Maxwell

Released: January 1, 2009

Featuring: Nas

Songwriter: Hod David Maxwell Nas

Producer: Hod David Maxwell

[Verse 1]
There's a moving inner peace that I love to see
Gotta raise my soul to tell you how I feel
Gotta listen to the tears that people cry for me
In a world that's so wild fear creeps

Cause when I get up to hear you, tears just fill my eyes
Now I know I got to let the selfishness subside
Tell 'em y'all

[Chorus]
Help somebody, help somebody
Show 'em what it is, give a little bit more
Help somebody, help somebody
Show 'em what it is, let 'em know

[Interlude]
If you see the future, ask it if I'm there
Ask it if I'm there

[Verse 2]
Ask it to tell you did I ever make a stand
Ask if you may care to mention, did I learn from everything?
And even if it takes a sea of eternity to know
I'll wait a century, a buried mess of bones, help me

Help me to give myself the way that you've given you
Help me to be the helping hand that makes a dream come true
Choir, sing

[Chorus]
Help somebody, help somebody
Show 'em what it is, give a little bit more
Help somebody, help somebody
Show 'em what it is, let 'em know

[Bridge]
If I'm there, yea
Tell me if I'm there
Do you see me there?
Do you see me there?

[Chorus]
Help somebody, help somebody
Show 'em what it is, give a little bit more
Help somebody, help somebody
Show 'em what it is, let 'em know

[Interlude]
If you see the future, ask it if I'm there
Ask it if I'm there

[Verse: Nas]
Yeah, Yeah
My degrees
Like Ivy Leagues
In the street
I succeeded
The ghetto was my Garden of Eden
It was hard to defeat him
The Beast
He tried to turn the god in to a heathen

Check It

See the Black Madonna the picture, that lady
Holding a baby?
As I looked in her eyes, what I saw did it amaze me
New Orleans under water
Screaming, "Somebody save me"
Immigrants at the border
Treated wronger than Dalo-Faelid
In India, there's plenty of poor crying babies
Back at the home front, jobs wanted like crazy
Me, I'm never selfish, indeed help the helpless
Looking at the sky for Almighty, can you help us?
I can't stress what I can't control
Heart of a street hustler, Panther soul
As I sit on the throne
What's not in the stars, I just let it go
Favorite Golf linen clothes
So I pray to God... That a new plan unfolds
I got a saying and it goes
"I started in the projects
Now look what I accomplished"
There's ain't nobody helped me
It's nonsense
I'm just
Honored
To be in this position
The best feeling
That I've ever had is when I'm giving
Listen

Maxwell has artfully managed to transfix music lovers for more than two decades, releasing 4 studio albums, all in his own time – all duly anointed as classics. Now, the Brooklyn-born soul legend returns with his 5th album, BlackSUMMERS’night, the long-awaited second installment of his trailblazing trilogy, a powerful reminder that great music really is about more than moving the twitter needle.

Maxwell’s reentry into the pop orbit straddles but never strains the fertile groundwork he’s already laid as an R&B/soul pioneer. His seminal 1996 debut album, Maxwell’s Urban Hang Suite, which the New York Times credited for ‘turning away gangsta’ machismo to reclaim the utopian spirit of 70s soul…’has been enthusiastically re-celebrated recently in an avalanche of commemorative articles marking the 20th anniversary of the genre spawning debut. His last album, 2009’s #1 debuting, Grammy-winning BLACKsummers’night and its signature single “Pretty Wings,” (which owned the top spot on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Chart for 4 and a half months) tamped down Chapter 1 of the sensual, pathfinding trilogy. The album landed on most critics’ Year’s Best lists and snared 2 Grammys, with Rolling Stone praising it as an ‘album about love, not sex, for grown-ups who know the difference.’

The ambitious follow-up reaffirms Maxwell’s commitment to further the musical crossroads, even as he acknowledges his own reluctance to willingly let go of his own “I knew the new album was good, that it was done – but they still had to tear it from my hands to get it out,” he says. Most revealingly, he admits to arriving at a ‘good place’ at 43 years of age, equipped with a keener sense of proportion about the seductive mystique he has come to represent. “I think what messes up a lot of pop artists after they’ve been down the road a bit is that the record becomes much more about their personal drama instead of the music. I’m not going to disrespect anyone’s hustle, but I’m not interested in being a celebrity. Today, you have people purposely marketing their personal life into their music. With me, you’re looking at a mom and pop store,” he laughs. “I need that spark that drives the music, but within that life I always want to create something that affects people emotionally and spiritually. At the end of the day that’s what enables me to become secondary to the experience of the music.”

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