Solange Knowles has been working hard at courting indie-dorks, bringing her sis and her hubby to Grizzly Bear, and fighting her label for creative control (which us indie people totes love). Here's her latest coup de grace: a cover of Dirty Projectors' R&B jam "Stillness Is the Move" that is built on "Bumpy's Lament" from a Shaft soundtrack album. Solange remains rather faithful to Amber Coffman's melodic runs, but breaks it down a little bit harder in the choruses. Solange has no plans to release the cover officially, she just dug the song and cut this cover for fun. [Pitchfork]
Damn, Solange covering the Dirty Projectors over a Dr. Dre/Erykah Badu beat that samples Shaft. The walls between genres have just come crumbling down!
That beat is too good not to be enjoyable regardless of the context that you're hearing it in, and the melodies of the DP track work really well against it, but what could have been a great dichotomy between Coffman's tone and a classic Dre groove is mitigated by Solange's classic R&B tone. Instead of being an awesome clash of styles, it just ends up as a pretty good soul song. Enjoying this, but not as much as I feel I could be.
Man, that's fantastic stuff. I wonder if Dave Longstreth & Co. are going to start popping up on some Top 40 albums in the not-too-distant future. Crazy.
Solange »
Damn, Solange covering the Dirty Projectors over a Dr. Dre/Erykah Badu beat that samples Shaft. The walls between genres have just come crumbling down!