TV One debuted this amazing series damn near 10 years ago in fall 2008. I can't believe it's been that long, but I'm glad the franchise is still around and expanding.

List of all 11 seasons here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Unsung_episodes

I love that there's an "Unsung Hollywood" (Cooley High, Pam Grier, A Different World...) and subgenre-themed shows, like the House and Disco joints.

There's also an Unsung film franchise. "Love Under New Management: The Miki Howard Story" debuted last year. This fall we're supposed to be getting a Debarge movie, "All This Love: The Debarge Family Story."

After watching several dozen episodes over the years, I got some questions.

1. Do you feel the series has fallen off track in terms of focusing on artists that are truly "unsung"?

Like, are Next and Jagged Edge really "unsung"? I know the definition of "unsung" is subjective. For the record, I'm not mad at the aforementioned episodes because I love a good documentary. For example, I never thought of H-Town as "unsung," but I loved the H-Town episode! The people they interviewed were entertaining, including Shazam!

To me, the first few seasons set the bar mad high. Donny Hathaway. Phyllis Hyman. Debarge. Minnie Riperton. Zapp & Roger. Angela Winbush.

Sheeiit.

It's much harder to debate that these artists are NOT unsung compared to Next ("Baby when we're grinding" / I get so excited...Ooh how I like it, I try but I can't fight it")

One thing I appreciate about the series is that they're expanding into newer decades. While I'm generally more interested in the 70s and 80s artists, I was soooo happy to see the Mint Condition episode, my favorite boy band of all time.

2. Did the series put you on to artists that you didn't know about, overlooked or only knew about on a casual level?

I'm showing my age here (post-1985 80s baby) but I'd never heard of Sylvester. And although I always knew about Troop's big hits, like "Spread My Wings," and their J5 cover of "All I Do Is Think Of You," I was never really into them. Now I listen to their first two albums all the time. More than anything, the Troop episode made me realize how fucking amazing Chuckii Booker is...dude needs an Unsung episode STAT.

3. Disappointing episodes so far?

I can't think of any off bat but I was disappointed the Atlantic Starr episode didn't mention some of their bigger hits. To be fair, it was probably a copyright and/or budget obstacle. This brings me to No. 4...

4. Do you think this series would be better on BET? I feel like BET/Viacom has more resources (mainly, $$$ resources) than TV One/Urban One, which is black-owned.

I don't even think Comcast has that 48-49% stake in the company anymore. Then again, I'm wondering if BET is too mainstream to really give an artist like Miki Howard and Freddie Jackson the time of day. I'm sure the forthcoming Debarge movie probably won't have the same budget as 1/3 of the BET New Edition movie. I still haven't seen the Miki Howard biopic. Hopefully, it wasn't Lifetime quality.

5. Who is deserving of an Unsung episode but hasn't been featured?

I know some artists have been approached and were like, "No, thanks." Stephanie Mills is one of them. Heavy D got an episode but it is my understanding he wasn't interested when he was alive.

6. Those of you familiar with copyright law, music licensing, digital TV episodes, DVD production--what would keep a series like this from being made available for purchase on Google Play, iTunes, Amazon and/or from being released on DVD?

FYI: New episodes for summer 2017. Season 11.
Wyclef (July 9)
Jagged Edge (July 9)
Marvin Sapp (July 16)
Switch (July 23)
The Dramatics (July 30)
Shanice (August 6)
Ice-T (August 13)

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

>5. Who is deserving of an Unsung episode but hasn't been
>featured? I know some artists have been approached and were
>like, "No, thanks." Stephanie Mills is one of them. Heavy D
>got an episode but it is my understanding he wasn't interested
>when he was alive.
>

I forgot to list my suggestions:

- Loose Ends
- The S.O.S. Band
- Chuckii Booker
- Tony! Toni! Toné! (If they 'gon do Mint Condition, might as well. I'd like to know what they're not putting out new material like Mint Condition)
- Eric Benet (Fight me...)

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

i'm most looking forward to the Switch ep this season, as well as the Dramatics....




�
have you listened to
her stuff?
v
https://www.facebook.com/officialmeshell?fref=ts
http://www.meshell.com/site/
http://www.freemyheart.com


RIP David Williams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Williams_(guitarist)

Unsung profiled Chante Moore, who to me, was like Karyn White 2.0 in a way...

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

Wishful thinking, perhaps?

