{"title":"Jamila Woods","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"legacy-legacy-jamila-woods","title":"LEGACY! LEGACY!","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn the clip of an older Eartha Kitt that everyone kicks around the internet, her cheekbones are still as pronounced as many would remember them from her glory days on Broadway, and her eyes are still piercing and inviting. She sips from a metal cup. The wind blows the flowers behind her until those flowers crane their stems toward her face, and the petals tilt upward, forcing out a smile. A dog barks in the background. In the best part of the clip, Kitt throws her head back and feigns a large, sky-rattling laugh upon being asked by her interviewer whether or not she’d compromise parts of herself if a man came into her life. When the laugh dies down, Kitt insists on the same, rhetorical statement. “Compromise!?!?” she flings. “For what?”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eShe repeats “For what?” until it grows more fierce, more unanswerable. Until it holds the very answer itself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOn the hook to the song “Eartha,” Jamila Woods sings “I don’t want to compromise \/ can we make it through the night” and as an album, Legacy! Legacy! stakes itself on the uncompromising nature of its creator, and the histories honored within its many layers. There is a lot of talk about black people in America and lineage, and who will tell the stories of our ancestors and their ancestors and the ones before them. But there is significantly less talk about the actions taken to uphold that lineage in a country obsessed with forgetting. There are hands who built the corners of ourselves we love most, and it is good to shout something sweet at those hands from time to time. Woods, a Chicago-born poet, organizer, and consistent glory merchant, seeks to honor black people first, always. And so, Legacy! Legacy! A song for Zora! Zora, who gave so much to a culture before she died alone and longing. A song for Octavia and her huge and savage conscience! A song for Miles! One for Jean-Michel and one for my man Jimmy Baldwin!\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMore than just giving the song titles the names of historical black and brown icons of literature, art, and music, Jamila Woods builds a sonic and lyrical monument to the various modes of how these icons tried to push beyond the margins a country had assigned to them. On “Sun Ra,” Woods sings “I just gotta get away from this earth, man \/ this marble was doomed from the start” and that type of dreaming and vision honors not only the legacy of Sun Ra, but the idea that there is a better future, and in it, there will still be black people.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJamila Woods has a voice and lyrical sensibility that transcends generations, and so it makes sense to have this lush and layered album that bounces seamlessly from one sonic aesthetic to another. This was the case on 2016’s HEAVN, which found Woods hopeful and exploratory, looking along the edges resilience and exhaustion for some measures of joy. Legacy! Legacy! is the logical conclusion to that looking. From the airy boom-bap of “Giovanni” to the psychedelic flourishes of “Sonia,” the instrument which ties the musical threads together is the ability of Woods to find her pockets in the waves of instrumentation, stretching syllables and vowels over the harmony of noise until each puzzle piece has a home. The whimsical and malleable nature of sonic delights also grants a path for collaborators to flourish: the sparkling flows of Nitty Scott on “Sonia” and Saba on “Basquiat,” or the bloom of Nico Segal’s horns on “Baldwin.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eSoul music did not just appear in America, and soul does not just mean music. Rather, soul is what gold can be dug from the depths of ruin, and refashioned by those who have true vision. True soul lives in the pages of a worn novel that no one talks about anymore, or a painting that sits in a gallery for a while but then in an attic forever. Soul is all the things a country tries to force itself into forgetting. Soul is all of those things come back to claim what is theirs. Jamila Woods is a singular soul singer who, in voice, holds the rhetorical demand. The knowing that there is no compromise for someone with vision this endless. That the revolution must take many forms, and it sometimes starts with songs like these. Songs that feel like the sun on your face and the wind pushing flowers against your back while you kick your head to the heavens and laugh at how foolish the world seems.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jamila Woods","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44536183619747,"sku":"JAG342cd","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP Black Vinyl","offer_id":44536183652515,"sku":"JAG342lp","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"2xLP Cloudy Pink Vinyl","offer_id":44536183685283,"sku":"JAG342lp-C1","price":39.