Solange Knowles turned 30 this year. The period since her last release in the EP True and today has been a long and significant one. In 2013,she moved to New Orleans with her then 8 year old son Daniel. The Crescent City has long been known as a spiritual home for black American culture-starting with the birth of jazz in the city over a century and a half ago. A year later,she re-married music video directer Alan Furguson while living there. Considering she views her sister (and frequent public comparison) Beyonce as a prime role model for her,its no surprise she is taking a similar outlook on America today.
The America that Solange has been looking at the last couple of years has been an all out yet not officially spoken assault on African American’s. Its seen the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. As well as an accompanying upsurge in understanding how how truly bigoted the fundamentals of America are-in no small thanks to the internet’s vast library of historical knowledge. Police brutality is at an all time high. And the black community has had a wide range of reactions. Some have even chosen to deny their heritage and defend a police force they know to be in the wrong.
Musically the consequences have been unusual. Even the usually topical genre of hip-hop,let along soul,have avoided message songs to a big degree. Instead favoring variants of the modern trap sound. Solange,along with her sister’s song “Formation” have elected to address this more. For her own part,Solange addressed it with a brand new album (now available as a digital file only) entitled A Seat At The Table. Its definitely a return to the album based format of the 1970’s conceptually. But if there were only one standout song I had to pick as a favorite from it,it would be the song “Junie”.
The song begins with a six note bass line with a hard cymbal kick over which Solange improvises along vocally. Then the drums kick into a heavy snare/hi hat rhythm. Within the framework,a higher and lower pitch brittle space funk synthesizer play call and response within the refrain along with Solange’s rhythmic singing. On the choruses,a think three note piano walk down is added to the synthesizer parts-which become melodically brighter and more insistent. The song reduces down to a synthesizer bleep/drum duet before stopping on yet another repeat of the chorus.
It was Henrique who suspected,and made it official based on Solange’s own tweet, that this song was indeed named for and inspired by Walter “Junie” Morrison,synthesizer innovator of first the Ohio Player and then P-Funk. That makes perfect sense with the use of the gospel/soul piano and spacey synthesizer lines that would be the classic Junie mix of sound. While its played a lot straighter here than on P-Funk’s more flamboyant instrumental style by Mister John Kirby,it goes perfectly with the stripped down musical composition written by Raaphael Saadiq.
Lyrically,OutKast’s Andre “3000” Benjamin provided two areas of insights in the song. Most of it is very much in the dance hall of much Jamaican inspired contemporary dance/R&B. One where words are stuttered rhythmically to generate an impulse. Towards the end of the song,the lyrics are more overt. “Don’t want to do the dishes/just want to eat the food” is one such lyric. As does its accompanying album,it finds Solange, Andre, Raaphael and John sending out a vital message that,when it comes to racial justice and music itself,heavy creative inspiration and work is the only effective way to go.
Andresmusictalk 