Today Solange Knowles, future indie songstress––she's just severed ties with her major label, Interscope, has said she aspires to have a career like Bjork's, and allegedly turned her sis and Jay-Z on to Grizzly Bear––sent her cover of the Dirty Projectors' "Stillness Is The Move" to Pitchfork, and from there it spread like wildlife. For me, and likely countless others, it generated more RTs than I've seen in weeks.
Why? Because the cover is a perfect balance of the original song and Solange. She has as powerful and as inventive a voice as Amber Coffman (and Beyoncé, if you want to go there), but hers is sweeter and softer. There are Princely flourishes, pretty chorus melody adjustments, and she really makes it her own at the bridge, where the lyrics are: Isn't life under the sun / just a crazy, crazy, crazy dream / isn't life a mirage of the world / before the world, before the world. Solange transforms it into true R&B, speeding up the words, then slowing them down, more like: Isn'tlife / underthesun / just a cra / zy dream / isn't life / justamirage / of the world / before the world ... before the wo-ha-ha-ha-orld! And it becomes even more inventive from there.
Oh, and then there's the whole Erykah Badu electric guitar "Bag Lady" sample––or at least that's what Solange cited it as on Twitter. Before that, it was on Dr. Dre's "Xxplosive," from 2001, and Dre, at least instrumentally, took it from Soul Mann & The Brothers' cover of "Bumpy's Lament" by Isaac Hayes and sped it up. The Soul Mann cover features that familiar guitar and xylophone sound, plus organ and keyboard, whereas Hayes' version features mostly organ, strings and brass.
Anyway, what a perfect way to start a new chapter in your career.
Solange Knowles - "Stillness Is The Move" (Dirty Projectors Cover)
