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Chris Rizik

SoulTracks.com First Listen: Nadir Stirs Our Emotions with “Run”

SoulTracks.com is the leading online resource dedicated to classic and modern Soul Music.  From its inception in 2003, SoulTracks has been designed to provide useful information and updates on the greatest Classic Soul artists and to introduce readers to the next generation of Soul Music singers. Currently the most popular soul music website in America, SoulTracks includes artist biographies, music news and reviews, and First Listens to some of the newest music available.

SoulTracks Senior Writer Howard Dukes penned a piece about “Run” on the date of its release:

A racially based travesty inspired guitarist and funkmaster Nadir to pen “Run.” The song addresses Black America’s 500-year trek to outpace white supremacy while also honoring African American perseverance.

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SoulTracks.com: First Listen: Nadir funks it up with a message on “Blue Lights”

We’ve had an awesome response to “Blue Lights” so far, and here’s a beautiful example. SoulTracks.com the biggest soul music site on the planet, offered Nadir’s new funk single to their audience as a First Listen. Check it out:

SoulTracks.com says:  Working For the Man, J. Nadir Omowale’s 2008 polemical album dropped like a bomb into the political, military and economic upheavals taking place in that year. The urgent and powerful funk of the title track pretty much captured the feelings of every working man and woman at a time when the economy was in free fall, mainly due to the greed and incompetence of the people at the top. The rocking Detroit funk man came back in 2012 with the very good, though less overtly political The Book of Jonah, and in the year 2017, Nadir has returned.

A lot transpired – particularly in the fraught relationship between law enforcement and minority communities – between 2012 and 2017, and Nadir has something to say.

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Saving Commercial Radio From Itself

ATTENTION COMMERCIAL RADIO PROGRAMMERS AND MUSIC DIRECTORS:

If you’re looking for a surefire way to bolster your sagging ratings and stave off the full frontal assault on your medium by the Pandoras and Spotifys of the world, ADD MY NEW RECORD TO YOUR PLAYLISTS NOW!

No, I’m not arrogant enough to believe that my album alone could save us from commercial radio’s otherwise eminent demise. But it seems clear that a potent injection of fresh sounds would help lure back listeners who have turned to programming their own iPods or wandered down the dial to community radio in an effort to escape the monotonous repetition of mainstream terrestrial radio.

Two decades of mercurial technological advances are inspiring more great artists to create incredible music in their homes, on their laptops and (gasp!) on their cellphones. Still commercial radio playlists get shorter and shorter. Why?

Consider the tweet below as shared on Facebook by Steve Heath of Alma Artist Booking and Management:

And after the recent decision by US and EU regulators, we’re down to three major record labels. That means a shrinking number of corporate executives will exercise greater control over the music we’re force-fed by mainstream media outlets. As our information and entertainment pie grows, a few mega-companies are slicing up ever larger slices with the intent of stuffing consumer faces with more junk food media.

That’s bad news for those of us who turn on the news because we want to know what’s happening in the world, and who turn on the radio when we want to hear music that satisfies our souls.

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© Nadir Omowale