Crowned & Kissed

Spalding and Algebra Blessett wrote it; Q-Tip co-produced and Erik Zobler mixed. She told the Monterey County Weekly in 2012 that it is a song about the unsung royalty in your life, men and women who quietly, every day do the mightiest, most honorable things. At the Power Center in Ann Arbor, per a review published July 10, 2012, she used it to honor hard-working men devoted to their families, calling out the trombonist Jeff Galindo as a crowned king for his solo. PopMatters highlights Galindo's improvised trombone, and No Treble's Phil Wain describes a head-nodding bass-focused groove with brass features, a breathy vocal and fretless lines using octaves and slides, and possibly the catchiest 11/4 you will ever hear, a time-signature claim from one reviewer.

She performed it on The Daily Show on April 12, 2012 with "Black Gold", and the video was released on June 29, 2012. Setlist.fm shows it in 12 setlists, against "Black Gold" at 40 and "Radio Song" at 9. MusicBrainz lists a 4:35 album recording and a 3:38 recording from a separate release, probably an edit; we do not know which our upload is. We found no chart entry, covers or samples.