Son
Little
About Son Little
Son Little is a musical artist well known for his craft of blending soul, blues, and hiphop into his songs. His ability to be a successful musician stems from his love of writing. He was born in Los Angeles, California but moved to New York after gradating high school. He originally attended Columbia University, but from there he soon relocated to Philadelphia where he enrolled to our beloved Temple University. At this time in his life he still went by his birth name, Aaron Livingston. While he was in Philadelphia, Livingston made connections with the well known group The Roots and was even given an opportunity to be on their album called Undun. It wasn't until 2013 that he started going by his artist name Son Little, which was his nickname growing up. In 2014 Son Little signed with ANTI-records where he has then been contributing to many collaborative projects as well as his own work. His most recent album he released is from 2020 called Aloha. This album took a greater effort than his others due to the fact that he was forced to rerecord everything after a fried hard drive incident. His most recent song release is called Phantom Killer which you can find on all streaming platforms.
You can learn more about Son Little on his website here:
My Experience
Son Little was the final artists to perform at Philly Music Fest. He was the only solo artist of the night with a music band accompanying him. He has the most recognition out of the three performances because it was when Son Little was about to come on that the room became packed. To be quite frank, the music was extremely loud, so much so I had real trouble hearing his voice at times. From watching his performance though, I can see how connected he is to his music. He is one with his guitar and the audience gains a sense of how serious he takes his craft. He sang his well known song, Mad About You, which created excitement amongst the audience as they were singing a long with him. After the show ended, I immediately brought up his music and listened to it on the ride home. I found myself enjoying his recorded music way more. I realized it's way more chill and upbeat. In concert, the instrument playing was so loud that it washed out the vocals and it was also very slowed down (maybe to create a more intimate setting). I could also hear the lyrics much clearer on his recorded music and have even added a few to my playlists.
Mad About You is Son Little's #1 ranked song on Spotify with 23.6 million streams. Click here to watch him perform it at Americana Fest.
Genre: R&B
The naming of rhythm and blues was coined by Quincy Jones in the 1940s with intention to replace the term "race music." It became a general umbrella term for the numerous, varying African American musical forms. In its starting time, R&B was seen as dangerous to the youth of America due to the severity of segregation issues when seeing black and white R&B musicians singing together, Under this genre originally emerged two groups: 1) large R&B groups, which was practiced by singers who were mainly a part of bands, and 2) small R&B groups, which consisted of about five to seven musicians rotating in the spotlight. It wasn't until the 1960s that R&B became known as soul, where the gospel vocal style was more prominent. In the 1960s, the form of contemporary R&B came about. Under this style was the meshing of R&B, disco, and hip hop--all aspects that Son Little now incorporates into his music. It is a form of R&B known to have ties to pop music. Its popularity surged in the early 2000s and by 2010, numerous R&B artists had a strong platform. Today, R&B is the most listened to genre on distributed streaming platforms.
Son Little performing at Philly Music Fest