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

The Switch one reaffirmed that they'll do "not-so-popular" artists.


besides Me'shell, they should probably do:

Lisa Fischer

Regina Belle

Bilal

The Meters

Mandrill

War

Loleata Holloway

First Choice

>The Switch one reaffirmed that they'll do "not-so-popular"
>artists.
>
>
>besides Me'shell, they should probably do:
>
>Lisa Fischer
>
>Regina Belle
>
>Bilal
>
>The Meters
>
>Mandrill
>
>War
>
>Loleata Holloway
>
>First Choice>

nice list, would ESPECIALLY love the War & Mandrill eps for SURE


�
have you listened to
her stuff?
v
https://www.facebook.com/officialmeshell?fref=ts
http://www.meshell.com/site/
http://www.freemyheart.com


RIP David Williams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Williams_(guitarist)

Meshell is my Grade A, #1 so i'd be all-in for an Unsung on my girl ....


�
have you listened to
her stuff?
v
https://www.facebook.com/officialmeshell?fref=ts
http://www.meshell.com/site/
http://www.freemyheart.com


RIP David Williams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Williams_(guitarist)

Did anybody catch it? I missed it!

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

I've got a whole plethora of time-wasting docs to pass time at work.

In regards to the evolution of the series...I think diminishing returns are to be expected by the nature of the series. They kinda CAN'T feature people who are genuinely 'unsung' because it won't garner interest. So they're walking a line. Unsung enough to fit the format but not too unsung that noone will care.

I have LOVED this series from the get-go so maybe I'm rationalizing. On first thought....Wyclef? Really? Unsung? But maybe they fit him into this context by claiming his contributions and talents are 'unsung'. He's generally known as a performer. Does the average casual music fan know he's a multi-instrumentalist (albeit somewhat a hack but still)? Or all his production credits? Like him or not....he's made a huge impact and alot of it was behind the scenes and probably isn't common knowledge for people who aren't music nerds.

Jagged Edge. Damn. 'Walked outta heaven' is probably one the best rnb songs of the new milleneum. The justification for that might be somewhat race-based. How many white people are really familiar with them? And I'd suggest that the series has done this before....they sometimes kinda mean 'unsung' with white and/or mainstream audiences. I'd bet those guys aren't swimming in money right now in anycase. So 'unsung' can also mean never got the money they deserved.

I'm looking forward to becoming more familiar with Marvin Sapp cause I never collected his records and have only a surface knowledge of him. I'm MOST looking forward to the Dramatics episode cause they're sound is most down my alley.

This won't happen...but what if 'unsung' dedicated a whole season to Jamaican artists? The second highest record producing nation in the world per capita behind India. There's so much territory to mine there. Tenor Saw has one of the most recognizable songs in the world and noone even knows who he is or his story. Dub innovators like King Tubby who laid the groundwork for hip hop. Producers like Sly and Robbie. Groups like Black Uhuru. Artists like Tappa Zukie. Crooners like Dennis Brown.

According to Sadat X, Brand Nubian just recorded an Unsung episode...I'm looking forward to seeing it.

www.facebook.com/DivineExistence1
www.instagram.com/divine_existence
www.youtube.com/@DivineExistence/videos

I'd love to see it, too. The only two episodes I know of since posting this are Silk and The Boyz

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

...has an episode debuting on March 8. I don't think I'll be watching.

This series is all over the place as far as artist selection, and I don't mean that in a good way.

I'm all for diversity in age and genres but Tricky Daddy??!!!!

Anywho, someone posted about The Boys episode: http://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=3001898&mesg_id=3001898&page=

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

People that they are selecting are not even unsung.

I want to see something on people like Brass Construction, The Meters, BT Express, James Carr, Willie Hutch, Brenda Holloway to name a few.

I don't even keep up with the show no more.

--------

Mixcloud - www.mixcloud.com/Soultaker/

Lloyd
Adina Howard
The Jets
Shirley Murdock
Crystal Waters
Glenn Jones
Kenny Lattimore
Tasha Cobbs-Leonard

*TV ONE promo trailer for S14: https://tvone.tv/video/unbelievable-drama-unforgettable-hits-unsung-is-back/
*EURWEB article: https://www.eurweb.com/2019/02/tv-ones-hit-shows-uncensored-and-unsung-return-on-sunday-march-3-at-9-10pm-ep-8c/

As per usual, it's a mix of a couple "unsung" artists and several folks that ain't got no business being on the show. But as someone already pointed out, the show has fallen off so no surprise there. Or really, the show has simply changed its direction. I think there's a larger story behind the changes. Did the original executive producers leave? And did the number of artists who have declined (and continute to decline) to participate (see: Stephanie Mills) impact which artists we see on this show?