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/jag342.jamila.preorder.lp_ssthumb.jpg?v=1755117876"},{"product_id":"heavn-jamila-woods","title":"HEAVN","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJamila Woods surrounds herself with the things she loves, things like Lucille Clifton’s poetry or letters from her grandmother or the late 80s post-punk of The Cure. “It’s just powerful to me to know the lineage and influences going into the making of the song,” Jamila says. That lineage–fragments of her life and loves–helped structure the progressive, delicate and minimalist soul of HEAVN, her debut solo album released in the summer of 2016. “It’s like a collage process,” she says. “It’s very enjoyable to me to take something I love and mold it into something new.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA frequent guest vocalist in the hip-hop, jazz and soul world, Jamila has emerged as a once-in-a-generation voice on her soul-stirring debut. Hailed by Pitchfork as, “a singular mix of clear-eyed optimism and Black girl magic,” HEAVN is the culmination of more than two decades’ worth of musical performances, creative remixing, haunted memories and her unique “collage” writing process. “I think of songs as physical spaces,” Jamila says. “Writing a song feels like decorating my space with things that make me happy or reflect who I am.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe message of HEAVN, the album, and Jamila, the musician and poet, are clear: all parts strengthen the whole. Born and raised on the Southside of Chicago, Woods grew up in a family of music lovers. She was a member of her grandmother’s church choir as well as the Chicago Children’s Choir and often sat next to her parents’ speakers, singing along to their sizeable music collection while surrounding herself with things she admired.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut it took a surprise poetry class with the high school arts program Gallery 37 for Jamila to finally find her metaphorical and literal voice. “Through poetry, I realized you are the expert of your own experience,” she says. “You can tell your story the best and no one else can tell it for you. You can focus on what you lack, comparing yourself to other people, or you can focus on what you can do right now with your voice.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHer interest in poetry grew with age, taking her to Brown University, where she often participated in open mics. But music still lingered in the background even if she wasn’t necessarily confident of her skills. “I definitely always wanted to be a performer or be a singer,” Jamila said. “I always had that in my mind, but I didn’t think I had the voice of a solo artist.” She joined the acapella group Shades of Brown where she learned how to arrange music for her peers. It became a skill she later utilized when crafting her own songs. “I thought about the parts everyone would sing and that really influenced the way I started to write songs,” she offers.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eMusic–like poetry– is personal, she says: “It became a way to stop hiding, to actually be the most honest with myself through writing. It helps me check in with myself.” And that honesty translated to HEAVN, an album she describes as a collection of, “nontraditional love songs pushing the idea of what makes a love song.” Here, you’ll find the bits and pieces of her past and present that make Jamila: family, the city of Chicago, self-care, the black women she calls friends.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn 2016, Chicago-based hip-hop label Closed Sessions released HEAVN. Working with Closed Sessions gave Jamila a home to help craft a complete, singular body of work. “That’s been the coolest thing,” she says. “Just being connected with so many people in Chicago. I like that they’re local.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eHEAVN features a variety of producers, including oddCouple, a fellow Closed Sessions signee who produced five of the album’s 12 tracks. “Working with oddCouple was when I really started thinking of [HEAVN] as an album,” she adds. Other producers on the album include Peter Cottontale and even Jamila’s sister. In 2017, Jamila partners with Jagjaguwar and Closed Sessions to re-release the critically-acclaimed HEAVN.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOn the album’s title track, which samples the Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” Jamila explores how black people’s history influences their ability to love each other. “How do we love in our current situation, with the everyday violences we have to endure?” she asks. “Holy” connects to Jamila’s life growing up in church, sampling a gospel song and utilizing a psalm structure to talk about self love. “In church, there was a lot of emphasis on love–like love your neighbor, love God–but not self love,” she says. “When I wrote ‘Holy,’ I wanted to remember to take care of myself. It was an affirmation mantra for me.