JAMILA WOODS REVEALS NEW SINGLE “GOOD NEWS
Today, Chicago musician and poet Jamila Woods shares “Good News”, the third single from her forthcoming third album Water Made Us, out October 13 via Jagjaguwar. Sultry and ethereal, “Good News” was co-written by Jamila, Biako and Jean Placide, and inspired the album’s title. “The title of the album comes from one of the lyrics, ‘the good news is we were happy once / the good news is water always runs back where it came from / the good news is water made us’,” Jamila explains. “For me the song is a lesson in surrender, a lesson I learn from water over and over again.” “Good News” comes alongside a nostalgic visualizer and follows last month’s anthemic dance track “Boomerang”.
“Good News” is set to appear on Woods’ highly-anticipated upcoming album Water Made Us, co-executive produced by Mcclenney and Jamila Woods, and featuring Saba, duendita and Peter CottonTale. This will be Woods’ first full-length since 2019’s critically acclaimed LEGACY! LEGACY!, a record that showcased their extraordinary introspection that persists on the album soon to come. Water Made Us will also feature previously released singles “Boomerang” and “Tiny Garden” featuring duendita—a song that Pitchfork named Best New Track, receiving further coverage from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, FADER and more.
The album’s title is a subtle reference to a well-known Toni Morrison quote, “All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.” It’s this sentiment – of memory, place, and returning – that acts as a pillar for the arc of the album. While 2017’s critically acclaimed HEAVN found Woods celebrating her community within a lineage of Black feminist movement organizing, and 2019’s LEGACY! LEGACY! reframed her life’s experiences through the storied personas of iconic Black and brown artists, Water Made Us is self-revelatory in an entirely new way. Coming out of her Legacy! Legacy! touring schedule and into 2020’s Covid-19 quarantine, Jamila wanted to challenge herself to write as many songs as possible, and spent several months in a state of deep creativity and self-reflection. But despite giving herself this freedom to write without worry, she still yearned for a story to tie her disparate songs together. Early songs revealed a simmering common thread: love, relationships, and the hard lessons learned in their wake. Journaling, therapy, and frequent consultations with a trusted astrologer all began to reflect Jamila’s own patterns in love and intimacy back to her. After being connected with LA-based producer McClenney, the album’s story began to take shape, and the two worked together building each song from scratch. What came is an album that reveals a new side of Woods never fully shared with her previous work, making this her most personal album yet.
Photo Credit: Elizabeth De La Piedra