Hallelujah Lilly - Bunny Rainbow Revolution

SoulChef & Uptown Swuite - Bless The Child a 2022 single on SoulSwuite Music. New Zealand-based rapper SoulChef has been churning out soul and jazz-inspired hip-hop for well over a decade now, starting with 2010’s Escapism. He focuses on invoking serenity through his thoughtful lyricism, meticulous productions, and head-bopping beats. He’s also an endeared collaborator. For one of his latest singles, “Bless The Child,” SoulChef teams up with Bay Area-bred rapper and member of the Digital Martyrs collective Uptown Swuite, for a breezy jam steeped in nostalgia. In the song, the rappers forgive their former adolescent selves for their mistakes since it’s not their fault they were products of broken homes. This isn’t the first time the two have worked together. In 2020 the duo dropped the collaborative album SoulSwuite. At the time, Uptown Swuite told HipHopDX this about their relationship: “Soul Chef and I are of Samoan descent. Although I reside in California and Chef lives in New Zealand, New Zealand is like my second home. I used to live there and have real strong roots in the music/Hip Hop community of New Zealand. With this album, we really just wanted to capture the Samoan experience all around via our eyes — whether it be a Samoan living in California, New Zealand or even the motherland Samoa/American Samoa.” Watch the video for “Bless the Child,” directed by Digital Martyrs, and read the full post at KEXP.org.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1 Joulu 20222min

Danielle Ponder - "Some Of Us Are Brave" from the 2022 album Some Of Us Are Brave on Future Classic. After working as a Public Defender for five years, Rochester-based singer/songwriter Danielle Ponder left to focus on her music full-time. But her life-long pursuit of justice continues through her songs, as you can hear on her debut LP Some of Us Are Brave.  "I read a book in law school, All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men: But Some of Us Are Brave," Ponder explains in a press release. "I first fell in love with the title, I immediately felt seen. The book is essentially one of the first to address intersectionality. Often when we talk about feminism, we forget the issues that uniquely impact Black women and the same when we speak about race. The book is a collection of Black women writers pushing against invisibility, speaking loud and clear and telling our unique story. To me, this song was just a moment to pause and pay homage to Black women. The album is named that because that's where I get my biggest inspirations. My biggest cheerleaders are my sisters, my mother, Black women. And I think bravery is what I've needed to become a full-time artist.'' Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

30 Marras 20223min

Arima Ederra - "Steel Wing" from the 2022 album An Orange Colored Day on Arima's Lab. Today's Song of the Day came to singer/songwriter Arima Ederra in a moment of anger. As the firstborn daughter of Ethiopian refugees, the Los Angeles-based artist was rattled by the refugee crisis that forcibly displaced a record 68.5 million people. In a press statement, she reflected: “When the former president put a ban on refugees in 2017, I remember sitting in my room very angry and couldn’t help but think about my family in East Africa. When the news came, a melody followed, kind of in the form of a chant. I recorded a little voice note of it, tucked it away and didn’t really think much of it til later in the year. When we started making the music, it felt like a soundtrack to my rebellious teen years and I felt called to explore the parallels of my youth to my father’s journey as a refugee. The hook is kind of like a conversation between the two of us. 'Steel Wing' pays homage to not only my family, but all refugees, women and young girls to continue to take up space, rebel and explore their curiosity and freedom in everything they do.” Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

29 Marras 20224min

Carsen Gray - "Cracks" a 2022 single on Nettwerk Music Group. Canadian singer/songwriter Carsen Gray brings the beauty of her homeland of Haida Gwaii, BC to her music.  “It’s very chill, beautiful, laidback, and peaceful,” she says of her home in a press statement. “The people are nice and welcoming. We all support one another and cheer each other on. Because of where I’m from, I feel like I was able to come out with such a warm project. We’re in a safe little place up here. I’m proud of my heritage, where I come from, and the land I live on.” She brings that "chill, beautiful, laidback, and peaceful" vibe to today's Song of the Day, which showcases Gray's soulful voice against an acoustic guitar. Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

