premiere: fishbone leader angelo moore turns marvin gaye classic into modern funk manifesto with “inner city blues”

Dust off your pin stripe suit, cock your bowler to the side, and bust out your theremins kids; the immortal Angelo Moore’s back! The Fishbone singer’s been making noise on the side with The Brand New Step for the past few years, and we’re beyond psyched to share their latest track. “Inner City Blues” is an update of the Marvin Gaye classic. Moore and company open up the groove and rough up Marvin Gaye’s smooth edges for a track that cuts to the bone.

“The lyrics are hauntingly relevant today,” Angelo Moore tells AFROPUNK. “Inner City Blues ironically reminds us all that the phenomenon of the inner cities – and rural areas of the US – with poverty, homelessness, increasing gentrification are real and haven’t changed much since the original version.”

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Butterscotch helps Moore with vocal duties, Claude Coleman Jr (of Ween) is on drums, and Moore fills in the corners with squealing sax, unearthly theremin, and urgent shouts. The band twists the originals mournful solemnity into a surreal dance party on the ashes of history. The funk vibe just foregrounds the fact that so little has changed since Gaye wrote the song in 71. “Perhaps most haunting is the lyric ‘trigger happy policing’” Moore points out. “Makes me wanna holla!”