This week on Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music lots of great new Detroit tunes from Dames Brown, Nick Piunti, The Legal Maters…

Also new music now from some great 80s legends still delivering excellent music!

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

Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music Playlist for February 21, 2026

HOUR ONE:

• “No More Lies” – Thundercat & Tame Impala
• “Twisted On A Train” – King Tuff
• “Bein’ Alive” – Melissa Etheridge
• “Indigo Park” – Bruce Hornsby
• “Cry” – Thornetta Davis & Big Chief
  
• “American Obituary” – U2
• “Desire” – U2
• “Stay In Your Lane” – Courtney Barnett
• “The Look Of Love” – Isaac Hayes
• “Hair Down” – Samm Henshaw
• “Tragic Tragedy” – Nick Piunti
  
• “Cowboy Dreams” – Boy Golden w/Cat Clyde
  
• “Ramona” – Beck
  

• “Take Me As I Am” – Dames Brown
• “Belle Isle Drive” – Will Sessions w/Amp Fiddler & Dames Brown
• “In The Middle Of It” – Hiss Golden Messenger
• “Stray Dogs” – Hrishikesh Hirway ft. Iron & Wine
• “Baby’s Behind The Wheel” – Frank Allison & The Odd Sox
• “Song of The Future” – U2
• “Marching On” – The Legal Matters
• “Stay High” – Brittany Howard
• “Another Life” – Alabama Shakes
• “Here” – Mumford & Sons ft. Chris Stapleton
• “Letterman” – Michigander
• “Say It Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud” – James Brown
• “I’m Black And I’m Proud – Say It Loud” – James Brown, Carl Cox remix
  

Listen to Rob Reinhart’s Essential Music every Saturday from 2-4 p.m. ET on Detroit Public Radio 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand at wdet.org

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