As she prepares to release her second album, Everything Has Changed, the Rochester-born singer-songwriter talks Kayla Sandiford through the pivotal songs in her life.
“I keep saying the lawyer is going to kill me, but the artist is going to save me.”
This is something that Danielle Ponder reveals to me early in our conversation, on the other side of a stark — though deliberate — leap. The lawyer came first. Ponder was sixteen years old when her brother was given a prison sentence of twenty years to life, and the career that followed was shaped by this moment.
Ponder didn't envision music as a serious path. Though always inspired by it, music was nothing more than a side passion until her late thirties. By thirty-nine, she would drop law for good in favour of pursuing music full-time. Now forty-four, the Rochester-born, Atlanta-rooted singer-songwriter, who is carefully establishing herself as one of the most commanding voices in music today, is days away from releasing the most self-assured work of her career.
Ponder’s second album, Everything Has Changed, arrives on 9 October as her label debut for Dead Oceans, released in partnership with Phoebe Bridgers. Across fourteen tracks, produced by Mike Elizondo and Barney Lister with additional contributions from Bartees Strange and Avis Reese, Ponder places every part of herself on show. Where her debut album Some of Us Are Brave documented her arrival, the sound of what comes next subverts perfection, positioning her as an artist learning how to inhabit the life that she’s built.
However, it took a while to get there. “It was time to make the next album,” Ponder says. “It had been four years since my last one, and it took me a long time, just because I was going through a lot of different personal challenges.”
“I was struggling with some loss in my life,” she admits. “My father has dementia, which is a type of silent grief, because he's still here, but I can't speak to him. My brother-in-law passed away, losing friends, and relationship drama galore.” Ponder says it plainly, as someone who has done the brunt of the processing and is wading in the aftermath. “So it was time to move on to the next chapter.”
The new chapter has looked very different to the one she left behind. “I love my life,” Ponder says, as she reflects on her experience of leaving law. “It was the best decision I've ever made. The fact that I get to travel and do music and be free, I'm so grateful for it every day.” But the shift hasn't been seamless. Ponder has had to learn how to navigate a new industry with different rules, an entirely different ballpark. She spent her legal career in criminal defence, work she describes as “very adversarial”, and she brought that mindset with her.
“I do approach work like I approached my law career. I'm very much like, ‘Okay, what about this? What about this?’ And people in this industry are not like that,” she explains. “I have a very critical mind, and applying that to music is not great. When it comes to the arts, you have to be in a flow state, and that can be difficult for someone who's been in a non-flow state for most of their adult life.” She's also learning to be, in her words, “a little softer”, while feeling her way through an industry used to working with “twenty-year-old kids” as a forty-four-year-old attorney. “I'm really trying to shed that part of me, to just really be focused on creating.”
What she's creating is angrier and more honest, than anything she's made before. “I think I've always been vulnerable. I don't know if I've been as aggressive as I am on this album,” she says. “There was a gentleness in my vulnerability, and on this album I have more anger, especially in the relationship pieces, so I feel like I'm screaming a little more than I typically would. And honestly, it's not because it's a performance; it's because it's real pain.”
Recent single “Sun and Moon” turns that pain into a groove, an upbeat song about a love that only shows up when you're already walking away. Elsewhere, Ponder is done with the chase. “There's a lot of calling out on this album more than I typically would do, and it's because I am at the end of the game of centring men and feeling like they're saviours whose validation will make me finally worthy,” she explains. However, spinning these experiences into songs has brought its own relief. “I feel like there is some healing in that,” she tells me. “I keep telling myself these are the last songs I write about a man. It's over. I'm done with heartbreak songs.”
But the album doesn't solely look inward. Lead single, “Power”, is a celebration of Black resilience and diaspora, born from a trip that Ponder took to Dakar, Senegal at seventeen. “Coming from the hood of America, where everything around you is sending you a certain message, and then going to the continent and being like, ‘Oh my God, there are Black lawyers. There are Black doctors. The president is Black. In the rich neighbourhoods, they're Black. In the poor neighbourhoods, they're Black,’” she recalls.
