🎵 Monthly Song Challenge 🎵

Day 23- A song from the 80's.
I loved the show Miami Vice and had such a crush on Don Johnson. The show was the 80's. I can't believe I had forgotten he did this song.

I forget about the whole genre of "80s actors making albums." Don Johnson, Philip Michael Thomas, Eddie Murphy, Bruce Willis... wild time.
 
Day 23: A song from the 80s

ESG - Dance


As a black, all female band from NYC that was taut, minimalist and funky, few people recognised them in the glitzy overproduced 1980s. However, as hip-hop and acid house needed ever funkier grooves to sample, their tunes were plundered and their influence has far outgrown commercial success. But they'd rather have had the money. I once read that UFO was one of the most sampled songs ever but I want to swivel my hips, so here's Dance.

Sorry, the video cuts the song short. (Those women never get the full respect.)
 
Day 24: A song from the 90's

She had such promise. A strong voice. A strong vision. Hell, Prince wrote a song about her. Dionne Farris entered the music consciousness as one of the primary singers in the hip hop group Arrested Development. Unfortunately, the way the group was organized had only Speech and Headliner signed artists, and everyone else was paid a set fee as session players. As their popularity grew, with the tours being extended, and Dionne being moved to the forefront, this caused tension as she thought she deserved to be contracted as well. This came to a head one night, just before they were going on stage at the Fox Theater in Atlanta, with an argument that included, according to Speech at least, Dionne throwing a chair at him before quitting the band. When the group was accepting their two Grammy Awards in 1993 for 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of..., an album she had a large part of, Farris was watching from home.

She started working on her solo album, which was nominated for its own Grammy in 1996. But her follow-up fell into the wonderful world of "creative differences" with Columbia, who then dropped her. For Truth If Not Love was shelved for over twelve years before she distributed it independently through iTunes. She put out other albums since, but none of them have really done anything. She never made the impact her talent and accolades seem to say she should have.

This wasn't her hit, but the whole Wild Seed - Wild Flower is just damn good, and this has such an interesting, almost a capella feel.

"Before I am black
Before I am woman
Before I am short
Before I am young
Before I am African

I am Human"

"Human," Dionne Farris (1994)

(+1 for WoC, 4 total)
 
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