Song You Need: Jayda G contemplates vicious circles, and the circle of life
22.02.2023 - 09:51
/ thefader.com
The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist. William Richard Guy grew up in Kansas, where he was plagued by run-ins with the law before marrying at 18 and enlisting in the Vietnam War.
When he returned home, his wife was with another man, and he moved to Washington, D.C., where he hosted a late-night radio show. In 1968, got caught up in the race riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and was forced to move again, this time to British Columbia, Canada, where he met his second wife and settled down. He passed away suddenly when his daughter Jayda was just 10, leaving behind 11 hours of grainy, memoiristic video recordings she’d one day return to as source material for Guy, her newly announced sophomore studio album as Jayda G.
Read Next: The 8 projects you should stream right now “Circle Back Around” — the record’s lead single, out today (February 20) — draws on an anecdote about one of those cop encounters. “Walking down the alley, arms loaded with stuff,” Guy recalls in a grainy clip that plays at the start of the David Ehrenreich-directed short film that arrives alongside the track. “Police spotlight dead on us, caught redhanded.
We throw ’em up in the air and start running. We light out through the backyard, jumping people’s fences — talk about running hurdles. “My house is over here; I ran this way,” he continues, pointing in opposite directions.