Request Line

Now that all roads lead to Jill Scott's performance at the Cape Town International Jazz festival, March 2012. I have started brushing up on my lyrical finesse, fine tuning my voice so that when I sing along with Ms Scott, I am not the one getting awkard stares and hisses to stop ;)

There are quite a few songs that I hope she performs - some of the golden oldies include Long Walk -

What do song do you want to get down to with Jill Scott?

Jill - on her way down South!

Perhaps the reason behind this blog was to channel enough positive energy to get Jill Scott to come perform in South Africa (Team #gettingJillScottToPerformInSA ). Who knows, what I do know is that since my first listen I wanted to experience her performing live.

Those prayers were answered when it was announced that Jill Scott and Pharoahe Monch will be performing at the 13th Cape Town International Jazz Festival. How amazing that we will witness the talent experience the love....

The next posts will be all about the festival and MissJillScott. 'I am so grateful that I'm still standing'

To remix or not to remix

I have a love/hate relationship with remixes. That becomes an extremely and emotional hate when I feel like a good song has been butchered. But this discussion often leads to spinning ciphers with my partner who believes that remixes allow songs to be accessible to a broader crowd, that would ordinarily feel excluded and intimidated by the original song. Well...

I still believe that some aspects  of culture and music are attractive because of their perception of exclusivity. This is not to say that I don't think the following remix is good. It's just not for me. What do you think?

DO you think that this:

 

does justice to this?

Let me know - and have a beautiful new year!

Nina Simone's 'Four Women'

Nina Simone explained in I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters and Their Craft: "I am emphatically against the injustices of black people, of third world people. 'Four Women' came to me after conversations I had with black women. It seemed we were all suffering from self-hatred. We hated our complexions, our hair, our bodies. I realized we had been brainwashed into feeling this way about ourselves by some black men and many white people. I tried to speak to this in the song. And do you know, some black radio stations wouldn't play it? It is true what they say: the truth hurts." Sourced from: http://www.songfacts.com/

'Four Women' has undergone many covers, with new school artists articulating these themes of identity, internal beauty and beauty as a reflection of massmedia-mediated ideals. This is yet another resonating expression... a beautiful rendition by Kelly Price, Marsha Ambrosius, Jill Scott and Ledisi

'I don’t know’ (Gotta have it)

The thing about love, is that we don’t know much about it – what we do know, is that we gots to have it (loosely quoting Jill Scott in her track ‘I don’t know’).

When we retrospect on it, the reasons begin to work themselves into a list: the way we are made to feel by the other, how his or her movements evoke excitement in us, the sexiness and the intellect of the other – whatever, gotta have you.