Billie Holiday – “My Man (Toro Y Moi Remix)”

Billie Holiday – “My Man (Toro Y Moi Remix)”

I’ve heard Billie Holiday’s “My Man” roughly 500 times. No exaggeration. Growing up with parents that are huge Billie Holiday fans, this song was bound to show up pretty frequently, so it was especially jarring to hear Toro Y Moi’s flickering remix of this jazz standard. Holiday’s voice lends itself surprisingly well to Chaz Bundick’s bass-y production, and the screwed vocals are there just enough to be interesting without distracting from Holiday’s straight vocals. It’s a fine line, because if there’s one thing you don’t fuck with here it’s Billie Holidays voice, but Bundick makes the whole thing work well. This track is off a compilation by Verve Records that matches classic female jazz singers with modern day electronic producers.

My only gripe is that they left Mabel Mercer off the roster of ladies and that’s just unforgivable, so I feel a little obligated to call shenanigans. Actually, forget I said that, it’s probably for the best — I’m not sure how well bass whomps would lend themselves to Cole Porter songs. Check out the track here (via Pitchfork). It seems like Billie Holiday has been popular lately; Claire (who got lucky enough to hear Yeezus a couple days ago) tells me that Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” gets mashed up with TNGHT on Kanye West’s new album.

Verve Remixed: The First Ladies is out 7/16 on Verve Records

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