“She’s a great friend of mine, but I didn’t know she was going to do this,” Beverly told Billboard after it happened. Hometown queen Beyoncé knows this, which explains why she did a cover of the song back in 2018, as a bonus track for her “Homecoming” album and Netflix concert film.īeverly, who wrote and produced the song, had no idea Beyoncé had a cover all lined up. And, then, I saw the response it got, particularly ‘Before I Let Go,’ and, then, that changed my mind.”Īh, yes, “Before” is a cookout staple, a tune that will instantly get both young and old shuffling their feet. In his early days, he remembers playing a wedding and saw firsthand what Maze does to people.“Maze was always one of them groups that I was just like, ‘Eh, that sounds like old music, whatever’ - until I actually did a wedding reception and they were asking for it. “Houston loves Maze,” he says, referring to the myriad times he caught the band live with an enthusiastic, reefer-enhanced audience. Join the conversation with HouWeAre: A newsletter on race, identity and culture in one of America's most diverse cities The veteran spinner has seen how well locals respond to Maze, either on wax or in person. Nobody knows more about how Beverly and his crew moves Black audiences than Derrick Winfree, better known as Houston’s own DJ Aggravated. In a 2017 appreciation for the web site The Undefeated, Bruce Britt wrote, “Attend a wedding, picnic, backyard barbecue or any similar Black American family outing and you’re bound to hear Maze tracks on the playlist, the band’s full-bodied funk blending seamlessly with edgier fare by the rap and R&B idols of the current day.”įrankie Beverly & Maze, the Isley Brothers, LeVelleĭetails: $69.50-$199.50 (The show was originally scheduled for this weekend.) (In a 2006 Ebony interview, Beverly said a new album, aptly titled “Anticipation,” was in the works.) And, yet, Maze still remains a beloved band in the African-American community and is headlining, along with the Isley Brothers, at Houston’s Toyota Center April 16.
Their last album of new music, “Back to Basics,” came out way back in 1993. However, Maze hasn’t dropped a quiet-storm goodie in decades. They’re responsible for such old-school, urban-contemporary jams as “Joy & Pain,” “Southern Girl,” “Before I Let Go,” “Golden Time of Day” and the classic “Happy Feelin’s.” Of course, many Maze tunes have been sampled by hip-hop legends: 2Pac, J Dilla, A Tribe Called Quest, Rob Base, even local hip-hop heavyweights UGK and Z-Ro. (One of them, “Live in New Orleans” from 1981, also went gold.) Led by smooth-voiced, baseball cap-wearing frontman Frankie Beverly, this Bay Area collective (originally formed under the name Raw Soul) has released eight studio albums (all gold), as well as a couple live albums. The R&B band Maze has been around for more than 50 years. Photo: Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images, Contributor / Getty Images NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - JULY 07: Frankie Beverly of Maze performs during the 2019 ESSENCE Festival at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome on Jin New Orleans, Louisiana.