“I've experienced all types of racism, but nothing could shake the foundation that I received from being in Africa," she muses. Returning to film the video in Dakar more than twenty years later was, as she explains, “an amazing experience”, and was part of a larger instinct to honour collective Black experiences within her work: “I always feel like I want to write a Black-ass anthem on every album, because I think it's important for me to create that world and to have that world in my life and in my art.”
And none of this, she emphasises, was handed to her as she garnered more success. “I don't think it affirmed anything about my artistry, to be honest,” she says of the move to Dead Oceans. “And I think no artist should think a label is going to be the thing that affirms them.” In fact, the signing led to its own hurdle — with more people involved, there were also more voices.
“I can't sit here and lie and say I felt confident the whole time through this process," she admits. "I didn't, nor can I say that the people around me didn't shake some of that confidence. They did. But I'm still grateful for the people who said to me, ‘Do what the fuck you want to do, and that's all that matters.’ You're going to have both as an artist, and you just have to really, really strengthen that internal compass and be able to stay focused on what it is you were chosen to deliver.”
The nine songs that Ponder has chosen show how that confidence in her own voice — and musical repertoire — was built. “I've never been one who's looking for genres. I'm looking for a feeling,” she says, and her list follows suit, moving from the psychedelic haze of The nine songs Ponder has chosen show how that confidence in her own voice — and musical repertoire — was built.
It begins in the haze of Shuggie Otis' "Sweet Thang", a college discovery that sent her on a journey through psychedelia, and Portishead's "The Rip", which expanded her understanding of building mood and atmosphere. It moves through Lauryn Hill's "Final Hour", a showcase of the lyricism she admires most, and Aretha Franklin's live gospel medley, "a healing balm" from a harder time that reconnected her with a tradition she had once rejected.
Nina Simone's "The Desperate Ones" and Fiona Apple's "Carrion" capture the swing between needing love and walking away from it, while Griselda's “DR BIRDS" is the gritty New York hip-hop she turns to after a breakup. Shirley Caesar, Albertina Walker and Milton Brunson's "Hold My Mule" takes her back to Sunday mornings in her childhood home, and Black Star and Common's "Respiration" closes the list on what she calls "hip-hop in its rawest form”.
Together, they represent the intricacies of a complex life lived long before Ponder's name was on an album. “I used to not want to talk about my age,” she says. “But honestly, I have a story to tell that comes from the years of experience I've had.”
“I have arrived,” she asserts. “And I'm really trying to enjoy this privilege of being a Black woman who gets to sing on earth.”
“Sweet Thang” by Shuggie Otis
DANIELLE PONDER: I think the first time I heard that song was in college, and a lot of my music discovery came in college because of the internet. Streaming music was just happening around then. You're way too young to remember this, but they used to come to our dorms and threaten us with prison for downloading music. It was huge. It was the anti-piracy laws. The record labels hadn't quite figured out how to stop people from downloading music for free, and I had an officer come to my campus door and say, 'You're streaming music, and it is a felony.' So this was one of those songs that I downloaded and risked my freedom for.
But it's the sonic landscape, the warmth in that song, the sexiness, the smoothness. I'm a vocalist who listens to the music first. I want to feel something, and then I write to it. This was one of those songs where he doesn't really say much at all, but the vibe is just fucking magic. I think it led me into more psychedelic sounds, into Pink Floyd, this time when people were doing acid and tripping and making some crazy-ass music. That's what the song reminds me of.
BEST FIT: You mentioned that instrumentals tend to bring out particular feelings in you. What did this song evoke?
Floating. I'm a Capricorn and I can be rigid in some ways, and music relaxes me. This song just feels like floating.
And you were drawn to more psychedelic sounds after this. Would you say that you searched for that “floating” feeling through that type of music?
Yeah, absolutely. I kept searching for that sound, and I think my first album was definitely more in that vein. On the second album, there are songs like “Garden” that have that same sexiness to them. It's still part of my influences.
At the time you found “Sweet Thang”, were you around many other people who shared your musical tastes?
