Artist Guide

"Toxic Love"

Marcellus The Singer: #1 Single March 2026

Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .

March 2026

1. "That Get Back A Motherfucker"-------Marcellus The Singer

Musically, this tune combines Marcellus' certified-lovely crooning with a first-class melody, exploring the sweet spot of southern soul with humility and delicacy. Lyrically... Well, it's a "motherfucker". If Marcellus is courageous enough to sing it, the least I can do is print it. In my February "News & Notes" I compared Marcellus's use of "motherfucker" to King George's "Don't give a fuck" in "Keep On Rollin'" when it first appeared, citing the relative ease with which the expletives were erased from King George's tune for commercial airplay. That can also be done with "Get Back A Motherfucker," but not as readily. I counted no less than seventeen "motherfuckers" in Marcellus's lyrics, four each in the three choruses plus a couple more for good measure. Club jocks and festival promoters, on the other hand, will love it---it's just the kind of risqué content that juices the "grown folks" in live venues. Marcellus, however, evidently did have second thoughts, or got some last-minute advice (?), because he put out two different streams on YouTube. The Mic Drop version (clocking at 4:12) is the stronger, beginning with the riveting line, "I cheated on my wife," while the Official Video (clocking at 4:47) adds an opening verse that distances Marcellus from the emotional content, beginning with "I met a man in the park / And he told me a story..." It diminishes the intensity of the message, including the red-hot tang of those seventeen "motherfuckers". It might be different if this was his debut single, but Marcellus has an ample body of work addressing domestic strife from a kaleidoscope of angles. When you've been so spectacularly forthright, there's no good reason to second-guess yourself.

Listen to Marcellus singing "That Get Back A Motherfucker" on YouTube.

Originally published in Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 Singles.




February 15, 2026: Daddy B. Nice's...

News & Notes:

"Motherfucker," Sometime Southern-Soulers, New Albums

"Motherfucker". In the current pantheon of American profanities, it arguably holds the top spot, perhaps second only to a pejorative four-letter word for despicable females. You only use these words at your peril. By the by, Marcellus The Singer has a new song called "That Get Back A Motherfucker". It's turning heads not only for its brazen lyrics (which also contain a never-before-used scatological phrase) but its confoundingly beautiful melody, vocal and production. Marcellus has carved out an enviable career (click link for DBN's artist guide) since his signature song "Toxic Love" garnered a wide audience in 2022, and he's been active in the studio ever since. However, it's safe to say Marcellus has plateaued over the last couple of years, though currently at a lofty #22 in Daddy B. Nice's Top 100: The New Generation chart. "That Get Back A Motherfucker," the opening track of his new album I'm Just Being Me, is about to change all that, destined for success both for its musical elegance and its verbal impudence.

I won't go into the licentious history of southern soul from Little Richard through Clarence Carter to the present day. It's one of the factors that drew your Daddy B. Nice to the music for sure, from the early days of rock and roll to present-day southern soul. So many singles never made it to mainline exposure, and the vast majority of those that violated societal norms (think of Bishop Bullwinkle's "Hell Naw To The Naw Naw") had to be "cleaned up"---i.e. "toned down"---to get airplay. That's what drew me to the chitlin' circuit, hearing these records as they were first recorded. But the example from the recent past that Marcellus's "Motherfucker" reminded me of was none other than my man King George and his career breakthrough with "Keep On Rolling". Today he's the number one star of southern soul music, but it took some creative profanity to initially break through. Profanity does get people's attention. Here are my first reactions to King George's "Keep On Rollin'" when he was still an unknown---just a few years ago!

March 1, 2022: Contemporaneous Notes

Here are some excerpts from the admittedly giddy journey your Daddy B. Nice has traveled since first becoming aware of "Keep On Rollin'" just two weeks ago...

...Which brings me to a new song in the vein of Arthur Young's "Funky Forty". It uses the word "fuck" in such an apt and conversational and seemingly ordinary fashion that it may sneak or even charm its way onto radio platforms. It's by a new artist named King George and it's entitled "Keep On Rollin'". The lyrics in question concern a man whose mate is leaving him. He retorts that she can "go ahead and leave" because "one monkey don't stop no show". King George needs not one or two but three(!) women at the same time, and it goes like this: (I need) "One woman just to hold me down / One woman just to lift me up / And I gotta have at least one woman on the side / That really don't give a fuck."....

....Downloaded onto Daddy B. Nice's huge monthly playlist of new work (from which the monthly Top 10 Singles and Top 40 Singles are culled), "Keep On Rollin'" quickly rises like cream to the top, propelled by its distinctive melody, tempo and vocal performance. And of special mention, two lines from the lyrics immediately stand out as original and powerful additions to the southern soul lyrical canon:...

..."And I got to have at least one woman on the side,
That really don't give a fuck..."

...Another thing that amazes me in the shorts and videos of "Keep On Rollin'". The throngs of women---whom you might expect to disdain the misogynistic lyrics---embracing them, singing along and waving their hands in the air and shouting the "really don't give a fuck" lyrics...

...In my initial write-up in February's "News & Notes" (Daddy B. Nice's Corner) I wondered if "Keep On Rollin'" could possibly "charm" its way onto radio in spite of the "fuck". Well, it has and it did. Listening to my favorite station and deejay (that would be WMPR Jackson, Mississippi and DJ Ragman) the other afternoon, I was astounded to hear the opening chords of the song and I listened raptly to see how they would deal with the "I really don't give a fuck." Very simple, they just blanked out the "fuck". It was great to hear it on radio. (And that's what is called a radio edit.)

