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What happens when you put Maya Angelou‘s poems over a blues beat? How about the sounds of hip-hop? The results are stomping rhythms paired with powerful lyrics. Producers RoccStarr and Shawn Rivera of Az Yet are creating an album doing just with ‘Caged Bird Songs.’
The project, recorded in both Los Angeles and at the late poet’s home in North Carolina, features Angelou’s work set to the tune of contemporary hip-hop.
‘Still I Rise’ is the first single off ‘Caged Bird Songs.’ The effort kicks off with Angelou’s bold words backed by a choir echoing throughout the track. “You may write me down in history / With your butter, twisted lies / You may trod me in the very dirt / But still like dust I rise,” she states over the guitar-riddled track.
This isn’t the first time Angelou has stepped into the music world. The lauded wordsmith has done a calypso album, collaborated with the likes of Roberta Flack and Wynton Marsalis and worked on seven songs with Ashford and Simpson for their ‘Been Found’ album. Angelou has also won three Grammys for her spoken word albums, received a TONY Award and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Fans of hip-hop and poetry alike will quickly be drawn to this record, and you can pre-order it now before it drops on Nov. 4 via Amazon.
Maya Angelou’s ‘Caged Bird Songs’ Tracklist
1. ‘Human Family’
2. ‘Pow Pow’
3. ‘Sepia Fashion Show’
4. ‘Harlem Hopscotch’
5. ‘Pickin’ Em Up’
6. ‘On Aging’
7. ‘Ain’t That Bad’
8. ‘One More Round’
9. ‘Come And Be My Baby’
10. ‘The Thirteens’
11. ‘Africa’
12. ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me’
13. ‘Still I Rise’
Listen to Maya Angelou’s ‘Still I Rise’
