When you’re a four-time Grammy nominee in such key categories as “Best New Artist” and “Record of the Year” (both for 2019’s laid-back gospel groove of the unity-promoting single “Colors”) plus “Album of the Year” (for the 2020 deluxe edition of the group’s 2019 self-titled debut), people pay attention.
The Texas-based psychedelic neo-soul group Black Pumas has generated plenty of attention from a diverse audience and is crisscrossing the country this summer—darting from Brooklyn to Milwaukee to Los Angeles over a one-week period in mid-September.
With the core of vocalist/guitarist Eric Burton and guitarist Adrian Quesada—there’s a 13-year age difference between them—Black Pumas also features a sharp band of musicians and backup singers. One California radio station has described group’s sound as “Wu-Tang Clan meets James Brown,” and the Grammy-nominated version of Black Pumas includes a faithful cover of Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” and a nearly unrecognizable take on the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.”
When a mutual friend brought together Quesada (a Grammy-winning guitarist and producer who toured with Prince) and Burton (a busker with a background in musical theater) via a single phone call a few years ago, little did either musician know how dramatically their lives were about to change.
“You can’t predict how things are going to turn out. You do things from your heart and hope it moves people,” Burton told the Albuquerque Journal in March. “It’s been 12 years since I wrote ‘Colors.’ I couldn’t have predicted or have guessed that the song’s relevance would kind of uphold to what it is today. It’s how people are relating it to current events. That’s the most beautiful thing.”