Oh no, not at all. I don't think anyone was listening to that in 2000-whatever. I can't remember when it came out, but it's a very old song. Because I grew up only being able to listen to Christian music, I've always been interested in the opposite. It's kind of like kids and restriction leading to rebellion, right? If you're very restricted, the moment you get some freedom, you want to figure out what it's all about. I just wanted to listen to everything, because I felt like I was deprived of non-Christian music.
I've never been one who's looking for genres. I'm looking for a feeling, and that's how I define music. Sometimes I want to hear some aggressive shit, and that can be Jay-Z rapping, or it could be Alanis Morissette screaming. It's just the feeling to me.
“The Rip” by Portishead
It's an interesting shift, going from American psychedelic soul in Shuggie Otis to trip-hop Portishead. What drew you to their sound, and what was the context around you finding this song?
I think her [Beth Gibbons] vocals are so delicate, meditative, almost trance-like, and I love how much time they take. They don't feel like they've got to get to a chorus. There's not even really a chorus in this song. I'm drawn to songs that are very cinematic, where I can begin to see images. It's similar to the Shuggie Otis in that there's a calming effect that happens.
But Portishead is one of my favourites also because their instrumentation is so unique, and I often don't know what the instrument is. I'm very intrigued by that type of production. What is that noise? What is that beeping? I just love that type of exploration in music, and I think they do a great job of it. But I also just think of her voice, God. I love a good tone. If you've got a good tone, I'm a fan all day.
With trip-hop originating from the Bristol scene, to what extent had you engaged with the genre around the time that you found this song? Does the culture around it resonate with you?
Honestly, I'd even say I love trip-hop. What trip-hop is, is a combination of the things I love, which is hip-hop and alternative music. So when I started hearing Massive Attack and Portishead, it was like, 'Oh, this has a combo of things I'm really into.' And coming to London, I love the sound in the UK. I think America is so focused on hits, and the UK is focused on vibes.
You can have Ezra Collective going number one in the UK, and I don't think that would ever happen in the US. Our music is so corporate and commercialised, and the songs that hit number one are songs you're going to hear in the H&M dressing room. So I appreciate how free the artistry is in the UK, and I think that's why bands like Portishead and Massive Attack could start. They're able to create exactly what they want to.
Do you feel that recognising that ability to build a feeling inspired how you approach tone and instrumentals in your own music?
Yeah, absolutely. I think “Seasons” is a good example of a song that has a build and doesn't really have much of a chorus. There are a few songs that don't ascribe to a certain form. I love that cinematic production, and in “Open Windows” there's a section that splits into this deeper, trip-hoppy kind of energy. I'm always searching for the moody darkness.
“Final Hour” by Ms. Lauryn Hill
I just think Lauryn Hill is one of the best lyricists, even with her limited catalogue of two albums. The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill changed my life. Both of her albums changed my life, but I think her writing is so intelligent. She's such a smart artist, and my goal is to write in a way that is informed. Lauryn Hill is one of my favourite artists. I don't think she even gets respected enough amongst the hip-hop community. I think women in general don’t.
What struck you particularly about the lyricism on “Final Hour”?
“Now I be breakin' bread sippin’ Manichevitz wine, pay no mind party like it's 1999, but when it comes down to ground beef like Palestine!”. She's just killing it. The whole song is bars after bars after bars, and she's got crazier bars. And the album with the Fugees, God, what is that one song I love so much? Oh, I can't remember. But she's just incredible. She's an incredible writer.
Do you find yourself returning to this song — and others like it — for inspiration when you want to articulate yourself in an informed way?
I don't do much listening when I'm writing. Not because I'm on some 'I don't want to be influenced' thing. It's more that I don't want to compare myself and get frustrated. I don't want to listen to Stevie Wonder's writing while I'm trying to write and think, 'God damn, he's such a genius! I'm a loser.' So when I'm in it, I don't go there for references. But when I'm out, like now that I'm out of the cycle, I'm listening again.
You mentioned feeling that Lauryn Hill doesn't get her flowers, given how renowned she is. How do you navigate being a woman in the industry and recognising that established artists can still struggle to receive that recognition? Does that play on you?
You have to move through it. What am I going to do, stop because someone's not recognising me? But you can always speak to it. I do think, as Black women, you have to damn near be Beyoncé to become a superstar. There's an assumption that Black people can just entertain.
