Black Milk Dives Into His Favourite Songs Ahead Of Vivid Sydney Performance

Detroit artist Black Milk (real name Curtis Eugene Cross) is heading to Australia for Vivid Sydney, performing at Machine Hall on Tuesday, 11 June.

Known for his tendency to dip into all sorts of music genres, from hip-hop to electronic to gospel to funk to jazz to soul – the music of Black Milk defies genre boundaries. So do his favourite songs, which he’s shared with Purple Sneakers today ahead of his Vivid performance.

Last year, Black Milk returned with his first album since 2018, Everybody Good? His eighth album, writer Dylan Green declared in a Pitchfork review, “Splitting the difference between traditional and live-band hip-hop, Milk often samples session players and then chops up the recordings the old-fashioned way.”

His performance at Vivid Sydney – with special guest Mali Jo$e – is set to be “a night of fresh sounds and human stories”.

To celebrate his performance at Vivid Sydney, we caught up with Black Milk to learn about his favourite songs, and they are:

A song you wish you’d written: Flash Light by Parliament

It sounds like it’s from another planet. It's kind of chaotic but organized at the same time, and I love organized chaos.

A song you think is perfect: P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) by Michael Jackson

It embodies so many genres, R&B, funk, dance, and rock, but it does it perfectly… and it just works in almost any setting. 

A song that makes you happy: Genius Of Love by Tom Tom Club

The song is a whole genre within itself. There are so many elements, and I just love the way the vocals sound. Overall, a feel-good song.  

A song that makes you sad: Flying High by Marvin Gaye

It's not necessarily sad, but it’s a record where you can really feel the emotion through the performance. 

Favourite song you’ve written: Sunday’s Best / Monday’s Worst

Some of my best storytelling and most importantly, people letting me know how much they relate to it. 

Black Milk is performing at Vivid Sydney next week. You can find tickets here.