There’s a steady heat running through Flowers for the Living. Not explosive, but simmering—thick with feeling, hard to shake. Mourning [A] BLKstar leans into space as a structural force, allowing each element to breathe. The songs stretch out and settle, built from grounding rhythms and deep, magnetic basslines that give everything else room to drift. Synths glow and warp, vocals move like weather systems, and nothing feels forced. Even the loudest moments arrive with patience, shaped by trust.
Everyone brings their own gravity to Flowers for the Living. RA Washington sets the arc in motion, Jah Nada anchors the low end, and Dante Foley’s drums move between pulse and trance. LaToya Kent and James Longs deliver vocals that feel both grounded and otherworldly, while Pete Saudek and Theresa May stretch the edges—Saudek through lithe guitar lines, May through trumpet playing that cuts through with sharp, emotional clarity. There’s a sense of collective clarity here, a deep confidence in pacing and restraint. These songs speak in slow reveals, holding grief, joy, memory, and resistance in equal measure. This isn’t music that demands attention. It rewards presence.
Flowers For The Living is out today on Don Giovanni Records. Listen to it immediately – it is essential.
FLOWERS FOR THE LIVING themes and memories from the collective
Flowers For The Living
This was the first time in a number of years Feeq took a more demanding control of how the song’s harmonies and timing was to be delivered. It gave the song a personal feel that was necessary to keep up with and honor. There was one truth, not to be misinterpreted or misrepresented. -James Longs
Flowers feels like a confession. Opening up to share in a conversation and a declaration to a method of motivation. Not in a convincing tone but more of a telling, an affirmation that could be adhered to, if chosen. -LaToya Kent
Can We?
“Can We?” is a revisiting of a song that we created a few years earlier. The question the song asks is, “Can we be funky now, in a song, in a look?” Shook for what we can’t do, with the air in the room”! The first rendition was much more melodic. This version added the necessary funkiness and attitude the original didn’t, in one take. The instrumental form was borrowed from an old song written by Jah Nada. -JL
The first time I heard James sing this song, it felt like a pleading. Sharing a question that he was adamant in having solidarity in. A firm footing in a thought that he allowed to ruminate. The music feels like the company his sentiment keeps close. Edging nearby and keeping time and company. -LK
Letter to a Nervous System
This might be my first or second favorite song on the album. It is so heartfelt, and beautifully felt. I told Feeq that it reminded me of how Ashford and Simpson would deliver such believable love-filled songs, that you felt and believed every word. Feeq said he had thoughts of them too in how the song was written, delivered, and sung. I think it shows the love felt by Toy and I, even though not romantically. -JL
It’s a lullaby for the soul and a song I can’t stop listening to. RA’s keyboard part acts as an ostinato throughout, and I remember those three notes being the jump-off for all the other parts. Seemingly, all it takes is three notes and Toya and James singing love notes for us to create music that plays itself. I enjoy playing in a way that imitates lyricists and vocalists, so having a call-and-response moment with Toya and James feels special. -Theresa May
I grew up listening to ballads, love songs in my family car. Marvin singing to Tammi, Tina to Rick, or even John’s horn to Alice’s harp. This feeling of hair raising on your skin, love and emotion swirling in your chest and belly. Letter is a swoon. A longing for what once was that has become too slippery to hold. A smell of sweet and familiar hanging too close in the air. -LK
88 pt 1 & 2
These companion pieces began as one extended jam from an idea that started on tour. In the process of working out the form of the song, we managed to capture some moments of brilliance, particularly from Theresa May and Latoya Kent, who are both featured on these tracks. – Jah Nada
With “88,” I just like our answer to the challenge of constantly pushing our boundaries musically. We tend to fearlessly let the muses speak to us and free us from a self-imposed confinement of the artistic mind. –JL
The original pass of this song felt very nostalgic and cheeky in its nod to dance music I grew up on. It moves around you like a smooth party starter, hyping up the room, and sizzles in this working up to a sultry finish. When we recorded this song, it was a night where we built a fire outside and were buzzing with excitement, and I feel that in the recording. -LK
