Hip-hop in Music City has consistently done an excellent job of telling vital stories about being Black in Nashville. One case in point came earlier this week via Petty's “Music City Blues.” Another comes today from a new duo called The Watchman and tha Poet. The team is composed of phenomenal MC, spoken-word artist, author and activist Rashad Rayford, aka Rashad tha Poet, and stellar jazz bassist and producer Greg Bryant, who moved to New York with wife Dara Tucker in January.
The Watchman and the Poet have released “The Ballad of Dick Gregory,” which will appear on their forthcoming EP Notes From Native Sons (release date TBA). Over a forward-leaning, grooving track produced by Bryant, Rayford glides through searing lines about the resilience of Black communities and how to keep them from being destroyed by gentrification and systemic racism — topics he's been rapping about throughout his career. The piece also includes samples of interviews with the track's namesake, the late pioneering comedian and activist Dick Gregory.
You can stream and download the track for free via Bandcamp — see the embed below — and keep up with Rayford and Bryant via Instagram. It's worth noting that in honor of Juneteenth, Bandcamp is donating its usual cut of the proceeds (typically 15 percent of the purchase price) to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund through midnight Pacific time (2 a.m. Central on Saturday). Read more about that right here. If you're looking for new music, you can get a slew of quick recommendations from four recent articles by our music scribes (1, 2, 3, and 4).
