Tracee Ellis Ross releases her first song from The High Note soundtrack
Tracee Ellis Ross, the star of ABC's black-ish and daughter of Diana Ross, revealed her first song release for the soundtrack to her new movie The High Note. Appropriately, Ross hits some high notes in the original single, "Love Myself."
The song, written by Sarah Aarons and Greg Kurstin, is performed by Ross as Grace Davis, a superstar in the L.A. music scene with an over-worked assistant, played by Suspiria's Dakota Johnson. "Is it fake love if I'm lying to myself, trying to fake the way I feel?" Ross sings. "Am I a stranger if I don't recognize myself trying to fix up something real?"
The actress previously spoke to Oprah Winfrey on the mogul's 2020 Vision Tour about the pressure of recording music when her mother is the legend behind "I'm Coming Out," "Endless Love," and The Supremes. "We all have fears, we all have these things that we've hidden away that we think are not worthy of coming forward because they might not be good enough or they might be compared to somebody else," she said. "But I realized that it's not the sound of my voice, it's the honesty of my voice that is the key."
"I'm not supposed to sound like my mom." she continued. "I can't fill her shoes, no one can fill her shoes. All I can do is make a pact with myself to be myself on the ground that I get and even make more ground for me."
The High Note, directed by Nisha Ganatra, also stars Ice Cube as Grace's manager. When the singer is pressured by her label to take up a Las Vegas residency, she must decide whether to go the easy road or take a risk by recording a new album. Maggie, with dreams of becoming a music producer, will help her along the way.
"In all honesty, none of this is taken from the world I know of being my mom's child," Ross told EW. "The only thing is that I always had the dream of being able to sing. But this character was so beautifully and wonderfully written, and the story really has nothing to do with any of the things that I know from my mom's experience. Except for the fact that there's a real humanity to this woman and she's not a paper-thin quote-unquote diva that the world usually paints larger-than-life women as. She's a real person. That's the only connection that I can draw. That a woman who holds a great space in the world is actually a human with a heart, who has fears and disappointments and struggles all on her own."
According to the film's official soundtrack, Ross also recorded "Stop For a Minute," "Bad Girl," "New to Me," and "Like I Do" for The High Note. See the track list below.
1. "Love Myself (The High Note)" - Tracee Ellis Ross
2. "Stop For a Minute" - Tracee Ellis Ross
3. "Let's Stay Together" - Kelvin Harrison Jr.
4. "Share Your Love with Me" - Aretha Franklin
5. "You Send Me" - Kelvin Harrison Jr.
6. "Oh No Not My Baby" - Maxine Brown
7. "Bad Girl" - Tracee Ellis Ross
8. "Track 8" - Kelvin Harrison Jr.
9. "Mind Over Matter" - Anthony Ramos
10. "Chemistry" - Kelvin Harrison Jr.
11. "Jealous Guy (Live at The Bitter End 1971)" - Donny Hathaway
12. "New to Me" - Tracee Ellis Ross
13. "Like I Do" - Tracee Ellis Ross & Kelvin Harrison Jr.
BONUS
14. "You Send Me (Darkchild Mix)" – Kelvin Harrison Jr.
15. "Love Myself (Film Version)" – Tracee Ellis Ross
Both the soundtrack and the film will arrive on May 29. The High Note will be released through VOD.
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