To celebrate the 20-year history of ESSENCE Festival, we’ve asked several artists to tell us who they would like to tribute at the festival if given the opportunity. Tank, Kelly Price, Ledisi, Erica Campbell and more have joined in on the fun, expressing their desire to tribute greats like Charlie Wilson, Gladys Knight, and Chaka Khan.
When we asked Kem who he would like to tribute at ESSENCE Festival, he quickly responded with extreme enthusiam:
Prince! Me. Maxwell. Alicia Keys. Esperanza Spalding and Pharrell [would be apart of the tribute.] Pharrell has that falsetto thing. He can hold it down. I could hear him doing “Private Joy.” [I’d do] “Need Another Lover” or “Purple Rain.” Matter fact, I’m going to put one of those songs in my set.
That would be a great tribute indeed. Kem’s new single, “It’s You”, is another song you’ll likely hear on his next set. Listen below.
Inside scoop for Kem fans: This is the lead single to his forthcoming album, which is currently untitled, but he did tell us that he might name it “Essence Of Love”. We love it!