Jalylah Burrell

Hello, Babar

Seattle-bred, Brooklyn-based cultural critic Jalylah Burrell riffs on anything and everything.

Finding Donnie

Posted 10/16/2007 at 11:07 PM | Comment?

Donnie at the Highline Ballroom (10.7.07)

I should have been stumping for Donnie back in '98. Then, as a frosh at Spelman College, I heard Donnie's voice from just outside Atlanta's Yin Yang Cafe (now Apache) on the nights I worked the door for a local promoter. I never popped inside to hear the skilled soul singer but caught his friend and then toiling musician India Arie sing to a meager group of bohos and even dedicate, "God in You," to this dude who worked at the Lenox Square Polo store. Those were days, in some ways different and in some ways just the same as today. Where I was bright eyed then, a pin prick has since bored through this penny. Where I was stubborn then, I am still stubborn now (I'm but 5 days away from Taurus) and I come to music at my own pace, regardless of the volume of recommendations. So it was that, although Donnie was a friend of my best friend and performed frequently at venues I frequented, I didn't hear him until 2003, at BAM's annual Summer Rhythm & Blues Fest at Metrotech in Brooklyn. And there I heard The Colored Section, an assortment of songs about loving and living. There was social commentary, there was uplift, there was introspection, there was chiding and none of it was heavy handed and all of it was vitally soulful. You could sense influences but it didn't at all feel derivative. Donnie concisely layed out how it felt to be unwanted, personally and politically, and sung himself and his listeners into community, conversation, connection. It was a great moment in negro history but, be advised that Donnie is longer a Neg-a-ro as he so memorably sang on "Beautiful Me." As he explained at his recent performance at New York city's Highline Ballroom, he has changed the lyrics of "Beautiful Me" from "I'm not a nigger, I'm a negro" to "I'm not a nigger or a negro."

Check this slideshow for photos from Donnie's inspired performance where he spoke candidly about his drug addiction and industry drama, maturely owning up to his own shit. Donnie put out a new album, The Daily News, earlier this fall and it's a hearty listen. If you don't already own his debut, The Colored Section, do buy it. It's a contender for best album of this decade, even if it fell under the radar of THE arbiters of taste. Chalk that up to it being Black and humanist.

Donnie's Set List:
Heaven Sent
Beautiful Me
People Person
Do You Know
Daily News
China Doll
Cloud 9
Classified
911
Over-The-Counter Culture
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Encore: Rocketship

Here's a brief vid of Donnie explaining his absence to the crowd: