As life and musical partners for 13 years, Georgia Anne Muldrow and Dudley Perkins (aka Declaime) send out a message of love, healing and resistance in the face of overwhelming oppression on their third album, Black Love & War. And through their idiosyncratic blend of psychedelic jazz, bass thumping funk and their own wayward vocal and rhyme styles, it's a message that's guaranteed to empower.
The insouciant bounce of "Where I'm From" shifts the album into gear as Perkins' rhymes counterpoint Muldrow's gliding vocals, climaxing into a joyous celebration of uncompromising blackness. That blackness is under constant attack, as on "Peace Peace," where Perkins laments "Welcome to the world son, where the police got a gun, run," over a stark Muldrow-produced beat. On the resilient call to action "The Battle," Muldrow urges the downtrodden to stand firm and tall, over a gritty, cinematic funk groove that segues into "Slave Revolt Soundtrack," which portrays the death of a slave master on a plantation in a satisfying revenge fantasy.
The couple's adoration for each other is every bit as potent as their social consciousness, on "P.A.L" and "Fruitful," two of the cosmic quiet storm cuts that comprise the album's second half. And when Aloe Blacc drops by on "Smile," something's seriously amiss if your body doesn't move. As America spirals into ever-increasing despair and chaos, we're lucky to have G&D as musical messengers.
(Someothaship: Connect/E1)The insouciant bounce of "Where I'm From" shifts the album into gear as Perkins' rhymes counterpoint Muldrow's gliding vocals, climaxing into a joyous celebration of uncompromising blackness. That blackness is under constant attack, as on "Peace Peace," where Perkins laments "Welcome to the world son, where the police got a gun, run," over a stark Muldrow-produced beat. On the resilient call to action "The Battle," Muldrow urges the downtrodden to stand firm and tall, over a gritty, cinematic funk groove that segues into "Slave Revolt Soundtrack," which portrays the death of a slave master on a plantation in a satisfying revenge fantasy.
The couple's adoration for each other is every bit as potent as their social consciousness, on "P.A.L" and "Fruitful," two of the cosmic quiet storm cuts that comprise the album's second half. And when Aloe Blacc drops by on "Smile," something's seriously amiss if your body doesn't move. As America spirals into ever-increasing despair and chaos, we're lucky to have G&D as musical messengers.
