Raheem Devaughn and Wes Felton are veteran performers from the vastly underrated DMV music scene, both taking solo paths after initially joining as a formidable duo early in their careers. The brothers in music have joined forces once more as The CrossRhodes with their new single “Footprints On The Moon, and their message couldn’t be more timely considering the nation’s tensions around race.
Fans of DeVaughn might have arrived at his music during the period of his 2005 major label debut, The Love Experience, but by then he had already amassed a large body of work as a singer and collaborator with groups like Urban Ave 31. Across Washington and Baltimore, the hard-working crooner mixed an old-school sensibility with a modern awareness of the politics of the day.
Like DeVaughn, Wes Felton, formerly known as W. Ellington Felton, stormed throughout the DMV area as a poet, rapper, and public figure. Felton began releasing projects in 1996 and collaborated with the likes of R&B and Soul faves Sy Smith and Eric Roberson. Felton has earned the reputation of being one of the area’s best live performers and both men, the sons of musicians, take their craft seriously.
The single, “Footprints On The Moon,” from their upcoming album project, features the head-nodding funk and thump of producer Kev Brown. Felton leads off the track and meanders between speaking as a seasoned elder and the sobering realization that what entertainment has become a negative influence by way of reality shows and the lack of authenticity.
DeVaughn, who performs the heavy-duty work on the hook and bridge, follows Felton’s potent bars with a hybrid of singing and rhyming with each line ending with the phrase “My N*gga,” and is nothing short of a motivational chant supplanted by speaking on the recent events that have impacted the Black community.
The track can be heard in full in the YouTube clip below. Hit the jump to watch lyric video version of the single.
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