Music
Chance The Rapper Joins Peter CottonTale To Soundtrack Google’s ‘Year In Search 2020’ With ‘Together’
The inspiring message of hope lightens a ‘Year In Search’ recap in sore need of one. …
After a rough year, Google’s usual “Year In Search” retrospective could have been extremely depressing. The imagery and the searches themselves are enough to induce anxious flashbacks in anyone who was even passably aware of the seemingly hundreds of disasters that took place on a global scale in 2020. Fortunately, this year’s video arrives accompanied by a message of hope, courtesy of Chicago producer Peter CottonTale, who soundtracks the video with his new song “Together” featuring Chance the Rapper, the Chicago Children’s Choir, Cynthia Erivo, and Re-Collective Orchestra’s Matt Jones.
It’s the second collaboration between Chance and Peter this year after the duo linked up in April for the gospel-themed “Pray For Real.” Their chemistry, which was previously displayed on tracks like “Forever Always,” remains intact. CottonTale also appeared this year on Vic Mensa’s V Tape, which saw Chance and Vic reunite on a record for the first time since Vic’s 2013 Innanetape.
Meanwhile, Chance recently re-released his Christmas album, Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama, with Jeremih and also started collaborating with R&B living legend Dionne Warwick after she shouted him on Twitter. The moment gave Chance an opportunity to close out his 2020 on a high note after being sued by his former manager Pat Corcoran. Chance also has one last year-ending moment planned: A virtual concert which will celebrate the reissue of Merry Christmas Lil’ Mama.
Listen to “Together” above.
Artist Spotlight
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” finds a new direction through Ghost of Panama
Rearranging a song that carries six decades of cultural weight is a creative challenge, but Ghost of Panama approaches “Subterranean Homesick Blues” with clear purpose. The rock band radically reworks Bob Dylan’s counter-culture hit, reshaping its identity while keeping its rebellious spirit. It’s a tribute to musical heritage and a statement of artistic independence all in one.
This new interpretation is very much shaped by the production, made at Ghost of Panama’s home studio in West London. The setting allows an intimate approach to reinterpreting a familiar song and lets the group engage directly with the material, taking it in a new artistic direction.
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” centers on the tension between conservation and transformation. Ghost of Panama is true to the song’s rebellious spirit without adding to its legacy, and this approach gives the release an adventurous feel, grounded in countercultural energy but driven by a desire to see what the composition can become in a different musical context.
Their version of this 60-year-old classic shows that respecting a song’s history can also mean breaking the rules and finding new ways to express its spirit. Fundamentally, “Subterranean Homesick Blues” presents Ghost of Panama as artists who want to engage with the past without being tied to it. The release’s strongest identity is a familiar heritage reimagined through a singularly forward-looking creative vision.
Artist Spotlight
“NO MORE” by Amanda Holley connects healing, awakening, and survival
“NO MORE“ carries that kind of emotional weight, and some songs feel like they come from lived experience but reach for something bigger. Amanda Holley blends R&B and soul, turning a lifetime of survival into a vision of healing, awakening, and the determination to move beyond what caused the pain.
“NO MORE“ is a healing anthem for people who have gone through bad experiences and reached a place of higher awareness, but it’s also an emotionally charged protest. The duality is introspective and outward-looking at the same time, turning personal survival into a broader declaration that some experiences, conditions, or cycles should end.
Holley had a premonition of the song six months before the world went into global shutdown. In the vocal booth, working out melodies with her collaborators, she pictured people in the streets. Those images were hard to imagine at the time, but subsequent events would make them painfully familiar.
“NO MORE“ is given a particularly contemplative underpinning by the context. The identity of R&B and soul leaves room for emotion. The song’s themes link survival, awakening, resistance, and the need for change. Amanda Holley is an artist using music to process personal endurance and a broader sense of social awakening. It’s got a complicated significance, and its release feels like a glimpse of a moment when personal intuition and public reality collided in an unexpected way.
Photo Credit: Yulia Shusharina
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