28 Marras 20223min

Among Authors - Fears We Hold, a 2022 single on Squaremoss. Five years after releasing their debut album I AM BECOME, atmospheric art-rock outfit Among Authors finally returned last month with a gripping new single. The Seattle-based band is led by Ian Ketterer and the song details the crippling anxiety he’s felt his entire life due to being born without a right thumb or ear coupled with the scars left from multiple invasive surgeries - one to fix a Tracheoesophageal fistula and the other an open heart surgery. This isn’t just vanity at play, it’s struggling to fit into what is considered “normal” in a very ableist society. But it also hits home for all of us quietly brooding over what we consider to be our imperfections. In “Fears We Hold,” Ketterer sends a message to his younger self that the world isn’t as scary as he thinks it is and that nobody’s out to get him. Led by sparse piano, the song builds and swirls as Ketterer bellows, “So pull back your hair /And roll up your sleeves /Cause nobody cares /Or sees what you see.” In a reflective and deeply vulnerable Instagram post, Ketterer had this to say about the song: “I have struggled with hiding the right side of my body my entire life. Everything from my clothing style down to my body movements and positions are all so ingrained in my subconscious and all tailor around making sure nobody can see my right hand, or my missing ear on my right side. I have worn long sleeves my entire life, long hair, even the seemingly simplest every day tasks like going to get Starbucks puts my head in a space where without even thinking about it, I am pulling out my card to pay for my drink in a specific way so my right hand isn't seen. Or when talking to people, always positioning myself so the right side is hidden. Oh god don't even get me started with when I am approached by someone to shake their hand with my right hand. You know what I do? I grab their hand with both my hands so that they don't sense that I have a missing thumb on my right hand. I have lived in my own self-doubt my entire life. As a musician, I have always had this fear that when my band makes it big some day, and we're at some dumb photoshoot, that my big "lie" will be revealed, we'll get kicked off our record label (which we've yet to have) for not being sellable from a look standpoint, and our music career will be over. That's all nonsense. I have held onto these unnecessary and irrelevant fears for way too long. This is who I am.” Watch Among Authors’ KEXP in-studio performance from 2018 and read the full post at KEXP.org.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

25 Marras 20224min

Martha - Hope Gets Harder from the 2022 album Please Don't Take Me Back on Specialist Subject. British pop-punkers Martha have been spreading messages of anarchy since 2014 when they released their debut album Courting Strong. They’ve dropped three more records since, with the latest being this year’s Please Don’t Take Me Back. The record proves that the band from a small town called Pity Me continue to pity no one, especially the Powers That Be controlling the state of the UK. Our Song of the Day, “Hope Gets Harder,” hones in on this idea, targeting the rich and powerful who are killing hope and optimism at a rapid rate. “Drain the blood from every diamond /On this damp and hateful island,” they cry over a sprititedly brisk riff before closing the song with the pointed claim, “Every day the hope gets harder/ England is a funeral parlor.” In a lengthy statement about the song, the band don’t mince words on what they mean by that: “‘Hope Gets Harder’ is a song about England: a uniquely fucking terrible idea,” the band said in a statement. “A place governed by the most absurdly mediocre people in history. Selfish, rich, thick, malevolent ghouls propped up by a bootlicking, self-congratulating, stenographic, client-journalist news media that puts North Korea to shame. England is a grey, damp artifice, vibrating to a quasi-fascist background hum, where the majority live miserable hopeless lives, so that a tiny minority can live in extravagant luxury. As we lurch violently from one crisis to the next, it feels like the light of any hope for the future is slowly dying. But we have to try and find hope in one another, and together we have to fight like hell for a more socially and ecologically just world. No fate but what we make for ourselves. Abolish england. Fuck the king.” Watch the cleverly illustrated music video for “Hope Gets Harder” by Nathan Stephens-Griffin and read the full post at KEXP.org.Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

24 Marras 20222min

Metronomy x Jessica Winter - “I lost my mind,” a 2022 single on Because Music. Following the release of their seventh LP Small World, Metronomy return with a "reimagined" version featuring re-worked versions of tracks from that album from Sébastien Tellier, Bolis Pupul, and on today's Song of the Day, London-based singer/songwriter Jessica Winter.  Winter cited Kylie Minogue as an inspiration for the reimagining, saying in a press release, “As soon as I heard the held high notes in the chorus I thought the song could go in a Kylie direction; the key change at the end then went quite ABBA.” She added, "“Everything on the track was made from analogue synths and drum machines and there’s real strings on there too; if you listen closely you can hear a hook pinched from a different track on Metronomy’s latest album.” Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

23 Marras 20224min

Fanfara Station - “Lafoo” from the 2022 album Boussadia on Garrincha Edizioni Musicali. On their latest LP Boussadia, the trio Fanfara Station aim to celebrate the culture of each band member.  Multi-instrumentalist Marzouk Mejri grew up in Tunisia; not only does he bring an inspiration of North African rhythms to the group, but he explores traditional woodwind and percussion instruments in his music. He met DJ/producer Marco Dalmasso (aka Ghiaccioli e Branzini) after relocating to Italy in the '90s; his electronic expertise elevates Mejri's compositions to dance-floor bangers. American horn player Charles Ferris arrived from San Francisco on a Fulbright scolarship to research the chants of Campania,  The album was recorded in Tunisia, in order for the artists to "immerse and breath the culture," and most of the tracks were born from live improvisations, to "capture the energy of their concerts." Read the full story at KEXP.orgSupport the show: https://www.kexp.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

22 Marras 20223min