Lift Every Black Voice

·1 hr 9 min·4 clips

Prince’s “The Beautiful Ones” turns into “an all-out whale” as the drum pattern and guitar intensify.

1. MAD Music Podcast uses Black Music Month prompts to connect songs, memory, and performance across eras. 2. Makayla hosts with co-hosts Alma and Thomas, while the conversation also brings in Dami and guest-like back-and-forth from the panel. 3. The episode asks which songs fit specific prompts such as “a song that makes you wish you were born in a different era” and “the most peaceful song you ever heard.” 4. Dami chooses Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You, Baby,” a second-album track written with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellet. 5. She points to the song’s 17-minute length, the moaning, and the way it helped Summer break through in the United States. 6. She also ties the record to the 1970s, Studio 54, and a broader sense of sexual and artistic freedom. 7. The host says Summer imagined singing “like Marilyn Monroe,” which shaped the softer vocal style on the track. 8. Dami then picks Cleo Soul’s “Know That You Are Loved” from the 2021 album Mother, produced by Inflow. 9. She quotes the repeated lyric “Know that you are loved, even if you don’t love yourself.” 10. She describes the track as a “cross between an affirmation, a hymn, and a lullaby,” with piano and guitar carrying the arrangement. 11. The discussion says Cleo Soul’s music works like “melodic affirmations” and can bring heart rate down. 12. For regional sound, Dami chooses Chopa’s “West Bank Choppa Style” featuring Master P, which pushed her toward bounce music. 13. She connects that song to New Orleans, DJ Jubilee, Big Freedia, Magnolia Shorty, and the West Bank. 14. The panel then moves to Mariah Carey and Jay-Z’s “Heartbreaker,” which one speaker links to childhood memories, a Rainbow CD, and a dance recital. 15. That same speaker recalls a sleepover birthday performance, matching the song to a specific era of organized childhood dance routines. 16. Another prompt leads to Junior M.A.F.I.A.’s “Get Money” featuring The Notorious B.I.G. and Lil Kim’s verse. 17. The speaker says the verse is the part that makes her “come out of character,” and she quotes several lines from Kim’s rap. 18. Later, the show shifts to a music-news debate about John B., Gunna, and Chlöe Bailey, focusing on how the sample was cleared and why John B. regretted his “ratchet” comment. 19. The tone is conversational, nostalgic, and highly referential, with long personal anecdotes, lyric quoting, and detailed song context. 20. Listeners who like Black music history, R&B, and deep song memories will get the most from it; people wanting a tight, topic-only show may skip it.

As heard by us

A warm Black music roundtable where favorite songs open into lived memory.

This episode stays close to warmth and memory. The hosts move from Lauryn Hill and Mary J. Blige to Phil Collins and Mariah Carey, then drift into concert stories, pricey CDs, church dance teams, and the feeling that buying an album used to matter.

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Why you'd press play

Press play for Black music talk that turns chokeholds into family memories.

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