Terri Walker and Nicole Wray are set to release their self-titled debut LP Lady. The journey back to the root of classic soul music has been so long overdue that the bubbling revival - incited by artists like Amy Winehouse, Adele and others from the UK where the music was championed and preserved long after being shelved in the states - is a refreshing return to a sound that is a blend of blood, sweat, tears and low toms unique to the American experience. With major radio's abandonment of funk and soul for the emotionally flimsy and largely mercurial trends of tween marketing it seems we had forgotten what once spoke to our hearts and simply needed to be reminded that no one has ever fed an aching belly with bubblegum. Thankfully there have been groups like those on the roster at Truth & Soul Records - their label, Daptone Records and more recently Raphael Saadiq working to build muscle around an atrophied tradition. In a cross-continental move to raise the stakes of this slow-cooked renaissance Terri Walker and Nicole Wray, from the UK and the US respectively, have teamed under the moniker Lady - the dynamic duo primed to do something about it. Even more exciting is the evolution of Nicole Wray who was criminally slept on as a singer following her stint with Missy Elliot. In this iteration she seems to finally have found her place. The music is a nod to Motown's founding acts that finds the ghosts of funk brothers past driving the chrome fenders and congolene aesthetic - a feel that falls as easily into the territory of Martha Reeves as it does The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The production goes hard enough that this joint promises to be hard not to love. Stream the project in full below via Rolling Stone and--as the title of their latest single suggests, "Get Ready!"
props to RS
