Chance The Rapper & Jamila Woods Take a Soul-Baring Ride Home (Audio)

Since breaking through to mainstream recognition through her work on Macklemore’s powerful social critique, “White Privilege II,” Chicago, Illinois’ Jamila Woods has been busy working on her debut LP. The multi-talented artist most recently appeared on Chance the Rapper’s Coloring Book. A longtime friend and collaborator, Chancelor Bennett appears on Jamila’s latest single and her first since May’s “Heavn,” a revisit of The Roots’ “Eve,” from their 2010 mixtape, Dilla Joints. Today (July 7), Woods and Chance serve up a supremely Chi-Town offering in the form of a love-song to their hometown’s famed Lakeshore Drive.

Jamila Woods’ Blk Girl Soldier Is Sweet Soul For The Spirit (Video)

“LSD” leads with the metaphor of a lake with Woods singing “a body of water inside me reminds me of oceans though I’ve never known one.” These lyrics are evidence of the years she’s put in as a poet in Chicago, where she became a celebrated member of the city’s arts scene. With her works having been published in The Breakbeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015), Courage: Daring Poems for Gutsy Girls (2014), and The UnCommon Core: Contemporary Poems for Learning & Living (2013), it’s no surprise the verses in her musical releases are so thoughtfully constructed. In a time when Chicago is suffering from frequent violence, “LSD” is a love letter from someone who so clearly reveres her home, and is a call for others to do the same (“My city, like my skin, is so pretty / If you don’t like it, just leave it alone“). Produced by oddCOUPLE, it’s a song about acknowledging self-love, appreciation for one’s spiritual station in life, and about the ability to recognize in others similar acknowledgments.

Jamila Woods Stands Out. She Powerfully Blames Ego For Killing Romance (Audio)

Jamila Woods’ debut album Heavn is scheduled to arrive on July 11 from Closed Sessions.