This week’s pick comes from the powerhouse vocal trio of Athena Johnson, Teresa Marbury and LaRae Starr, better known as Dames Brown. They’ve delivered a long-awaited debut album that blends gospel, soul, house, funk and more into one rich musical gumbo.

The group was mentored by the late Amp Fiddler, who produced and recorded the project in his home studio in Detroit’s Conant Gardens neighborhood. His spirit runs through this album in a powerful way. But understand something, this is not a record that mourns him. It extends him. You can hear the belief he had in them being realized in real time. What really makes the album soar is the discovery that this is not a group with one lead singer, but three commanding voices coming together as a unit. Let’s check out the title track, “Take Me As I Am.” It’s my Pick of the Week.

That was Dames Brown with “Take Me As I Am,” the title track from their debut album, coming straight out of the Motor City.

If you love music that moves between soul, house, funk and deep dance textures, tune in to The Progressive Underground every Saturday evening at 6 p.m. on 101.9 WDET and wdet.org. For The Progressive Underground, I’m Chris Campbell. We’ll see you next time.

Each year, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered through a narrow lens. A quote. A speech. A dream, often stripped of the urgency, conflict, and radical clarity that defined his final years. This MLK Weekend edition of The Progressive Underground resists that flattening. Instead, the playlist traces King’s full moral and political arc, from spiritual grounding and collective grief to economic justice, cultural resistance, and the unfinished work he left behind.

Martin Luther King Jr. was not only a civil rights icon. He was a strategist under surveillance, a critic of capitalism and militarism, and a leader willing to lose popularity in order to tell the truth. The music selected here reflects that complexity.

Across six carefully sequenced and curated sets, this special moves through gospel-rooted endurance, protest music that forced America to confront itself, songs that examine dignity and self-worth, and contemporary voices carrying King’s questions forward. From Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, and Curtis Mayfield to Kendrick Lamar, D’Angelo, and Kamasi Washington, the playlist treats music as historical witness and moral record. It also honors Detroit’s role in shaping King’s legacy, particularly through Stevie Wonder’s campaign to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday.

This is not a nostalgia set. It’s a listening experience designed to engage King as he actually lived and evolved, challenging, demanding, and unfinished. 

Check the playlist below and listen to the episode for two weeks after it airs using the player above.

1st Hour

• “Let the Sunshine In”–Jimetta Rose & The Voices of Creation
• “Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)”–Nina Simone
• “People Get Ready”–Curtis Mayfield
• “Wholy Holy”–Marvin Gaye
• “Someday We’ll All Be Free”–Donny Hathaway
• “A Change Is Gonna Come”–Sam Cooke
• “Strange Fruit”–Billie Holiday
• “Winter in America”–Gil Scott Heron
• “A Dream”–Common feat. Will.i.am
• “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”–Gil Scott Heron
• “In the Name of Love”–U2
• “Compared to What”–Roberta Flack
• “Respect Yourself”–Staple Singers
• “Thinkin’ About Your Body”–Bobby McFerrin
• “Happy Birthday”–Stevie Wonder

2nd Hour

• “Alright”–Kendrick Lamar
• “The Charade”–D’Angelo
• “The People”–Common
• “6 Summers”–Anderson Paak
• “We The People”–A Tribe Called Quest
• “Everybody Loves the Sunshine”–Roy Ayers
• “I Am the Black Gold of the Sun”–Rotary Connection
• “Think of You”–Terrace Martin
• “Better Than I Imagined”–Robert Glasper
• “Faith, Courage & Wisdom”–Indie.Arie
• “Expansions”–Lonnie Liston Smith
• “Journey in Satchidananda”–Alice Coltrane
• “Truth”–Kamasi Washington
• “The Creator Has a Master Plan”–Pharoah Sanders
• “You Take Me Higher”–Fertile Ground