Generally, I'm not excited about most of the artists featured on this upcoming season.

Le sigh.

P.S. I wish I started this thread in General Discussion.
Also: if someone can find a streaming link on the web or some other hook up for the Gil Scott Heron and The Story of Disco episodes, holla at me. These were on my DVR at my old apartment and I lost them when I moved. I didn't get a chance to watch them and I can't find 'em on YouTube.

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

>Lloyd
>Adina Howard
>The Jets
>Shirley Murdock
>Crystal Waters
>Glenn Jones
>Kenny Lattimore
>Tasha Cobbs-Leonard

C'mon Lloyd, for reals, he's not unsung, just ran out of steam like a lot of other r&b artists (such as Shirley Murdock & Kenny Lattimore), once they come into the scene then with each album their music becomes generic not better.

Didn't some other show do an entire show about Adina Howard's career and her leaving the music industry and becoming a police officer?

Didn't they do an episode with Chante Moore which basically Kenny Lattimore seem to got 1/3 of his story told.

I thought they did an episode on Crystal Waters or was that another show like VH1 or was it apart of the disco episode, it's all a blur to me, some of those episodes were so boring or full of known facts it just seem like background noise.

The Jets and Glenn Jones are probably the only two I seem to be interested in seeing but not really, what happened to the 70's funk groups and bands that we still don't know hardly anything about but every music head knows of their music, they stop trying to do those type of shows?

Also what's up with doing an episode on a contemporary gospel artist who was a contestant on the Sunday's Best show on BET and was a regular feature on Bobby Jones' tv show on BET as well, do we really need a episode for her though; I know of at least 5 singers who use to do a lot of house vocal work and moved into the gospel genre who people still know nothing about other than what they use to sing before doing gospel as a solo artist, seems like they are just using analytics and not actually thinking out the process anymore.

https://tinyurl.com/y4ba6hog

---------
"We in here talking about later career Prince records
& your fool ass is cruising around in a time machine
trying to collect props for a couple of sociopathic degenerates" - s.blak

This show is dead. There are plenty of people that should be getting episodes but they want to focus on people from the 90's that only had one hit song.

I can name people for hours that need episodes. (Brass Construction, Cameo, Gap Band, The Staple Singers, Brenda Holloway, Natural Four, Leroy Hutson, Leon Ware, Billy Paul and countless others)

--------

Mixcloud - www.mixcloud.com/Soultaker/

Brothers Johnson
Cameo
George Duke
Pointer Sisters
Sister Sledge
Kool & The Gang
Fatback Band
SOS Band
Brick

http://soundcloud.com/deemack1

>I can name people for hours that need episodes.
>(Brass Construction, Cameo, Gap Band, The Staple Singers,
>Brenda Holloway, Natural Four, Leroy Hutson, Leon Ware,
>Billy Paul and countless others)

I do agree with you on Brass Construction, Natural Four, Leroy Hutson, & Leon Ware, those are some classic but mysterious info about these artist's career.

Cameo, Gap Band (Charlie Wilson), Staple Singers, and Kool & The Gang are pretty much well known and got well known hits, most might now know about KATG's early jazz stuff but their funk hits & stuff with JT Taylor most people know about; now if they did an episode on Mavis Staples, then you're talking but not the Staple Singers though; never cared for Brenda Holloway's music (but that doesn't mean she might deserve an episode though), and the same goes for Billy Paul (I've always hated that cot damn song "Me & Mrs. Jones").

https://tinyurl.com/y4ba6hog

---------
"We in here talking about later career Prince records
& your fool ass is cruising around in a time machine
trying to collect props for a couple of sociopathic degenerates" - s.blak

>>I can name people for hours that need episodes.
>>(Brass Construction, Cameo, Gap Band, The Staple Singers,
>>Brenda Holloway, Natural Four, Leroy Hutson, Leon Ware,
>>Billy Paul and countless others)
>
>I do agree with you on Brass Construction, Natural Four, Leroy
>Hutson, & Leon Ware, those are some classic but mysterious
>info about these artist's career.
>
>Cameo, Gap Band (Charlie Wilson), Staple Singers, and Kool &
>The Gang are pretty much well known and got well known hits,
>most might now know about KATG's early jazz stuff but their
>funk hits & stuff with JT Taylor most people know about; now
>if they did an episode on Mavis Staples, then you're talking
>but not the Staple Singers though; never cared for Brenda
>Holloway's music (but that doesn't mean she might deserve an
>episode though), and the same goes for Billy Paul (I've always
>hated that cot damn song "Me & Mrs. Jones").
>
>
>

But see that's a perfect example with Billy Paul, as he had more than Me & Mrs. Jones. He better stuff than that, Let The Dollar Circulate comes to mind. I would be interested in his pre Philly International history myself. As far as KATG, I would be more interested in the 69-76 era and not the JT Taylor stuff, but they would probably focus more on that.

