October is the month of calm. With the return to routine already behind us, the long sleeves are eager to come out of the closet and autumn is beginning to feel comfortable. In October anything goes: strolling when the heat gives us a break while listening to what the new generations of soul have to tell us; also staying home and binging a series that proves reality is sometimes scarier than fiction; or taking refuge in one of those art-filled places in the capital that make time fly with their exhibitions.
An album: The Womack Sisters, The Womack Sisters (2026)
I could start and end this section by saying that The Womack Sisters are the granddaughters of the one and only Sam Cooke and that would be enough reason to hit play. Yet, if there is one thing the BG sisters, Zeimani and Kucha Womack have shown, it is that you cannot live on musical heritage alone; personal talent is also required, and their self-titled album is the demonstration that they have plenty of it. Moreover, to top it off, they are the daughters of Cecil and Linda Womack (the successful Womack & Womack duo) and nieces of Bobby Womack… Básicamente, they belong to musical royalty.
However, their last names have not guaranteed anything, and the sisters have had little ease in carving out their place on the sonic map. After spending much of their lives traveling the world, they settled in Los Angeles to push their musical career forward. The result? Agencies that tried to steer them away from the soul’s nature toward something softer and more current like R&B or pop. The answer? A resounding no. After countless hours in recording studios balanced with jobs both precarious and not, the prestigious label Daptone Records (home to other artists in the genre such as The Sacred Souls and Jalen Ngonda) arrived at the right moment to give them exactly what they needed: a brilliant debut album that cements them as one of the rising stars keeping soul alive today – which, despite what many think, is far from disappearing.
The album has been in the making for a decade and has emerged as one of those sounds that remind us that the best of the past can be reborn in the present: soul in uppercase guided by voices that make you wonder whether we’re in the 2000s or in the 1960s. The Womack sisters set the bar high from the start of the album with Chauffeur and that opening line ‘Baby I got you…’ rendered in song that leaves you frozen in your seat. Don’t relax, they won’t let you breathe: the joy of If You Want Me arrives and the classic soul of Monster (my favorite, if you ask me) and they finish you off with the Latin rhythms of what has become their most heard track, If I Let You, catchy to the limit. The first four tracks lay the foundations for the rest of the album, an immaculate ode to the genre that ends with the calm of My Sisters and Me and leaves us wanting more. If this has been The Womack Sisters’ first step, we can’t wait to see what they have prepared for the future. If there is one thing they’ve made clear, it is that soul is more alive than ever.