So, when you hear a voice like mine, I do think there's an assumption of, 'Oh yeah, but she's Black. She's a Black American dark-skinned woman. That's how she's supposed to sound.' If I was a white girl from the UK, I'd be number one on the charts right now. I think in the soul space specifically, Black women are bypassed. If you look at the soul artists who have risen to the top of the charts, a lot of them have been white or light-skinned from London, so I think people want our blues in a different form.
In that, I do feel a bit – I don't even want to say frustrated, because I feel very fortunate about where I am in life, and I don't want anyone else's life. But I think it's important to have that conversation and acknowledge it. Think of Anthony Hamilton, who's very successful, but I wouldn't say he had a number one like Teddy Swims. White people love to see soul music packaged in white bodies, and that has been the truth for as long as I can remember, at least in America.
It's a strange search for novelty, people hearing that soulful voice and treating it as something entirely new.
Yeah. I love Amy Winehouse, love her to death, but people asking me if she's one of my influences is the craziest thing to me. Her influences are probably more my influences. It's Aretha, it's Gladys, it's Tina Turner. That's my culture, you know what I mean? So it's an insane question to ask someone whose influences are my culture if she's my influence. I'm just like, how did we get here?
You tend to see the inverse, too, where if Black women are fronting alternative bands, it's 'Wow, I didn't know they could do that.’
Exactly. I love the alt space, and I love the diversity in our music. But I also think that because we sing soul or R&B, it shouldn't be seen as, 'Oh, that's just what you do.' Not everybody who goes to church can sing, and not every Black person can sing soulfully.
“Medley: Precious Lord, Take My Hand / You've Got a Friend” - Live at New Temple Missionary” by Aretha Franklin
I was going through a really difficult time in college. I feel like I had lost myself for a couple of years. I was drinking too much, partying too much, and I was really feeling depressed. In many ways, I was suicidal in those years. This is a song that I would listen to over and over, and it's a healing balm to me.
It felt like a prayer, a call out to God. Even at that point, I wasn't super religious and I wouldn't have called myself a Christian, but there was something so comforting about it. As much as I rejected gospel because it was forced on me, it is spiritual. It's the music of my immediate ancestors. Listening to this song over and over, and at the same time listening to Lauryn Hill's Unplugged, was one of a few things that kept me alive.
It sounds like a prayer in itself. Hearing a line like “you've got a friend in Jesus”, do you feel that's stayed with you? Do you ever aim to articulate your faith in your own music?
I think the way I see God isn't written in a way that's like, 'Dear God, please.' But a song like “Seasons” is spiritual. It's recognising that life comes with some shit and life comes with some good stuff, and I'm open to all of it. I want to be fully present in it, and I'm resilient enough to go through the different changes and the different seasons. To me, that's a spiritual song that reflects my type of spirituality. So I don't think I'm someone who would sing 'You've got a friend in Jesus' or 'God is on your side.’
But the way I think of spirituality is this belief that we all encompass the spirit of God, and that if anything, God wants for us the ability to have peace. There's no promise that we won't have hard times, but with meditation and the work we do mentally, we can create peace. Pain and pleasure, gain and loss, come and go like the wind. Rest like a giant tree in the midst of it all. So I think my spirituality causes me to write a song like “Seasons”.
You mentioned you almost had to rekindle a relationship with gospel music, having had it forced on you earlier. What was that experience like?
When I first started singing, I used to get so offended when people said my voice sounded like gospel, because in my head that meant 'not cool'. People were singing R&B with all of these runs, and I'm nineteen, twenty with this rough, heavy-sounding voice, so I would try to change it and make my voice sound smaller and more cutesy.
Then I realised the way my voice could make people feel. I realised why gospel music has people running around the church and crying and weeping. I think Mahalia Jackson could have been singing the ABCs and people would be crying. The tonality is connecting to the spirit of people. I started appreciating it more, not as rules and restrictions and religion, but as communicating, and as divine.