You can add the Thomas family to the list ( Rufus, Carla and Vaneese ).

--------

Mixcloud - www.mixcloud.com/Soultaker/

Al B Sure was on Questlove Supreme and Al mentioned taking some heat on tour for Christopher Williams for something that went down and that he reveals it on the episode.

Her episode must be coinciding with an album release or something, and they paid off TVOne. She's not Kirk-Franklin-through-the-atmosphere popular, but she's definitely not no long lost, unheard-of act from the backwoods of nowhere. She had 3 songs come on regular terrestrial radio when I was in the car with my mom last weekend.

____________
Twitter & IG: @rulerofmyself
SC: rulerofmyself17

Yes! She's on the drugs. (c) BoHagon

(SILVER SPRING, MD) - TV One's longest-running and award-winning documentary series UNSUNG continues its stellar run with an all-new season premiering Sunday, February 23 at 10 P.M. ET/9C. The season kicks off with the popular 90s R&B group Dru Hill.

The season continues with memorable stories of influential artists including rap's first female star MC Roxanne Shante; singer/actor Christopher Williams; funk and disco band Skyy; the "Mother of Freestyle" Shannon; Grammy Award-winning crooner behind the 1972 number one single "Me and Mrs. Jones," Billy Paul; vocal powerhouse Betty Wright, best known for the 70s hit single "Clean Up Woman;" multi-Grammy Award-winning musician Al Jarreau; and Atlanta hip hop quartet Goodie Mob.

READ MORE here: https://www.soultracks.com/story-unsung-2020

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

There's a true distinction between Unsung and flamed out/not that great. And there are SO many more bands/singers/groups to cover before we get to groups from the freaking 90s. I know some people don't want the 'Unsung' title b/c it has a semi-negative connotation but....they need to just do 6 solid eps a season and be done.

The Christopher Williams episode was goofy;

The Rox Shante episode was unnecessary (why not do one of Mc Lyte instead);

The Dru Hill episode was cool;

If they fuck up the Skyy or Al Jarreau episodes, I'm done wit Unsung.

http://soundcloud.com/deemack1

The Christopher Williams episode wasn't goofy to me. It was aight.

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

No, and I don’t think it ever has. Probably never will. TV One has always been behind on that front...

Sometimes, recent episodes are on the TV One website. Folks also upload episodes to YouTube, though they tend to get removed a lot.

I still haven’t seen the Disco and Gil Scott Heron episodes, and they aired years ago!
I can’t find ‘em anywhere.

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

The website directs you to watch the episodes on the app because they don't want non-cable subscribers watchin.'

When I'm plugged into my AT&T UVERSE WiFi, the app automatically confirms my cable subscription. Right now, it looks like selects episodes from the last three seasons (#11-13) are available for watching. These aren't on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon.

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib

they was a group signed to MC Hammer's label that members from Troop wrote and produced their album. it sounds dated like a mug but those songs still bang



>2. Did the series put you on to artists that you didn't know
>about, overlooked or only knew about on a casual level?
>
>I'm showing my age here (post-1985 80s baby) but I'd never
>heard of Sylvester. And although I always knew about Troop's
>big hits, like "Spread My Wings," and their J5 cover of "All I
>Do Is Think Of You," I was never really into them. Now I
>listen to their first two albums all the time. More than
>anything, the Troop episode made me realize how fucking
>amazing Chuckii Booker is...dude needs an Unsung episode STAT.



<=========================================
https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PYzh4v9cSf4FDnq3yMQyqNqh79o=/800x0/filters:no_upscale%28%29/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4079674/jlio.0.gif

They recently have been releasing mixes of old songs on Spotify too.

Thank you. I don't mind dated music. The Gyrlz' "Love Me or Leave Me" album is a favorite jam of mine. It's a little cheesy and dated AF but I don't care!

--
"Music is not to be possessed; it's to be shared.” - James Mtume

"Just stay loose, keep it raw, and bang ya drums out sometimes." - Madlib