I remember we started this song in 2022. We had a couple of days off between performances in South Carolina and decided to spend time creating. As soon as RA, Pete, and Dante sorted this groove, we were imagining disco and roller skates! Years later, I wasn’t ready to let this song sketch (or the horn parts) be laid to rest like many others, and had a vision for Toy to recite poetry on the back end of the song. “88” was resurrected. -T.May
Little Bobby Hutton
This piece was brought to the collective by RA Washington and features one of his most stirring and moving performances ever captured to date. Written in honor of the first treasurer and recruit to join the Black Panthers, Bobby Hutton was killed after a confrontation with the Oakland Police Department. Circumstances have been disputed. Police officers stated that Bobby ignored commands and fled, while others, including Eldridge Cleaver, say that Bobby was shot while surrendering with his hands raised. -JN
If GOD were of a mind to scold, this is what it would sound like. The voice of “every man” is a hard thing to quantify. I think Feeq embodies this flawlessly in his delivery and inflections. He dares to ask the soul-exposing question, “What do YOU do when you see something wrong?” It is a haunting question indeed. -JL
There is a power in this that flows through us and permeates in the crowd. This is a battle cry. A call to listen and heed the warning. It feels like our song “Garner Poem,” not in sound but in the spirit of telling a story of injustice and creating a space for it to be seen up close and with the pangs of an outcome that shelved the heart and buried a life nonsensically. -LK
Stop Lion 2
This piece is unique as it was written long before the recording session went through several iterations before settling into the final version. Sonically, it began from a sample that RA had introduced to Jah and LaToya Kent and was utilized as a jam for “Me:You” before making its way into the setlist. Each melody and texture was laid with care, and the lyrics were composed by LaToya, James, RA, and Chimi Palmer. Our dear friend Lee Bains blessed us with a guest appearance on the last verse and chorus. – JN
This is one of those songs that rides your back. It’s flavorful from the first note till the last. A directing toward the future noted by Theresa’s trumpet, as if it’s saying “Go this way” and then “over there,” pushing along by the thickness and solidness of Jah Nada’s bass. -LK
Let’em Eat
This piece started with RA, LaToya, and James working out lyrics over the sample as an instrumental bed. Dante took the rhythmic lead and provided the fundamental link for the rhythm section to enter, and Theresa laced the chorus with a few gorgeous blue notes on trumpet. The form of the song fell together quite nicely afterward. In post-production, RA shared a collaboration he had been working on with Fatboi Sharif, and we got the idea of adding his verse to the track as an addendum. Personally, I think it harkens back to the proto BLKstar sounds that can be found in some of RA’s earlier works on Cleveland Tapes, like Sweet Oil and LeRoi da Moor, but what do I know, I just play bass. – JN
I was sitting in my car thinking about everything MAB has gone through with each other and fighting for our vision of creating and thriving in this world. We have survived and we are here to stay. Speaking to the masses, saying “let them eat,” let them cook up and pour out and into. A lucid sprinkle. everything Fatboi Sharif touches sticks to the inside of your skull and posts up. – LK
Choir A’light
This song was written and performed earlier by former band member Chimi Palmer. Her voice and delivery was both soulful and truly singular. The question became, how do you reprise a song that was previously executed to a singular level, and not create a lesser version of self-imposed karaoke? The answer is, you tell the truth.
A friend of ours told RA this should be released as an anthem to all that is happening in the world. There is a film of anxiety in the air. A fog that shimmers with hope yet is hard to see through enough to make out images. Don’t you dare give up, repeated, so you remember and know that we believe and hold space in solidarity in our very flesh and blood. -LK
Legacy To Begin
The line comes in “we can save ourselves from all the things we been through” as black and brown people, we have longed for safety and the ability to live free, even if freedom is internal. In BLACK, we live in the open, unable and not desiring to hide but to shift forward into a space that we have dared to trod. As man, woman, and child.- LK
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