Tracy Chapman made a rare appearance at the 66th annual Grammy Awards and performed her hit “Fast Car” with country singer Luke Combs. The song became a hit all over again after Combs covered it for his Gettin’ Old album. He received a nomination for Best Country Solo Performance at the Grammys for his version. The success of Combs’s version made Chapman the first Black woman to achieve number one on the country charts with a solo composition. She also became the first Black woman and Black songwriter to win a CMA when she won Song Of The Year at the 57th Annual Country Music Association Awards. Chapman’s performance with Combs was one of the highlights of the Grammys especially because she has not toured since 2009 and performed since 2020. The singer-songwriter and guitarist performed “Fast Car” at the Grammys in 1989 when it was nominated for Record Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance the latter of which she won. 

Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason” was released on her 1995 album New Beginnings. She first performed it during a 1989 episode of Saturday Night Live. Chapman’s bluesy acoustic plea to a lover to possibly save the ending of a relationship was a delicately expressed emotional stalemate. Her nuanced feelings towards a breakup became another one of her signature songs and the one to make the highest chart position. She received four Grammy nominations for “Give Me One Reason” and won the Grammy Award For Best Rock Song. Tracy Chapman’s eighth studio album, Our Bright Future was released in 2008. In 2018, Tracy Chapman sued Nicki Minaj for copyright infringement over the use of her song “Baby Can I Hold You” being sampled for Minaj’s “Sorry.” A judge ruled in Minaj’s favor but she paid Chapman $450,000 to avoid a trial over how the song ended up on DJ Funkmaster Flex’s radio show.

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Tracy Chapman made a rare appearance Monday night with a performance of “Talkin’ Bout A Revolution” on Late Night With Seth Myers. The song debuted 32 years ago when Chapman was a new star but the sentiment is timeless. Chapman is among a group of artists that have stressed the importance of voting in the 2020 election. At the end of the song, she tells the audience to vote because this is the most important election of our lifetime. 

[youtube id=”DwrHwZyFN7M”] Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” was an anomaly when it debuted on American radio in 1988. Chapman’s acoustic Afro-folk and baby locs  had never been heard or seen by a mainstream audience before. The song about a woman’s desire to leave poverty behind was magnetizing because of Chapman’s charisma and ability to make the serious topic non-preachy and unintentionally ambiguous.  The fetching guitar melody and her blistering contralto made listeners stop and fall under her spell. She was compared to British singer-songwriter Joan Armatrading, Joni Mitchell and Phoebe Snow. Mitchell and Snow did play guitar but women with guitars, especially Black women with guitars in the world of pop music is rare. Chapman had something in common with the late Black woman folk singer Odetta who was called the Queen Of American Folk Music by Martin Luther King Jr. They both played the same instrument and sang protest songs but Chapman’s style is all her own.  Her performance at Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday celebration sent “Fast Car” up the charts and announced her voice to the world. In an unscripted moment in time, the music industry awarded her first album with three Grammy wins after six nominations. “Fast Car” was sampled by Nice & Smooth and in 19 other songs and there are over 40 covers of “Fast Car.” On April 5, 2018, it will be the 30th anniversary of Chapman’s debut album.