Many remember G. Love from the early 90s laid-back blues/Hip-Hop outfit G. Love & Special Sauce, currently still listed as active after 30 years. In between recording albums with the group, Frontman G. Love (Garrett Dutton) has managed to release 3 solo albums of his own. Today he shares the new single “Mississippi,” the next preview from his forthcoming album Philadelphia Mississippi (Philadelphonic Records/Thirty Tigers), out June 24. The intoxicating blues track features heavy hitters Speech (Arrested Development, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and R.L. Boyce, bringing together four different voices to reflect on the state’s painful past and rich cultural legacy.

“It’s hill country blues meets the golden age of hip-hop on ‘Mississippi,’” shares G. Love. “It’s the quintessential hip-hop blues track with a greasy lowdown groove laid down by Philly legend Chuck Treece, Alvin Youngblood Hart, and producer Luther Dickinson, with epic vocal performances by Speech of Arrested Development, hill country blues master R.L. Boyce, Alvin, and myself. Each lyricist tackles their own personal feelings and emotions on the history of Mississippi and the blues it gave birth to, with Boyce crying throughout… ‘Po Po Mississippi.'”

Philadelphia Mississippi was produced by North Mississippi All-Stars’ Luther Dickinson (son of Jim Dickinson who produced G. Love’s sophomore album Coast to Coast Motel) and bridges both sides of G. Love’s eclectic career, mixing old school Hill Country and Delta Blues with new school hip-hop and funk. These 13 songs are loose, spontaneous, and written on the fly in the studio during improvisatory fits of inspiration. The freewheeling performances bring together a slew of special guests from blues torchbearers like Alvin Youngblood Hart, Cam Kimbrough, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Jontavious Willis, R.L. Boyce and Trenton Ayers, rap icons Schoolly D, Freddie Foxx and Speech, to ace musicians such as fifemaster Sharde Thomas and GRAMMY-nominated Southern Avenue drummer/singer Tikyra Jackson.

“I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but I’ve spent my entire life steeped in the music of the Delta,” he explains, “so the idea that there was this whole other Philadelphia down there always fascinated me. For the last thirty years, I’ve wanted to make a pilgrimage—not just a musical one, but a spiritual one—to the heart of the blues, and that’s exactly what this album is.”