 We had a nice mix of soulful music on this week’s show, for all the crate diggers and soul junkies within earshot. Don’t forget to follow @PurpleRoomRadio on Instagram for playlists and announcements regarding the show. Here are some of this week's highlights!  Montreal’s Dominique Fils-Aimé has completely captivated me with her 2023 album Our Roots Run Deep which was on repeat for a solid week in The Purple Room. Our Roots Run Deep is a cultural roadmap that touts the pride, mental strength, and confidence it takes to stand in our own power. Check out the title track and To Walk Away for a nice cross-section of what the album has to offer, but truss that this album (and Dominique’s other releases) is going to get a lot of play in The Purple Room over the next little while.  Sly Stone was on a creative tear in the late 60s and early 70s. Between 1967 and 1976, he released eight solid albums, peaking with 1971’s There’s a Riot Going On. Many of Sly's songs released in that era are still standard today, from the poignant Family Affair to the energetic Dance to the Music, and the inspirational Higher, Everyday People, and Stand. One of his lesser-celebrated albums of that era was 1968’s Life, which featured Into My Own Thing, Love City, and M’Lady. If you can’t get down with Sly Stone’s golden era, you’re in the wrong place. Ali Shaheed Muhammed & A Tribe Called Quest Speaking of family affairs, I capped the show off with a definite brotherhood. First, Ali Shaheed Muhammed and Adrian Younge with Lonnie Liston Smith from Jazz is Dead 17 and their track, What May Come. Ali Shaheed Muhammed also played the background in Hip-Hop mainstay A Tribe Called Quest for decades. Melatonin comes from Tribe’s sixth and final album as a group, exhaustingly called “We Got it From Here … Thanks For Your Service.” The album was released nine months after the unexpected death of Phife Dawg, one of the group’s key members. Muhammed wasn’t involved in “…Thanks for Your Service” – not the way he was with the previous Tribe albums. This one was recorded in Q-Tip’s home studio and features a roster of solid guest appearances by Jack White, Busta Rhymes, Andre 3000, Kanye West, and the return of prodigal Tribe member Jarobi, who we rarely heard from over the group’s career. Thanks again for following the show, reach out at [email protected] or on Instagram, and you will hear me next week in The Purple Room, peace. The Purple Room Playlist for March 23, 2024Dominique Fils-Aimé Our Roots Run Deep Diggs The habit of taking orders from a machine Dominique Fils-Aimé To Walk Away Kaleta & Super Yama Band Mr. Diva J-Live The Plot Twist Chris Dave Pookie on Mars Yussef Dayes f/ Masego Marching Band Vieux Farka Touré et Khruangbin Savanne Sly & The Family Stone Into My Own Thing Rascalz Strange Brew (Instrumental) Patrice Rushen The Hump D’Angelo & The Vanguard Back to the Future (Part 1) Pat Stallworth Questions, Part 2 Adrian Younge x Ali Shaheed Muhammad f/ Lonnie Liston Smith What May Come A Tribe Called Quest Melatonin  This week we took a trip around the globe - from Afrobeat to Zamrock and back again. Tune in to The Purple Room every Saturday at 2 pm MT only on the mighty CJSR FM 88.5. Zamrock Sometimes you've gotta dig to find the gems, and Zamrock is a goldmine waiting to be discovered. Zamrock is more than a musical movement; it’s a cultural expression that mirrored the political and social changes in Zambia in the 1960s and '70s. Zamrock formed around the same time that artists in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya were incorporating traditional folk and afrobeat with funk inspired by North American music but Zamrock went in a bit of a different direction. Yes, it channeled funk, but also psychedelic and garage rock - think Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, Deep Purple, and Cream. And this wasn’t a one-way relationship; a lot of musicians from other countries also dipped deep into the African pool. Ginger Baker, the drummer from Cream, became Fela Kuti’s apprentice at the time and even recorded a live album with Fela in 1971. Check out Hi Babe from The Ngozi Family’s 1976 album Day of Judgement, which was rereleased in 2014 by Now Again Records in all of its distorted beauty. Booker T. Jones  Keyboardist Booker T Jones, the frontman of Booker T and the MGs with his trusty Hammond B3 organ, put out a highly collaborative album in 2013 called Sound The Alarm. It was his 10th studio album since 1962 when he released Green Onions, and Sound the Alarm had guest appearances from Gary Clark Jr., Raphael Saadiq, Estelle, Sheila E, and Bill Withers’ daughter, Kori Withers, to name a few. Check out All Over the Place from Sound the Alarm featuring New Orleans’ Luke James on vocals. Jacob Banks The UK music scene is gold right now; on the show this week we checked out a Nigerian-born and Birmingham-based Jacob Banks with YOLO from his 2013 album The Monologue, and Ezra Collective, a five-piece band from London, England that combines elements of jazz, funk, afrobeats, reggae and soul. In 2023, Ezra Collective received the Mercury Prize for their album Where I’m Meant to Be. See you next week! ~ Shantu The Purple Room Playlist for March 9, 2024The Ngozi Family
Hi Babe Large Professor Secret Agent Matata I Feel Funky Bobby Womack Communication BJ The Chicago Kid Nobody Knows Booker T Jones f/ Luke James All Over the Place Otis Junior & Dr. Dundiff In the Dark The Floacist f/ Raheem DeVaughn Start Again Jacob Banks YOLO Ezra Collective Togetherness Little Simz Fear No Man Yussef Dayes Birds of Paradise Kurtis Stanley Sunrise in the Stuy Uyama Hiroto f/ Cise Starr Soul of Freedom John Robinson & Chief f/ U George Mega Fly |
The Purple RoomThe Purple Room is an NCRA award-winning hour of music by Black musicians from across the African diaspora—all genres, all eras. It airs every Saturday at 2pm MT, and replays on Sundays at 11am on CJSR FM 88.5. Archives
September 2024
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