#weldon irvine

Summer 2020 Mixtape.

Look Blue Go Purple “Grace”

Hit Parade, The “Harvey”

Fritz “Ghost Poke”

Snarls “What’s It Take”

Girl In Red “Rushed Lover”

Cigarettes After Sex “Young and Dumb”

RVG “I Used To Love You”

Mr. Elevator “Down”

Tempers “Capital Pains”

Jade Imagine “Big Old House”

Chasms “Tears In The Morning Sun”

Shopping “For Your Pleasure”

cumgirl8 “Hourglass”

Stuck “Era”

Blue Ray “Choir Of Angels”

Bikini Body “So Posh”

Space Above “Stolen Days”

Tops “Seven Minutes”

Automatic “Damage”

Serfs, The “Persona Non Grata”

Diat “Sinkhole”

Widowspeak “Breadwinner”

Emma Ruth Rundle “Light Song”

Empathy Test “Monsters”

Parrot Dream “The Best”

Jade Imagine “Remote Control”

Braids “Eclipse (Ashley)”

Parlor Walls “Lunchbox”

Wye Oak “Fortune”

Black Marble “Bigger Than Life”

Widowspeak “Money”

Charli XCX “Cross You Out” (f. Sky Ferreira)

Chvrches “Forever”

Pink Gloves “Wilderness” (INS)

Grimes & i_O “Violence”

In A Dramatic Gesture “Basic Aerobic”

J. Zunz “Four Women And Darkness”

Alchemist & Schoolboy Q “W.Y.G.D.T.N.S.”

Masta Ace & Marco Polo “Breukelen Brooklyn”

Smoke DZA & Benny The Butcher “7:30” (f. Westside Gunn)

Alchemist “Fork In The Pot” (f. Conway The Machine & Schoolboy Q & Westside Gunn)

D.I.T.C. “Jugganots” (f. O.C. & L’il Fame)

Mike (Bonema) “Ipari”

Ripple “Victorious”

Weldon Irvine “We Gettin’ Down”

Clement Djimogne “Africa”

Eddie Russ “Zaius”

Sphinx “Horizons”

DJ 3D “How Many Ways” (Refreshers RMX)

Progeny “Wet Dreams”

Kevin Richard Martin & Hatis Noit “After The Storm”

MCL / Micro Chip League “New York, New York (Midnight)”

Cabaret Voltaire “Diskono” (alt.)

1970 Music: Nina Simone; lyric: Weldon Irvine

Nina Simone sums up the late 1960s Black power movement in one graceful, angry song. It's number 12 in Let's Do It, my personal fifty favourite singles from 1954-76.

The song takes its title from something said by Lorraine Hansberry, who had died in 1965. A memorial book of her works was published, turned into a stage show, of which one critic wrote, "Never in the history of the American theatre had so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage."

Nina wanted lyrics that "will make Black children all over the world feel good about themselves forever." Her friend, the beat poet Weldon Irvine, wrote the words in a relaxed session.

Captures the moment of Black Power, the era of big hair and raised fists. It's an affirmation to the global majority: you are worthy of respect, don't let anyone say otherwise.

Nina Simone's version was a big hit Stateside; on this side of the pond, Bob and Marcia had the hit. The original is better, Nina completely got what she was singing.