145 – Shakura S’Aida – Brown Sugar

This week you will hear Shakura S’Aida talk about her life as a blues artist and her new CD Brown Sugar.

On Shakura S’Aida’s (Shak –OO-ra Sigh-EE-da) first record Blueprint (2008) she was singing blues covers from the 1940s and ‘50s. This time Shakura wrote nine of the twelve songs on her new record Brown Sugar. The songs are a little more Rythm & Blues than straight blues. Whatever the style of music you wish to put this into it’s still very good. A soulful band with well written songs that Shakura sings from a first hand understanding of the lyric situation.

Brown Sugar has a lot of good songs but probably none any better than “This Is Not A Love Song”. A slow but strong building song with very nice organ work by Lance Anderson who really does a fine job of setting the feel for several of the songs.

Donna Grantis the co-song writer with Shakura is also the guitarist for the band who adds some very tasteful playing.