I could never skip this classic tho
Lead singers :Nicci Gilbert, Trina Braxton, Demetria McKinney.
Tamika Scott on background
Tamela mann on her woman made Saxophone tore this one DOWN!
The entire state of Louisiana voting against these racist white folks effectively trying to segregate the school system in Baton Rouge makes my heart happy.
We not dead in Louisiana. We are not a lost cause.
I actually custom designed these shoes with the Versace team, she was the first in the world to wear and Debut. Every inexpensive designer knocked them off after, we created an entire Trend. 📈#styledbykj
If we are judging traditional songwriting, “16 Carriages” is the strongest written song on Cowboy Carter.
If we are judging concept and album thesis, “Ameriican Requiem” is the strongest.
If we are judging cultural layering, “Ya Ya” is the most ambitious.
If we are judging melody and clean structure, “Bodyguard” or “II Most Wanted” has the strongest case.
If we are judging Best written by emotional atmosphere, it’s “Daughter”
Overall, I would give “best written” to “16 Carriages”, because it combines story, emotion, structure, and personal reflection in the most complete way.
But “Ameriican Requiem” is the best written as an album-opening thesis, and “Ya Ya” is the best written as a cultural collage.
Mind you, when it was convenient yall was saying lame ass shit like “I am not my elders and ancestors.” Like they were ever weak. Just for them to show up and do more than us in their seasoned years while we tweet.
One of the reasons Betty Wright’s influence never disappeared is because later generations kept pulling her energy directly into the music.
The irony of Beyoncé sampling Betty Wright’s “Girls Can’t Do What the Guys Do” on “Upgrade U” is that Beyoncé spends the entire track proving the opposite.
Betty’s 1968 song, written by Clarence Reid and Willie Clarke and produced by Brad Shapiro and Steve Alaimo, spoke to the double standards, gender expectations, and power dynamics from a young Black American woman’s perspective, however, decades later, Beyoncé flipped that tension into a modern power statement, showing a woman matching ambition, money, image, strategy, and partnership on her own terms.
It is a reminder that Betty Wright was never just a “vintage Soul singer.” Her records became part of the DNA of modern Black American music to be sampled, replayed, quoted, and reinterpreted by artists who grew up on the emotional honesty, groove architecture, and woman-centered storytelling she helped pioneer.