Flashback Soul: Dionne Farris wins us again with "I Know"

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    Recently I had to move offices and was confronted with the decision of whether to bring along a once state-of-the-art but now decidedly old school, wood-paneled Tivoli radio that had been gathering dust on my desk.  Putting aside the question of whether anyone listens regularly to terrestrial radio anymore, the ability to stream your favorite FM stations from an app or website really has rendered standalone radios obsolete.  But before deciding whether to leave the old radio behind, I turned it on to see if it still worked.  And wouldn't you know, a song played that I hadn't heard in years and absolutely love, "I Know" by Dionne Farris.

    Recently I had to move offices and was confronted with the decision of whether to bring along a once state-of-the-art but now decidedly old school, wood-paneled Tivoli radio that had been gathering dust on my desk.  Putting aside the question of whether anyone listens regularly to terrestrial radio anymore, the ability to stream your favorite FM stations from an app or website really has rendered standalone radios obsolete.  But before deciding whether to leave the old radio behind, I turned it on to see if it still worked.  And wouldn't you know, a song played that I hadn't heard in years and absolutely love, "I Know" by Dionne Farris.

    Despite how fresh it still sounds, the track was released as a single 21 years ago off of Farris’s debut album Wild Seed, Wild Flower.  It reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was in regular rotation on radio and MTV. It’s a R&B/rock fusion masterpiece propelled by electric slide guitars that sound like they’re drenched in thick chocolate syrup and Farris’s lovely, hip hop inflected phrasing.  My old radio is gone now, but this track lives on!  Enjoy.

    By Robb Patryk

    Dionne Farris - "I Know"