Legacy! Legacy!

Legacy! Legacy!
Legacy! Legacy!
Studio album by Jamila Woods
Released	May 10, 2019
Studio	Audiotree; SoundScape (Chicago);
Genre	R&B; neo soul; funk; electro-soul; hip hop;
Length	49:02
Label	Jagjaguwar
Producer	Slot-A; Oddcouple; Peter Cottontale; Ralph Gene; Justin Canavan; Aminata Burton; Jamila Woods; Stephon "Mooch" Brown; Jasmin Charles; Nico Segal;
Jamila Woods chronology

Woods supported the album with her own concert tour, along with performing as the opening act for the rapper Common's tour in 2019 and the singer Raphael Saadiq's 2020 Jimmy Lee Tour.

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	8.4/10
Metacritic	89/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
And It Don't Stop	B+
Chicago Tribune
Exclaim!	8/10
Financial Times
The Guardian
NME
Pitchfork	8.5/10
Rolling Stone
Uncut	9/10

Critical reception

The album was met with widespread critical acclaim. Reviewing for AllMusic, Andy Kellman hailed it as a "galvanizing declaration of pride, support, and discontent", as well as a "modern R&B album" with mostly "electro-soul" and "chunky hip hop" productions. Ann-Derrick Gaillot from The Nation credited Woods's neo soul style for "captur[ing] the power of black pride" and achieving a novel musical accomplishment, "in which she melds disparate influences and pushes her vocal-layering techniques to build her dynamic neo-soul sound". In his Substack-published "Consumer Guide" column, Robert Christgau highlighted musical qualities on the songs "Miles", "Muddy", "Zora", and "Basquiat" while saying of the album as a whole: "This poetry-with-sophistofunk tribute to a sharp selection of 20th-century African-American art heroes plus Frida Kahlo will always be a tad too atmospheric and impressionistic to suit me. But it does both flow and signify."

In a year-end essay for Slate, Ann Powers cited Legacy! Legacy! as one of her favorite albums from 2019 and proof that the format is not dead but rather undergoing a "metamorphosis". She added that concept albums had reemerged through the culturally-relevant autobiographical narratives of artists such as Woods, who created a tribute to her ancestors "that spoke volumes about black life today".

Accolades

Accolades for *Legacy! Legacy!*
Publication	List	Rank
Exclaim!	Exclaim!'s 10 Best Soul, Funk and World Albums of 2019	1
Pitchfork	The 50 Best Albums of 2019	11
Pitchfork	The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s	181
Stereogum	The 50 Best Albums of 2019	37
Under the Radar	Under the Radar's Top 100 Albums of 2019	82

Track listing

All tracks are written by Jamila Woods, except where noted

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
1.	"Betty"		Oddcouple	3:11
2.	"Zora"		Slot-A	3:06
3.	"Giovanni"		Slot-A Ralph Gene^[a] Justin Canavan^[a] Aminata Burton^[a]	4:48
4.	"Sonia" (featuring Nitty Scott)	Woods Nitzia Scott	Slot-A	4:21
5.	"Frida"		Slot-A	2:58
6.	"Eartha"		Peter Cottontale	2:49
7.	"Miles"		Slot-A	3:08
8.	"Muddy"		Slot-A	3:11
9.	"Basquiat" (featuring Saba)	Woods Tahj Chandler	Slot-A Woods^[a] Canavan^[a] Burton^[a] Stephon "Mooch" Brown^[a]	6:45
10.	"Sun Ra" (featuring theMIND and Jasminfire)	Woods Zarif Omer	Slot-A Canavan^[a] Jasmin Charles^[a]	3:26
11.	"Octavia"		Slot-A	3:11
12.	"Baldwin" (featuring Nico Segal)		Slot-A Segal^[a]	3:53
13.	"Betty (For Boogie)"		Slot-A	4:15
Total length:				49:02

Track notes

^{^[a]} signifies an additional producer

Charts

Chart (2019)	Peak position
UK R&B Albums (OCC)	20
US Heatseekers Albums (Billboard)	6
US Independent Albums (Billboard)	26

References

[a]