Have you ever heard a song that totally had you at hello? Well, for me, one of those songs would be Deep Cotton’s “We’re Far Enough From Heaven Now We Can Freak Out.” Deep Cotton is the duo of Nate Wonder and Chuck Lightning, Janelle Monae’s longtime collaborative partners responsible for much of the production in Monae’s catalog and other ancillary artists from her Wondaland Arts Society collective. The song dropped in 2012 and I must have heard it online searching through the various music sites I’d peruse looking for that new hotness.
Deep Cotton “We’re Far Enough From Heaven Now We Can Freak Out” (2012)
I was reminded of this song as I listened to Lil Nas X’s new EP, 7, which has a song called “Bring U Down” which absolutely HAD to be inspired by “We’re Far Enough ...” The absolute FIRST thought I had when the song came on was, “Yo ... this sounds like ‘We’re Far Enough ...’” I even sent that in a text to one of the homies who asked me about Lil Nas X’s debut. The songs are dissimilar enough, but they’re also kissin’ cousins.
What makes “We’re Far Enough ...” so dope is that Lightning and Wonder are awesome musicians whose musical inspirations are clearly far and wide. The song is parts funk and rock and punk and everything in between. It sounds to me like they had a great riff going, a great title and decided to put them together and let the energy fly. One thing that is clear to me is that they have enough talent to literally do whatever they want. Whatever. They even scored a Sonos commercial with it.
Back in October 2013, Janelle Monae and Roman GianArthur made a tour stop at the Lincoln Theater in Washington, D.C. It was my first time seeing her perform and she killed it. Absolutely obliterated the stage. That next night at Liv Nightclub, we had Deep Cotton perform and the house was full and when “We’re Far Enough ...” dropped the WHOLE building felt like it started to shake. It was one of my favorite shows we ever had at Liv.
Shouts out to Deep Cotton, Janelle Monae, the whole Wondalands Art Society; and an extra special shoutout to Jidenna, because we REALLY could use a new Jidenna album right now.