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eElsewhere, Jamila plays with contrast to tell a bigger story. On “VRY BLK,” she uses black girl hand clap games to talk about police brutality. “It might sound innocent, but it’s really not,” Jamila says. “BLK Girl Soldier,” a song Jamila describes as a partner to “VRY BLK,” focuses on solidarity. “It’s very prideful,” Jamila says. “I’m talking about this violence that happens, but not staying in a place of feeling victimized.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJamila is an artist of substance. Her music, crafted with a sturdy foundation of her passions and influences, gets to the heart of things. True and pure in its construction and execution, it is also the best representation of Jamila herself: strong in her roots, confident in her ideas, and attuned to the people, places and things shaping her world.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jamila Woods","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":44673912570019,"sku":"JAG312cd","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP Black Vinyl","offer_id":44673912602787,"sku":"JAG312lp","price":24.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Secretly Society Clear \u0026 Purple Splatter Vinyl","offer_id":44673912668323,"sku":"JAG312lp-C2","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP White Vinyl","offer_id":45883513929891,"sku":"JAG312lp-C1","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/jag312cd-380.jpg?v=1776688927"},{"product_id":"jamila-woods-water-made-us","title":"Water Made Us","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003e.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOn her expansive new album Water Made Us, Chicago musician and poet Jamila Woods shines anew as she asks the question, what does it mean to fully surrender into love? Across Water Made Us, Jamila embraces new genres, playful melodies, and hypnotizing wordplay, as she wades through the exhilarating tumult of love’s wreckage and refuge.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhile 2017’s HEAVN saw Jamila celebrating her community within a lineage of Black feminist movement organizing, and 2019’s Legacy! Legacy! reframed her life’s experiences through the storied personas of iconic Black and brown artists, Water Made Us is self-revelatory in an entirely new way. The upcoming album reveals a new side of Jamila never fully shared with her previous work, making this her most personal album yet.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eComing out of her Legacy! Legacy! touring schedule and into 2020’s Covid-19 quarantine, Jamila wanted to challenge herself to write as many songs as possible, and spent several months in a state of deep creativity and self-reflection. But despite giving herself this freedom to write without worry, she still yearned for a story to tie her disparate songs together, a clear message to hold in the distance as a guiding light. Early songs “Bugs” and “Thermostat” revealed a simmering common thread: love, relationships, and the hard lessons learned in their wake. Journaling, therapy, and frequent consultations with a trusted astrologer all began to reflect Jamila’s own patterns in love and intimacy back to her. “I was able to understand these little things about myself and say ‘Okay, I want to write about every one of these feelings that I always return to, or patterns that I notice, and give language to them.’” After being connected with LA-based producer McClenney, the album’s story began to take shape, and the two worked together building each song from scratch across 2021 and 2022, first virtually, and then in-person at McClenney’s Haven Studios in LA. The albums sequence was then carefully and cleverly designed to echo the different stages of a relationship: the early days of easy compromising, flirtatiousness, and fun; the careful negotiation through moments of conflict or hurt; the grieving of something lost; and the tender realization at the end of it all that the person who is gone never really leaves, but stays with you as you find yourself ready to try again, refreshed and reassured.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut it’s not just Jamila’s turn inward that makes Water Made Us a forceful and captivating reemergence. This album invites us to relinquish any preconceived notions we may have built about what kind of artist Jamila is, with a widespread range of infectious, resplendent production styles. The albums sprawling 17 tracks span everything from autotuned R\u0026amp;B on “Send A Dove”, to gentle acoustic folk rock on the heart wrenching “Wolfsheep”, and bubbly dreampop on dance anthem “Boomerang”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAcross Water Made Us, Jamila admits unflinchingly to her mistakes and uncertainties. Twinkling percussive track “Tiny Garden” chronicles Jamila’s effort to prove her commitment to someone, despite the ways she struggles to make it clear. “I’m falling hard for you but I know I don’t show it” she sings over bouncy percussion. Spoken word interlude “I Miss All My Exes” is a solemn and aching ode to the most perfect moments spent with a lifetime of lovers. Each tender shared memory, inside joke, and bestowal of care is kept carefully bound and sealed in Jamila’s heart, even after the relationship has faded into the past. By album finisher “Headfirst”, Jamila seems to accept her own imperfections with gentle grace over a steady groove of shimmering guitar and thumping bass. With every new turn, the door to Jamila’s heart is blown open, revealing her both at her strongest and most vulnerable.