Hey everybody, happy Friday from NPR Music, I'm Robin Hilton and we are gathered here today

to share and talk about the best new albums out now in June 16th. I'm here with WBEC in Vocalo

Radio's Ayanna Contreras. Hey, what's going on? NPR Music's Lars Gotridge. Hey y'all.

And Sheldon Pierce. Hello. So, new music Friday, the day of the week when most new

EP's and albums come out. We go through a ton of releases, put our heads together and pick the

ones we're all excited about. This week, that includes new ones from Killer Mike,

Sigouros, Asha K, and more. But we start with the legendary singer Betty LeVette. Her new album out

today is called Simply LeVette. This is the song Mess About It.

I've been singing new pictures, running through my brain. When I used to run around on the North

I want mess about it. I want mess about it.

You know, one of the reasons why I brought this up is I feel really great that Betty LeVette is

in the conversation these days and has been in the conversation for 20 years. Now, I say 20 years

because her quote unquote, resurgence was really a blossoming of her career. That rarely happens

with such soul artists. She's very unique in that she started recording with shoes 16 years old

back in the 1960s and consistently recorded. But it took nearly 20 years for her debut album to come

out. And it took an additional nearly 20 years for people to quote unquote, rediscover her, release

some previously unreleased material. And, you know, she becomes a star in a whole nother way.

And this album to me is proof positive that she's still got that energy that Joanne Vive

and has something amazing to say. I mean, there's a lot of artists that have come out in the years

post the classic sole era that have tried to capture that feeling. But for her, it's not something to

capture. It is her. And at 77, the fact that she is still offering that really unique sort of

a mode of feeling that is present on her 1960s recordings and her 1970s recordings, I think is

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