Listen to #BlackMusicCity winner Sug Daniels cover Jill Scott’s “Golden” with Samuel Nobles
Daniels, the frontperson of Hoochi Coochi, also has a video short about the song and her relationship with Scott’s music in the works.
“It started one place and ended somewhere different,” says Sug Daniels. “But ended right where it was supposed to end.”
The Delaware-rooted, Philly-based singer-songwriter said this last month while participating in the Let’s Talk About Jill Scott roundtable on WXPN Local — a meeting of the five #BlackMusicCity grant winners for 2022 whose projects celebrated iconic singer-songwriter Jill Scott in one way or another.
The first component of Daniels project, a cover of Scott’s hit single “Golden,” is out now. Recorded with a fellow Delawarean, multi-instrumentalist and producer Samuel Nobles, the recording both reinvents and stays incredibly true to Scott’s original. While “Golden” as heard on 2004’s Beautifully Human; Words and Sounds Vol. 2 is an uplifting bop out the gate, Daniels and Nobles slow and shift the tempo, making the vibe a bit more contemplative at the outset and building it into something instrumentally lush and rhythmically feel-good, underscoring that “taking my freedom” imagery in the lyrics.
Originally, Daniels planned to produce the cover and a video of her performing it, and have that be the project. But while shooting (with XPN’s Paige Walter behind the camera), she began to capture intimate moments of self-reflection, Daniels contemplating her own personal and artistic journey, as well as her relationship with the song and what it means to her. That video will be released in due time; meanwhile, listen to Daniels’ “Golden” cover below (and take the Jill Scott original for a spin as well).
Daniels and Nobles will play Dilworth Plaza at City Hall on July 27th; she’ll also open for Sarah Shook and the Disarmers at Valley Creek Park in Malvern on July 20th, and will play Rigby Mansion’s Sweet Juice Summer Fest on July 31st; details on all three can be found at Daniels’ Linktree. And both Daniels and Shook will be part of the 2022 XPoNential Music Festival; she with the Black Opry Review, them with their band. Tickets and more information can be found at XPNFest.org.