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut she never navigates love’s depths alone. In what now feels like a familiar staple to her work, Water Made Us is adorned with personal voice memos from those closest to Jamila during her time of deep reflection – Fatimah Asghar, Indya Moore, Krista Franklin, Jasminfire, and the particularly charming Great Uncle Quentin all make appearances. The family affair is rounded out with features from friends and fellow Chicago natives Saba and Peter CottonTale, and the NY-based singer and producer duendita. Every visiting voice serves as an anchor, reminding both Jamila and her audience that the place and people we come from can be a steady source of strength and guidance through our darkest moments of uncertainty.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe album’s title is taken from a line in “Good News” where Jamila sings with comforting reassurance, “The good news is water always runs back where it came from\/The good news is water made us.” The line is a reference to a Toni Morrison quote from a talk given at the New York Public Library in 1996. “You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places,” Morrison says. “To make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. \"Floods” is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.” It’s this sentiment – of memory, place, and returning – that acts as a pillar for the album’s arc. “That idea that we’re all born, just babies, just happy,” Jamila says. “That’s always in us, that perfect contentment with just being. And so no matter what bad days we have, we’re on a set course back to that. We can just surrender and get out of the way of that.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWater Made Us reminds us that at its best love is a warm, still ocean. Deep, mystifying, and endless in its wonder. And at its worst love can be a riptide that takes us so far away from ourselves we can hardly find our way back, hardly even remember how to swim. And yet Jamila surrenders to this surf — every wave and undertow – because maybe even the most painful endings can in fact be an invitation that calls her back home, back to shore, back to herself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jamila Woods","offers":[{"title":"LP Sea Glass Vinyl","offer_id":44674109669539,"sku":"JAG442lp-C2","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP Black Vinyl","offer_id":44674109702307,"sku":"JAG442lp","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":44674109735075,"sku":"JAG442cd","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Cassette","offer_id":44674109767843,"sku":"JAG442cass","price":11.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP Midnight Pearl Vinyl","offer_id":44674109800611,"sku":"JAG442lp-C3","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/jag442.jamilawoods.watermadeus.lp.midnight-pearl.ss.jpg?v=1776688748"},{"product_id":"water-made-us-spotify-fans-first-exclusive","title":"Water Made Us (Spotify Fans First Exclusive)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eJamila Woods 'Water Made Us' out October 27th on Jagjaguwar, is available on limited edition Silver Cloud vinyl, exclusive to Spotify fans.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eOn her expansive new album Water Made Us, Chicago musician and poet Jamila Woods shines anew as she asks the question, what does it mean to fully surrender into love? Across Water Made Us, Jamila embraces new genres, playful melodies, and hypnotizing wordplay, as she wades through the exhilarating tumult of love’s wreckage and refuge.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWhile 2017’s HEAVN saw Jamila celebrating her community within a lineage of Black feminist movement organizing, and 2019’s Legacy! Legacy! reframed her life’s experiences through the storied personas of iconic Black and brown artists, Water Made Us is self-revelatory in an entirely new way. The upcoming album reveals a new side of Jamila never fully shared with her previous work, making this her most personal album yet.