Sasha Allen - MTV Performance

image via artists facebook page

This new video hit the web as unlisted just a short time ago but lucky for you, I have the link! If you don't know who Sasha Allen is, you will know very well after this video. I've talked about another amazing performance by her captured and posted to YouTube before but I never posted it here. (Until now.)

In a special performance for MTV, Sasha covers two diva classics. Stephanie Mills' "Home" and Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child." When I tell you that she "sangs" the damn everything into these two songs... Lawd hammercy!

I can't even begin to explain this to you. Just hit play and get ready for goosebumps. Oh, and mark your calendar for this Saturday. Sasha Allen will be performing at Joe's Pub at 1 pm. You better believe I'll be in the building.

Strange Fruit

 

Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, August 7th, 1930

It wasn't that long ago.

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

-Abel Meeropol