I also realised I can sound the way I sound over more modern music. I tell my band, 'I'm always going to sound like a bluesy singer, so it's important that you don't join me, because once you join me, now we're just singing the blues.' On a song like “Made My Bed”, which feels a little more rocky, or a song like “Your Mama's Love Song”, which has more hip-hop influence, I try to make sure the music feels fresh and forward, because my vocals are always going to feel vintage. I can't help it.
It's interesting that you recognise that and work around it, so you don't pile on the same sound and isolate yourself within it. Did that come from a confidence you had to grow?
I think my intention was twofold. One, I just love the mix of old and new. As a hip-hop artist, I love when there's an Aretha sample on some shit, and that's kind of how I see myself. I want to feel like the sample on the music. But two, I don't want to be seen as a vintage throwback artist.
There are some songs that sit in that, and I'd say “God of You” sits right in there, but then there are songs that don't. I'm always trying to figure out how to keep soul vocals alive without it seeming like something that used to be. Even now, I have a video going semi-viral, and people are like, 'Oh my God, Aretha, Aretha,' and I'm like, damn, who are the new versions of those vocals? I want to keep it alive by making sure the production is fresh.
It’s easy to wonder who the next ‘greats’ are with so much music coming out, and a sort of unpredictable cultural barometer.
I think 'greats' is a heavy thing. I think Olivia Dean is absolutely amazing. Beyoncé is absolutely amazing. There are so many great artists, but then I think there's a flood of midness happening in the world. The gates are down. We can't keep it no more. We need a Berry Gordy to be like, ‘Yeah.'
At the same time — and this might be controversial — I love Sexyy Red. I think she's great, and when I say mid, I'm not even talking about her, because she came in and created her own lane with these very provocative but silly lyrics. You get the feeling that Sexyy Red is exactly that. She's very authentic. You don't feel like she's putting on, and that's all I think artistry is: who are you authentically, and what unique thing you have to offer.
So, I'm not mad at Sexyy Red being one of the greats. She's like Millie Jackson. It's more when you can tell the art isn't coming from a real place. Give me some Sexyy Red, give me some Cardi B, give me some Olivia Dean, give me some Adele. But some of this TikTok shit can stay right where it is.
“The Desperate Ones” by Nina Simone
In the vein of artists who have been entirely themselves, there's Nina Simone. I'd never heard this song before, and it's strikingly beautiful — easily one of her best reinterpretations. What does it mean to you?
Nina Simone is my favourite artist of all time. I could go on forever about her. When she's performing this song, it's a recording, but it sounds like you're sitting in a bar listening to her. It sounds live, because she's feeling every word. She's taking her time with every word. She's doing whatever she wants to do vocally. It's channelling. There are some songs that are channelling, and that's what this song sounds like to me.
A lot of Nina Simone's songs sound like she ain't here for y'all. She's not like, 'Okay, it's time for me to entertain.' She's going into a sacred place, and this song exemplifies the sacredness of music. Her vocal tone, the time she takes to sing, how stripped back everything is, it's spiritual.
I wish the word gospel wasn't so tainted, because this is gospel. This is spiritual music. This is divine music. She's one of the prophets. I don't know, man. Nina Simone is just a goddess.
Listening to the recording, there's a moment where she seems to correct herself on a word. It’s interesting that it’s kept in, because Nina Simone always seemed so meticulous about her performances. Do you feel you learn much about her style from moments like that?
I always wondered about that little hiccup. I'm like, what's happening there? I think Nina is meticulous in her piano playing, definitely. But I wouldn't describe her vocal performances that way, and maybe I'm wrong. I always feel her vocal performances are so free-spirited, so avant-garde. She just comes up with shit out of nowhere, and it's like, man, what made you do that? Whereas with some vocalists you can tell they're paying attention to everything. But yeah, I definitely wondered what happened at that part of the song.
This felt like a pretty deep cut. What made you select it from her catalogue?
For all of those reasons I mentioned, but also the lyrics really speak to me, because I've identified with constantly wanting love and wanting to find my partner and being desperate. Keep it one hundred. It's something I've been writing a lot about lately, how much I've been looking for validation through relationships, and this song speaks to that. She didn't write most of her songs, but she knows how to choose them and she knows how to perform them. I've probably cried over somebody's son listening to this song.
