Son Little announces CITYFOLK, his fourth album and first since 2022. Although Little is often placed in the category of “roots musician”, CITYFOLK defies genre and lets the evocation of his storytelling pierce through.
“The industry likes to keep artists in little boxes, and for Black artists it has meant being defined by your proximity to ‘urban,’” Little admits. “But my music has always had had flashes of country, rock and folk, as well as hip-hop, blues and R&B. So I’ve always struggled as an artist who kind of, I think, lives in the spaces between genres.”
With the album announcement comes ‘Be Better’, a track that is perfectly apt for the start of a new year. A song about release, resilience, and the quiet power of self-belief, ‘Be Better’ sheds the weight of old stories and broken expectations, trading despair for movement and renewal; it’s a hymn for transformation, challenging anyone ready to leave the past behind to step forward, even when the road ahead is dark.
Listen to Son Little ‘Be Better’
Now living outside of Atlanta, Livingston attributes the development of CITYFOLK to going even further south to record in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, in January 2025. It was there that Little connected with Ben Tanner, a two-time Grammy-winning musician, Alabama Shakes band member and producer of St. Paul & The Broken Bones, John Paul White, Foy Vance and more, to flesh out sketches of songs that he’d crafted through epiphanies about his family’s roots. Already having an understanding of his father’s side, Little views his maternal line as a “mystery unfolding,” but it was in Shoals that the stars aligned, both through retracing his history and formulating an organic chemistry with Tanner.
While assisting with shaping Little’s narrative, Tanner says that working with him has driven him to adopt a percussive and multi-layered element to his own music. “There’s lots of hip-hop influence and more modern R&B as well as indie rock; I think the musicality that he’s bringing to being like a singer-songwriter is unique and different from anybody I’m really aware of.”
Before immersing himself in the home studio of Tanner’s home in Shoals, Little recorded voice note demos with subtle instrumentation that became the album’s framework. The acoustic demos would soon be mixed with drum machine beats before evolving into live material with contributions from a drummer, bassist and horn players. Jam sessions fully brought CITYFOLK into existence, while the unchanging southern comfort and musical richness of Shoals remained a backdrop to the album’s hymnal stew. In the late 1960s, the Muscle Shoals Sound Studios housed unbridling protest anthems and melodious love songs that would become the classics of tomorrow. Little’s CITYFOLK is a relic in the musical path paved for him.
“Its whole reputation and businesses are thriving because of the spirit of unity,” Little says of the small Alabama town. “I mean, it’s all due to music that was created in defiance of that legacy. It’s a place that I think really is a symbol of what can be accomplished when those barriers are broken down.”
Son Little
CITYFOLK
Pre-Save CITYFOLK
1. Rabbit
2. Whip The Wind
3. Let’s Get Involved
4. It’s Your World
5. Cherry
6. Bottomless
7. Be Better
8. The Valley
9. In Orbit
10. Paper Children
11. Breathe
https://sonlittle.com/
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