Disney recruits Rapsody, others for EP honoring Black lives

NEW YORK (AP) — Grammy-nominated gifted lyricist Rapsody has written “maybe 15 verses this year to reflect the times” — as she put it — about the Black experience. So when Disney asked the rapper to pen a new tune for a new EP honoring Black lives and social justice, she thought to herself: “How else can I talk about what’s going on?”

She began to think from the perspective of a mother who lost her son to police brutality. Or a father whose daughter died simply because of the color of her skin. Recorded under quarantine during the pandemic, Rapsody came up with the soulful rap tune “Pray Momma Don’t Cry.” She said she pulled from Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” and Marvin Gaye’s “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology),” calling the classic songs “beautiful music but it was also heavy and real at the same time.” Crafting the lyrics after receiving the beat from veteran producer and frequent collaborator 9th Wonder, Rapsody thought of “Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Trayvon Martin.” “What does it feel like when you go to those funerals? All these black cars and trucks, everybody dressed in black. The emotion. How does that feel after you’ve gone through that and you go home and that person is not in your life anymore? That’s kind of the energy or emotion I wanted to touch on,” she said.

“Pray Momma Don’t Cry” is one of four songs featured on “I Can’t Breathe/Music for the Movement,” a four-song album that is a joint venture between Disney Music Group and The Undefeated, ESPN’s platform for exploring the intersections of race, sports and culture.