If you weren’t a fan of Melanie Fiona nor Marsha Ambrosius, and you went to their concert at The National Friday night, I bet you are now. The BET “Music Matters” tour came to Richmond to a sold out audience. Fans sung all the words to their songs and screamed to the top of their lungs as Melanie and Marsha gave stellar performances.
Melonie Fiona hit the stage for a set that covered all of her “women empowered” hits. She even blessed us with a taste of Cee Lo Green’s new track featuring her entitled “Fool for You”. Before Melanie left the stage, she made sure to go back to her roots and sung “Somebody Come Get Me”, which she recorded under her nickname “Syren Hall”….her true fans in the crowd went nuts. From her band to her back ground singers, everyone on the stage was moving and full of energy. With class and grace Melanie put her wide brimmed hat back on, thanked everyone and strutted off the stage like she was leaving a runway. Her sophomore album entitled “The MF Life” is scheduled to drop this summer.
With the quickest transition I’ve ever seen in concert history, Marsha Ambrosius hit the stage and her powerful voice could be heard in Charlottesville. During her encore performance, she belted out songs from her new album and also blessed us with some of her classic hits from her Floetry days. Marsha took a minute to preach to the ladies about relationships and knowing their place and power with men. Her British accent was commanding as she had the women in the audience snapping their fingers to her words. After she jumped off the keyboards, Marsha gave props to some VA artists and allowed her DJ to go off on a mix featuring Trey Songz, D’Angelo and Missy Elliott. She then surprised us with some non traditional songs, such as “Soul Glow” from the movie “Coming to America” and “Thank You for Being a Friend” from the TV series “The Golden Girls”. The highlight for me is when she paid tribute to Mary J Blige and kilt “Sweet Thing” and other MJB classic hits.
I had the pleasure of experiencing this show backstage with my big brother in radio, ipower92.1’s own, The Heavy Hitter DJ Lonnie B. He captured some amazing video footage of Marsha singing “Hope She Cheats On You” for his website.
If you ever get a chance to catch these women live, purchase the tickets immediately and get ready to sing your hearts out. They really lived up to the title of the tour. They made sure you understood why “Music Mattered!”
