Jamila Woods

• HEAVN [Closed Sessions, 2016] **
• Legacy! Legacy! [Jagjaguwar, 2019] B+
• Water Made Us [Jagjaguwar, 2023] A-

Consumer Guide Reviews:

HEAVN [Closed Sessions, 2016]
Articulate enough on race, startlingly eloquent on solitude and self-love ("Holy," "Way Up") **

Legacy! Legacy! [Jagjaguwar, 2019]
This poetry-with-sophistofunk tribute to a sharp selection of 20th-century African-American art heroes plus Frida Kahlo will always be a tad too atmospheric and impressionistic to suit me. But it does both flow and signify. I highly recommend the dippy keybs that flavor "Miles," the futuristic electrothump that grounds "Muddy," the Malvina Reynolds lift that situates "Zora," and how pissed off "Basquiat" sounds. B+

Water Made Us [Jagjaguwar, 2023]
Turning 34, the poet, Brown grad, and Chicago community organizer finds herself old enough to ponder where her love life will end up on a thoughtful, sprightly, charming 45-minute 17-tracker that mixes sung and spoken reminiscences of a bunch of relationships that end up on one that might well last even though she once thought she'd given up on it. Sung or spoken, the girlish timbre of her practiced soprano adds a charm that makes you root for her as her hopes rise and fall and rise again. But the most striking track adds up to 35 spoken seconds by a gravel-voiced guy who sounds 75 or so: "Jamila, I was a scoundrel/And I advised my wife not to marry me/I was a scoundrel/She deserved better/Some years later she rescued me out of the doldrums/A newer doldrum/And we've been together for 50 years." A-