Tag Archives: Just Duléa

Sa-Roc – The Sharecropper’s Daughter

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Title: The Sharecropper’s Daughter  
Artist: Sa-Roc
Label: Rhymesayers Entertainment
Formats: CD, LP, Digital
Release date: August 12, 2020

 

As the musical tide shifts and conscious rap is once again foregrounded, The Sharecropper’s Daughter by Sa-Roc is an album that should be canonized. Lyrically dexterous, this album is Ancestral remembrance, community healing, and a call to check internalized systems of oppression, packaged in fifteen phenomenal tracks. From the opening track “EmergencE” stating, “to heal the spirit, reveal the prison,” to the closing track “Grounded” that provides the reminder, “I got too much in me for you to take it from me, that’s how I learned to be free,” The Sharecropper’s Daughter leaves you feeling both affirmed and called to action.

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Camille Yarbrough – The Iron Pot Cooker

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Title: The Iron Pot Cooker  
Artist: Camille Yarbrough  
Label: Vanguard/Craft Recordings  
Formats: LP (first vinyl reissue; 180-gram Record Store Day ed.)*  
Release date: September 26, 2020  

 

Twenty-nine seconds into track one, “But It Comes Out Mad,” Camille Yarbrough takes a breath. This is not a simple breath, but a deep breath, an exasperated breath. In that one breath, she sets up listeners for the premise of the entire album. The Black community is under pressure, being cooked, and we are tired.

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Syleena Johnson – Woman

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Title: Woman
Artist: Syleena Johnson
Label: eOne Music
Formats: Digital
Release Date: January 31, 2020

 

Singer-songwriter Syleena Johnson’s new album, Woman, is a timely, soulful ode to womanhood as well as a call to action wrapped in deep reflection. Opening with “Woman (intro),” Johnson positions this brief spoken introduction as a centering track that grounds listeners in the journey of empowerment they are about to embark on. Additionally, she guides us through each track with lyrics that illuminate the common threads of strength, resilience, and healing that tie women together.

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Bound for the Promised Land: Songs and Words of Equality and Freedom

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Title: Bound for the Promised Land: Songs and Words of Equality and Freedom   
Artist: Various
Label: Albany
Formats: CD, Digital
Release Date: January 10, 2020

 

The songs and spoken excerpts that comprise Bound for the Promised Land: Songs and Words of Equality and Freedom were performed live during the Atlanta Music Festival in 2016 at Ebenezer Baptist Church and Glenn Memorial Auditorium at Emory University. The Atlanta Music Festival was first created in 1910 after the Atlanta Race Riots and revived in 2001 by Pastor Dwight Andrews. The purpose of the festival at its inception was to introduce the world to renowned African American concert musicians. The music featured on Bound for the Promised Land does not disappoint and holds true to the original mission of the festival, with works by Dorothy Rudd Moore, T. J. Anderson, Duke Ellington, John Carter and Adolphus Hailstork. Guest artists include the late soprano Jessye Norman, who performs on four songs, tenor Timothy B. Miller, and narrators Taylor Branch and Rev. Robert M. Franklin, Jr.

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Ondigui and Bota Tabansi International – Ewondo Rythm

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Title: Ewondo Rythm
Artist: Ondigui and Bota Tabansi International
Label: BBE Music
Formats: CD, LP, and Digital
Release Date: August 9, 2019

 

This reissue of Ewondo Rythm, the 1977 release by Ondigui and Bota Tabansi International, puts one in the mind of Afrobeat and Fela Kuti. Getting its genesis from the musical traditions coming out of the Congo in the 1960s, the group brings listeners into the hidden gem of highlife-soukous. Energetically balanced throughout its five tracks, the album creates a musical experience that leaves listeners wanting to dance, unwind, and perhaps even wishing that they were at Carnival! Ewondo Rythm is a great introduction to music from the Congo Basin for those looking to try something new, or to expand their appreciation of diasporic music. Continue reading →

Tenesha The Wordsmith – Peacocks & Other Savage Beasts

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Title: Peacocks & Other Savage Beasts
Artist: Tenesha The Wordsmith
Label: On the Corner
Formats: CD, LP, and Digital
Release date: August 30, 2019

 

 

First coming on to the scene as a guest on the title track of DJ Khalad’s 2018 On The Corner release, Black Noise 2084, Tenesha The Wordsmith has delivered a timely yet timeless solo album with Peacocks & Other Savage Beasts. Blending and bending genres, Tenesha holds true to her name, wordsmithing to weave narratives together, painting a new reality in the process. This album withholds nothing, deftly balancing social commentary, and critiques, with narrative. There is also a clear through-line of hope. Though many of the narratives included within this album are considered personal, they are framed such that they transcend the individual to become the collective, as exemplified in the track, ‘The Collection.” The pieces that bookend the album, “Dangerous Women” and “I Dream So Loud,” are poetry as prayer; they are invocation, they are inspiration, they are aspiration.  Continue reading →