Donnie
The Daily News
Soul Thought
By A. Scott Galloway

There was once a public service campaign aimed at getting young people to just say no to tobacco by challenging them to become “The Unhooked Generation.” Lexington-born and Atlanta-based singer/songwriter Donnie has taken up that torch to the power of 12 on his challenging and eagerly awaited sophomore album, The Daily News. The album title represents a newspaper and each song deals with a different issue plaguing society filling its pages year-in, year-out. The son of ministers, Donnie oozes church in both his purposeful penchant for sermonizing and in his glossary of sanctified call and response. From an instrumentation standpoint, the music clearly has vintage Donny Hathaway and Stevie Wonder in the foundation (Wonder even lends harmonica to the evangelical oasis “If I Were You”). But thanks to producer Steve “The Scotsman” Harvey , this is no retro throwback jam this is The Church of What’s Happening Now. The slickest of synth and rhythm machine sounds mesh with rhythm, horn and string sections, voices, hand claps and foot stompin’ -  signifying a connection to all that is authentic in our increasingly tech-synthetic universe. There are no love songs, booty calls or bling checklists here. Rather there are 12 missives of mass instruction like “Suicide” (as in don’t even think about it), “Classifieds” (down with joblessness), coat-sleeve-tuggers like “Atlanta Child Murders,” “Mason Dixon Lin e” and “ China Doll” (a chilling meditation on the self-fulfilling prophecy of pedophilia and incest). “911” finds Donnie calling for an end to racism, sexism, homophobia while the album-closing title track roll calls the remainder in a tidy hook: “You will be singing the blues when you hear the daily news.” This album is a systematic “ill-by-ill” breakdown of what’s ailing us in these trying times. And the antidote isn’t anything in a liquid or capsule being offered – guilt-free - over-the-counter. The answer is Donnie’s detailed thesis that expands upon Bob Marley’s prophetic opening statement: “Emancipate your self from mental slavery.” “The Daily News” is the most important pop album of any stripe for 2007.