enemy’s new album. We’ve already heard “State Of The Union (STFU),” featuring DJ Premier; and the other early single from the record is a 2020 remix of their foundational song “Fight The Power,” now featuring Nas, YG, Questlove and a host of other guests. Both of those songs showed that Public Enemy is still politically engaged, and enraged, but the full LP shows another side of the band. Many of the songs deal with technology, and the album’s title suggests an apocalyptic view of what will happen to us if we lose our access to it. Looked at as a whole, much of the album is about a dystopia (both technological and political) of our own making. But when Chuck D says that now your phone is just a phone with a camera, or remembers a time when rappers actually had to rhyme, it’s hard not to see him as an aging guy complaining about “these kids today.” At least he seems to be aware of that, and at times, like in the song “Public Enemy Number Won,” the old-timers, who include the surviving Beastie Boys and Run-DMC, seem to be having fun playing the grumpy old man game.
This track, “Smash The Crowd,” finds Chuck D asking for, and getting, the classic rock drum/guitar sound, but showing that he can still make incisive music with it. The sampled horns and the guest turns by Ice T and PMD (who drops the title of Public Enemy’s 1990 LP Fear Of A Black Planet in his verse) help too.
The Latest Afrojazz From Nubiyan Twist
Based in London but drawing on music from Ethiopia and West Africa, the big jazz band called Nubiyan Twist is planning to release its next album, called Freedom Fables, on December 18. But they’ve just put out the single “Tittle Tattle,” featuring the rising British jazz singer Cherise. For a song by an alleged group of jazz musicians, this is a pretty soulful, pop-inflected tune. The horn arrangements are predictably great, and redolent of both the big bands of the US/UK in the mid-20th century and those in Lagos, circa 1975. And Cherise’s vocals are those of a young singer who’s grown up with hip hop. So there’s lots going on here; it seems like a bit of sly fun, and that’s before you get to all the Rococo goings-on in the video.
Prince - Sign o’ the Times (Super Deluxe Reissue) is A Funky Good Time
Let it be said that this reissue -with all of its 63 bonus tracks (8CD+DVD / 13LP+DVD and digital)- is a massive and glorious treasure trove of B sides and jams, alternate takes, some (perhaps) unfinished vamps, some sketches of songs, and a really satisfying live set, recorded in Utrecht in June of 1987. The material included clearly showcases Prince’s ambitious intent and unlimited musical curiosity, and as such, it can be alternately chaotic and cat-like; his whirlwind of exploration and experimentation stretches out, yawns, winds back up, seduces, and toys with listeners. There are funk jams, soulful dance bangers, proggy jazz noodles, charming pop tunes, R&B loungey piano ballads, party room big band productions, and powerful gospel music too. There are signature overtly sexy and um…horny… I mean horn-heavy numbers, even a salaciously-titled “Eggplant,” pre-dating emojis. There’s also a beautiful, heartfelt “Power Fantastic” from the studio where he calls out changes to the band - one of the last times the Revolution recorded with him.
As an enthusiastic and devoted fan, it’s been difficult to listen to this specific motherlode of music: I’m angry and a bit tearful that Prince is no longer here to invent more music that I deeply admire. Sign of the Times caps off one of my favorite musically wide-ranging, adventurous, and sexy eras for Prince, which for me started with Around the World in a Day, and includes Parade/Under the Cherry Moon. I’m grateful for getting to hear this material, especially the concert footage without it being from a bootleg. There’s also a nagging sense that by listening to certain riffs, snippets, solos, and melodies that do find their way into later tunes, we’re seeing too much of the process and not getting to revel in how he would have wished to polish and present the final masterpieces. And I just don’t want to change how much I truly “Adore” him. "Until the end of time." - Caryn Havlik
