Blackstax: Shades for the Letdown
'Ooh Wee remix' and 'Erybody' reveals and revels in the real meat beneath the rotting corpse
“Tracks prod by DJ King Flow. Black Stax delivers on these 2 French laced tracks with a solid groove, hard hitting lyrics that make you Put Your Hands in the Air while singing along and understanding This is How it Goes!!! You ready for that France to Seattle Connection....Ooh Wee Erybody!!!”
The hum of righteousness and karmic triumph oozes on Blackstax’s two new, French-laced single releases: “Ooh Wee — remix” and “Erybody,” respectively.
But listen to “Ooh Wee” first, for the “Erybody” finish.
Everybody loves a happy ending
Both singles came out last Friday on all platforms, after an early, 24-hour preview for Bandcamp supporters.
They’re perfect mini-soundtracks for scrolling, filing away, thinking…and shaking your head.
All the bad feeling withers and wisps away, in a cloud of smoke, as vocalist Felicia Loud and MC, Jace ECAj lay down the desert of the real, gradually revealing the wizened man behind the curtain — the fake behind the sell — as snake oil carpet baggers…the ones who sold out Queen Lili’uokalani’s people while Elvis stole the old black man’s blues, and Maui burned.
Seattle-based Blackstax has a way of getting under your skin, pointing out the rotting meat the masses think is wagyu beef, and then, motioning for the exits with a knowing wink from across a crowded room.
Yeah, you.
Like a guardian angel, or Nada in his new-found shades from John Carpenter’s 1988 movie, “They Live,” suddenly imbued with the gift of seeing through the bullshit advertising cloaked as normal life.
The living, rhythmic embodiment of IYKYK.
The Seattle duo, formed since 2009, embodies all facets of the coolest genres — jazz, funk, blues, R&B soul, protest rock, hip-hop — mixing narrative vocals and historic word-plays that bend the bar, with samples, echoes, strings, and symphonies of centuries past to present, and blending roots activism with modern-mission Hallelujahs.
“Ooh Wee” is the lead-up to the exits during an active shooter situation, dense with cultural references, idioms, empathic understanding — a glimmer of light (we all desperately look for) at the end of the tunnel — as well as breadcrumbs showing the way out of the maddening crowd, the ancestral oppression, where the odds always seem stacked against the underdog with something to say…shunted aside by empty-handed players.
A keyboard synth trying to be raindrop strings from a Renaissance operetta brushed up against a favorite lean-to of the Wrecking Crew behind early ‘70s artists…the opening theme of “The Partridge Family.” But done up for the club scene, at the turn of the 21st century.
“Erybody” is the reward for putting up with chump change, the euphoric, clattering musical equivalent of opening a door — muffled lyrics and image-on-royalty horns on blast over a static groove — where everyone has a shot and the decks are not stacked, can’t be…because, well, power to the people, not the select few.
Blackstax doesn’t ask why, just floats on what is and what could be.
Towards an O’Jays-type finale, Loud infuses the infectious mantra, “Erybody put your hands in the air, like this!,” with her veteran acting comeback, blurring origins from Seattle to France, and waving off “a lotta stress on my chest.”
Her clarion call resonates like the voice of Esther in the incarcerated night, rippling the super-sonic frequency, energy, and singular stalactite vibration coming off our internal structures and the pithy conversations in our heads — set free.
“The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you’re inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.” — Morpheus, “Matrix”
If Felicia Loud is our subconscious set free, emboldened and beyond this, MC, Jace ECAj is our Morpheus. He lives up to the name with every breath.
By force of will, war-hardened experience, and the assurance of a prophet, he ushers in a grounding, matte finish to our rise-from-ruins, raw-edged story — the voice of reason after a storm — filling lyrical spaces with purpose through the notes, making the beats, rather than following them on a scripted page.
Communion and sacrifice with weighty prayer for the save.
It’s the feeling of karmic justice, the chicken-skin, chorus ascension when the bully turns and sees he’s been tilting at windmills, “trinkets and gimmicks”…and sees the hero inside, rising up, for the little guy he’s been all along.
The last Jedi picking up the light saber of his fallen mentor…the Stephen King stand after the fall, when it’s the recovering addicts and dirty sinners who end up smiting the mighty monster…when you realize this whole set-up is fake, and you can simply walk away.
Make your own music.