“Carrion” by Fiona Apple
Fiona Apple is another amazingly emotive artist. Where does this song fit in for you? Did you choose it for similar reasons of being able to feel through it?
I discovered Fiona at an early age, maybe sixteen or seventeen, and her honesty and vulnerability through her lyrics were profound to me. I think she's one of the greats, but I also love her production. Fiona was giving us this kind of hip-hop and R&B sound, but that's not how I want to describe it.
She was giving us a Snoh Aalegra, Solange-type vibe before any of that was happening, right? Beautiful vocals over these dope-ass beats. She's the queen of that shit. Her and Erykah Badu. But the vulnerability in her writing, she's an exceptional writer, and if there was anyone I could write with, it would be Fiona Apple.
What strikes you about this particular song? Is there anything in the lyrical content that stood out?
The whole fucking thing is insane. “It won’t do no good to hold no seance”. You can't bring me back. It's over. But musically, what I love is the change in the song. It goes into this big change, and if you listen to my album, I'm a big fan of switching shit up in the middle of a song.
She does that so fearlessly here. “My feelings for you boy are decaying in front of me”. You know what I mean?. She didn't say 'I'm leaving you.' She didn't say 'I can't do this no more.' She's just like, what the fuck? Where did you go to school? What's going on here? And she's an intelligent writer.
It's interesting that it's positioned after a song about desperation with Nina Simone, to then take ownership with “I am going away”.
Yeah, absolutely. In my life I've gone back and forth between 'I need him, I need him, I love him, I love him,' and turning on this song, or turning on “No Man's Woman” by Sinéad O'Connor, or turning on some aggressive rap music and being like, 'You know what? Fuck these n*****.’ So that's been my life.
“DR BIRDS” by Griselda
This song is another sharp turn from the more soulful, singer-songwriter-based selections. Where does it sit for you, and what made you choose it?
Honestly, this is in the same vein as Portishead to me. It's just hip-hop. But it's gritty, it's raw, the instrumentation is interesting. I'm from New York, so I'm always going to love some hood shit, especially if I'm going through a breakup. If I'm going through a breakup, I'm driving in my car and I'm selling crack. I'm a straight-up thug when I'm going through a breakup.
Griselda just reminded me of Wu-Tang, gritty New York hip-hop, but it's still that cinematic universe, you know what I mean? The music is so interesting. I like the drama. As I'm talking about all these songs, I'm like, I'm into the fucking dramatics. Make me feel something. But I also just love Griselda. They're close to my hometown. They're from Buffalo, and I'm from Rochester, and I just love some hard-ass, gritty hip-hop.
It forces you into an empowered space. It grips you, and whatever you're feeling, it drives you forward.
Yeah. There's little room for insecurity. 'I'm the dopest. I got the baddest bitch. I got the flyest chain. I got the flyest car.' It's so braggadocious, and sometimes you just need to turn something on that's like, 'Yeah, I'm the biggest drug dealer in the game,' while I'm driving my Buick Encore to Pilates.
With male rappers, traditionally, it seems there was never much space to feel out their emotions in a lot of contexts — or at least a pressure to suppress them. Being braggadocious is almost what you have to do.
Yeah, exactly. But I really love the new Clipse album, because they have that, and then they have some songs where they really are more vulnerable. I like that about Jay-Z too. I love Jay-Z. I'm surprised I didn't put him on this list.
“Hold My Mule” by Shirley Caesar, Albertina Walker and Milton Brunson
“Hold My Mule” is a particularly pure expression of vulnerability, and it comes through praise and worship. What brought you to this song? Is this linked back to your time reconnecting with gospel music?
It was towards the end, because this is one of those songs that was forced upon me. But then I was like, 'Girl, you love this fucking song, and you love Shirley Caesar's vocals, and it's a huge piece of your growing up.' It's not only the storytelling piece of it.
It reminds me of the church. It reminds me of Sunday morning. It reminds me of music not only for the sake of dancing, but for the sake of learning and healing, growing and storytelling. I think gospel singers are amazing storytellers, and I had to add it because this is what Sunday morning sounded like in my house.