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eComing out of her Legacy! Legacy! touring schedule and into 2020’s Covid-19 quarantine, Jamila wanted to challenge herself to write as many songs as possible, and spent several months in a state of deep creativity and self-reflection. But despite giving herself this freedom to write without worry, she still yearned for a story to tie her disparate songs together, a clear message to hold in the distance as a guiding light. Early songs “Bugs” and “Thermostat” revealed a simmering common thread: love, relationships, and the hard lessons learned in their wake. Journaling, therapy, and frequent consultations with a trusted astrologer all began to reflect Jamila’s own patterns in love and intimacy back to her. “I was able to understand these little things about myself and say ‘Okay, I want to write about every one of these feelings that I always return to, or patterns that I notice, and give language to them.’” After being connected with LA-based producer McClenney, the album’s story began to take shape, and the two worked together building each song from scratch across 2021 and 2022, first virtually, and then in-person at McClenney’s Haven Studios in LA. The albums sequence was then carefully and cleverly designed to echo the different stages of a relationship: the early days of easy compromising, flirtatiousness, and fun; the careful negotiation through moments of conflict or hurt; the grieving of something lost; and the tender realization at the end of it all that the person who is gone never really leaves, but stays with you as you find yourself ready to try again, refreshed and reassured.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut it’s not just Jamila’s turn inward that makes Water Made Us a forceful and captivating reemergence. This album invites us to relinquish any preconceived notions we may have built about what kind of artist Jamila is, with a widespread range of infectious, resplendent production styles. The albums sprawling 17 tracks span everything from autotuned R\u0026amp;B on “Send A Dove”, to gentle acoustic folk rock on the heart wrenching “Wolfsheep”, and bubbly dreampop on dance anthem “Boomerang”.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAcross Water Made Us, Jamila admits unflinchingly to her mistakes and uncertainties. Twinkling percussive track “Tiny Garden” chronicles Jamila’s effort to prove her commitment to someone, despite the ways she struggles to make it clear. “I’m falling hard for you but I know I don’t show it” she sings over bouncy percussion. Spoken word interlude “I Miss All My Exes” is a solemn and aching ode to the most perfect moments spent with a lifetime of lovers. Each tender shared memory, inside joke, and bestowal of care is kept carefully bound and sealed in Jamila’s heart, even after the relationship has faded into the past. By album finisher “Headfirst”, Jamila seems to accept her own imperfections with gentle grace over a steady groove of shimmering guitar and thumping bass. With every new turn, the door to Jamila’s heart is blown open, revealing her both at her strongest and most vulnerable.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBut she never navigates love’s depths alone. In what now feels like a familiar staple to her work, Water Made Us is adorned with personal voice memos from those closest to Jamila during her time of deep reflection – Fatimah Asghar, Indya Moore, Krista Franklin, Jasminfire, and the particularly charming Great Uncle Quentin all make appearances. The family affair is rounded out with features from friends and fellow Chicago natives Saba and Peter CottonTale, and the NY-based singer and producer duendita. Every visiting voice serves as an anchor, reminding both Jamila and her audience that the place and people we come from can be a steady source of strength and guidance through our darkest moments of uncertainty.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThe album’s title is taken from a line in “Good News” where Jamila sings with comforting reassurance, “The good news is water always runs back where it came from\/The good news is water made us.” The line is a reference to a Toni Morrison quote from a talk given at the New York Public Library in 1996. “You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places,” Morrison says. “To make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. \"Floods” is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.” It’s this sentiment – of memory, place, and returning – that acts as a pillar for the album’s arc. “That idea that we’re all born, just babies, just happy,” Jamila says. “That’s always in us, that perfect contentment with just being. And so no matter what bad days we have, we’re on a set course back to that. We can just surrender and get out of the way of that.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eWater Made Us reminds us that at its best love is a warm, still ocean. Deep, mystifying, and endless in its wonder. And at its worst love can be a riptide that takes us so far away from ourselves we can hardly find our way back, hardly even remember how to swim. And yet Jamila surrenders to this surf — every wave and undertow – because maybe even the most painful endings can in fact be an invitation that calls her back home, back to shore, back to herself.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Jamila Woods","offers":[{"title":"LP Silver Cloud Vinyl","offer_id":45954328658083,"sku":"JAG442lp-C5","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/6703\/2483\/files\/jag442.jamilawoods.watermadeus.lp.silvercloud-34a02ad40168e436c3e0a45d57a40487.webp?v=1776688567"}],"url":"https:\/\/secretlystore.com\/collections\/jamila-woods.oembed","provider":"Secretly Store","version":"1.0","type":"link"}