The Blessed Madonna (aka Marea Stamper) has linked up with Chicago house producer Jamie Principle for a collaborative new single titled ‘We Still Believe’.
It’s an old cut made new again with the help of Principle, with Stamper playing and recording the original some years back featuring her own warped voice. Pulsing with a deep undulating beat and playful electronic accents, the new version features Principle’s smooth vocals weaving across the song as he croons: “It doesn’t matter about your colour/your sexual identity/it’s just about being free/we still believe.”
Check it out below.
“I wrote and recorded a version of this alone in my attic over a decade ago, writing the lyrics on the back of a record sleeve and recording them into a blackberry under a blanket. I distorted my own vocals on the original, but imagined that the song would someday be performed by Jamie Principle, arguably the first real writer in house music and my hero,” Stamper said about the track in a press release.
“Jamie had recorded the original demos of ‘Waiting On My Angel’, ‘Your Love’ and so on as a teenager at home in the ‘80s. Later on they would be reengineered by Frankie Knuckles and company, becoming worldwide smashes and fundamental pieces of the story of Chicago house.
“Eventually, years later, Jamie and I met, sitting next to each other at Frankie’s memorial and we’ve been beloved friends ever since. “We Still Believe” never felt done correctly, so I bought the rights to it back. Jamie kindly agreed to re-record the song I wrote for him before I knew him and here we are, writing the next chapter together and doing it the way I imagined it all those years ago.”
‘We Still Believe’ marks Stamper’s first release of the year and follows on from her 2022 cut ‘Serotonin Moonbeams’. Back in 2021, she was sampled by friend and fellow producer Fred again.. for his lockdown-inspired pandemic anthem ‘Marea (we’ve lost dancing)’.
Stamper also released a remix album of Dua Lipa‘s ‘Future Nostalgia’ in 2020. Dubbed ‘Club Future Nostalgia’ the record featured reworked songs with Madonna, Gwen Stefani, Missy Elliott, Mark Ronson, Yaeji, Jayda G and more.
Speaking about the album in a four-star review, NME’s Hannah Mylrea wrote: “It was a savvy decision to recruit The Blessed Madonna: the result is a collection exciting, genre-splicing remixes that you could genuinely imagine hearing in the club. It may not have been the album celebration Lipa was planning, but ‘Club Future Nostalgia’ feels like a party all the same.”
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