It's Easier on Me
I make it a point to not talk about the music I feature, but I feel the need to write about this one. Rosey and I spoke about this song 87 years ago. (It must have been 2006, 2007?) On mother fucking MySpace, y'all. DMing before Twitter was even a thing. I was a messy 21-year-old trying to get clean, and Rosey was a lovely however-old-she-was singer who reached back when I reached out, after this gem found its way to me. Actually, speaking of... damn, this story's even longer than I thought.
So, this is from Rosey's second album. But I fell in love with her music when her first album literally found its way to me. I honestly don't even know how. I must have been part of some kind of record label fan club-y type of thing, I guess, and I got a random care package in the mail, which included Dirty Child. To say the least: I was not mad at it. Especially when I looked her up and found her own description of her influences: "Funk, blues, rock 'n' roll, folk, hip-hop, pop, Hindu, African, trip-hop, Brazilian, Cuban, jazzed-out fusions, reggae, Australian, Sufi, Klezmer, gypsy music, and torch song standards."
I was hooked. All in. Clearly (...he wrote, 12 years later). I was also neck deep in a very serious Billie Holiday binge at the time, when news of Rosey's second, ALL JAZZ album broke. The all jazz album that consisted entirely of tracks recorded in single takes. Meaning: every musician in the same room as the vocalist, making genuine music, The Old Fashioned Way. Heaven, y'all. Heaven!
The details about this particular song, why it means so much to me, and what Rosey and I discussed... those stay in the recesses of the internet and our memories. I think I can reveal, though, that it almost didn't make the final cut of the track listing. So, thank fuck it did because, all my personal shit attached to the song aside, it's still debatably the best one on the album. The album itself was rereleased previously as Luckiest Girl, and is now getting a new treatment on Rosey's very own label. So, support the indie artist! Buy it again, like I did, even though I still have the original on CD and vinyl. (Yeah, I'm that kind of stan. I don't even own a record player, y'all.)
Anyway, I'll go back to shutting up now. Much love to Miss Kaye.