I've dealt with my feelings about the church, but the truth is I don't think my voice would sound this way if I wasn't between the ages of zero and eighteen listening to this type of music all the time, even though it'd be Saturday morning and my mom is blasting it and I'm just like, ‘Turn that off!’.”
You honour its influence, while recognising the moments where you thought, 'This isn't me.’
Yeah, and I think now I can respect it more than when it was 'this is all you can listen to.' If someone tells you this is all you can have, you're going to resent the thing, because you wonder what's out there.
This one is interesting because it leans into disapproval of praise and worship. How did that narrative resonate with you?
You know, I don't remember. I have to hear it, to be honest with you. I'm thinking about the praise and worship part. That's so funny you brought that up, because I never thought that deeply about it. I never grew up where praise and worship wasn't a thing. But you're triggering my memory. I forgot all about that, Shouting John. That is so funny. I'm so happy you brought that up, because as I was making the list, I was like, oh yeah, I listened to “Hold My Mule” all the time, but I didn't really re-listen to it. So now that you've said that, I'm like, wait, is that what it is?
I just thought it was kind of a unique perspective, in church I never really heard gospel songs with a narrative that opposed the expression of praise.
It is interesting. I remember hearing about churches where you couldn't play music. It was almost a different type of idolatry, to be focused more on the music than on God. But man, that's so funny. I haven't thought about this song in that way in a while.
“Respiration” by Black Star & Common
What made you choose this as your closer, and as one of the few hip-hop songs on the list?
One, I love Mos Def. In any interview where I can mention him, I just want to – you know, hope he knows who I am and eventually proposes to me. So I have to get that out in print. But also, this is just hip-hop in its rawest form. It's just three MCs. It's just n***** rapping, you know what I mean? And storytelling. This whole Black Star album is top ten best hip-hop albums of all time. The beats, the lyrics. I just think this is when hip-hop was in its purest form.
Where the Griselda song is more vintage throwback hip-hop – a lot of their songs are from the Wu-Tang era – I also wanted, with this song and the Lauryn Hill song, to highlight that time when hip-hop wasn't quite as mainstream as it became. It had more purity to it, before white people got interested in it heavily, and before Coca-Cola was like, 'Can you write a rap for how you whatever?' I love that period.
So, it’s sort of a capture of what rap was like while it could be a bit freer, without the looming threat of commercialisation or needing to be palatable.
Yeah, and that’s what I love about going to Dakar. I feel like people are creating art outside of the white gaze and outside of capitalism, like, they’re not doing it until some record label will sign them. I think some of the artists now, it’s like, okay. This artist Cardi B got signed and is a millionaire for doing pussy rap — I want to do pussy rap.
It’s like everyone is trying to figure out what will make the money as opposed to what they really want to do from their heart. And these kids in Dakar are not thinking about what will make the money, they’re just making art. That’s what I miss about when hip-hop was first being formed. Not that I’m old enough to have been around when it was first being formed, but I would say at its peak, when it was ours. You know?
You had to be a dope writer, have dope bars, dope metaphors. Your beats had to be crazy. Like, what are we talking about? Y’all n***** don’t got dope lyrics? That’s what this whole genre is about. And you’re writing The Cat In The Hat? What are we doing?
But at the same time, I mentioned Sexyy Red. I can respect a Sexyy Red because of the audacity of the freaking lyrics. Like, who would say that? It’s almost like some Ol’ Dirty Bastard shit. Like, ‘I’m just going to say whatever the fuck I want to say, and it’s going to be provocative.’ And it’s going to be things you never thought we would hear. “My coochie pink, my booty hole brown”, like, no one was thinking of that from the beginning of time. Then all of a sudden, this woman comes and reminds us of the colour of these orifices of her body. And it’s committed to verse.
I will take that over some corny rapper that’s not doing anything provocative or anything interesting whatsoever. I’m not a snob where it has to be deep and intellectual, it’s just gotta be some shit that makes me think.
Everything Has Changed is released 9 October via Dead Oceans
Sign up to Best Fit's Substack for regular dispatches from the world of pop culture