Excerpts from an article originally published in Daddy B. Nice's Corner, February 2026.



January 24, 2026:

WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

Daddy B. Nice's 19th Annual...

2025 Southern Soul Music Awards

Best Southern Soul Cover Song
"(Just My) Imagination"----Marcellus The Singer, Ice Doll

Listen to Marcellus and Ice Doll singing "Imagination" on YouTube.
Read Daddy B. Nice's Artist Guide.
Buy Ice Doll's and Marcellus The Singer's "Imagination" at Apple.



See the New Generation Chart.

February 16, 2025:

Daddy B. Nice's Profile:

Like Bob Dylan & The Band's "Basement Tapes," released without fanfare from a home recording studio in Woodstock, New York in the early 70's, Marcellus The Singer put out a whimsical and little noticed project on YouTube in 2024 called Mixtape 90's Edition, lavishing "cover" love on classics from the era that had apparently inspired his own oeuvre. Later in the year one of them, "It's A Thin Line (Between Love And Hate)," took on a life of its own, charting on many deejay charts and impressing fans with its obvious antecedents to "Toxic Love".

While multi-tasking on "Mixtape 90's" and tracks for his new EP "Calling All Crack Babies," The Singer dropped a music video that had no relation to either---"Do Me" with the rapper Boosie Badazz---that quickly accumulated a million-plus views, then pivoted from hiphop to country, recording a southern soul verse for his friend Curt The Country Man's crossover hit "Back Roads": all in a relatively "off" year for the red hot performer whose LOVE THERAPY album vaulted him to southern soul fame in 2023.

--Daddy B. Nice

About Marcellus The Singer: #1 Single March 2026

Marcellus The Singer is the performing name of Amite, Louisiana native Terence Daniels Jr. Marcellus broke into the southern soul market in 2021 with the six-song EP Heart & Soul. He'd experimented with R&B music as early as 2019 with the single "Wave". However, Heart & Soul, showcasing tracks like "Do It Right" and "Love Me Right," was the first collection to establish Marcellus as a balladeer primed for commercial appeal with a unique and tender yet swinging style. Between 2021 and 2023 the singer/songwriter went to serious work, publishing a series of elite singles that would culminate in the album Music Therapy. (Scroll down to Tidbits #1 for Daddy B. Nice's New Album Alert.) Both the individually-released songs and the album elicited a sensational response from the southern soul audience. Heavyweight tracks like "Toxic Love" and "The Letter "each amassed twenty million streams on YouTube. "Toxic Love" in particular became the artist's signature song, and the strength of the album led to lucrative bookings and immediate success on the southern soul touring circuit.

In 2024 Marcellus returned to the studio for the EP Calling All Crack Babies, a five-track set highlighted by the single "Watch What You Doing," the extended, life-story ballad "Until We Meet" and the slow jam "You Baby," a duet with fellow rising southern soul star Cecily Wilborn. Daddy B. Nice proclaimed the EP even better than MUSIC THERAPY, representing a "huge leap forward in musical maturity". Scroll down to Tidbits #2 for the 4-star review.

Tidbits

1.

September 1, 2023:

New Album Alert!

Listen to Marcellus The Singer singing "Toxic Love" on YouTube.

Buy Marcellus The Singer's debut album MUSIC THERAPY at Apple.

MUSIC THERAPY TRACK LIST

1.
Intro

2.
Prelude

3.
Slow Jam

4.
The Letter

5.
Witcha When Ya Right

6.
Ole Ahh Uncle

7.
Trail Ride Shawty (feat. Jeter Jones)

8.
Better With Me

9.
Shot Of Moonshine

10.
Dig One Ditch

11.
Back Door Shawty

12.
Love Me Right

13.
Write My Name

14.
Outro (Pull Out) (feat. Squirt Kelly)

15.
Toxic Love

Daddy B. Nice notes:

Louisiana native Marcellus The Singer’s album debut features a full-fledged balladeer with a style more urban than southern soul. Recently, however, his single “Toxic Love” has crossed over into southern soul, and rightfully so. "Toxic Love" is as good as it gets for a southern soul ballad. You know it within the first sixteen bars, and it sounds better now than it did a year ago. The moniker "the singer" is apt. Marcellus kills the vocal, exhibiting both heart and technique.

As for the album as a whole, it's less interesting from a southern soul perspective, tailored for mainstream R&B. But there are exceptions---the puzzling reggae track "Don't Rush" and the winsome zydeco/barbershop-blended "Trailride Shawty".

But the real proof that he could do well in the southern soul genre (and that he's beginning to smell the money and the roses) came earlier this year with the arrival of Marcellus' new single "Shot Of Moonshine"---also from MUSIC THERAPY---which charted in January on Daddy B. Nice's Top Ten Southern Soul Singles. It's a worthy follow-up to "Toxic Love".

Listen to all the tracks from Marcellus The Singer's MUSIC THERAPY album on YouTube.

Buy Marcellus The Singer's debut album MUSIC THERAPY at Apple.

2.

May 1, 2024:

Originally published in Daddy B. Nice's CD Reviews.

MARCELLUS THE SINGER: Calling All Crack Babies
Four Stars **** Distinguished effort. Should please old fans and gain new.

If you troll YouTube for music videos you've no doubt come across one of the most bizarre pieces of cover art in recent memory: a chains, bracelets and ring-wearing two-year-old in a white cowboy hat and sneakers sitting in a pile of cash with a landline phone to his ear wheeling and dealing like a creepy, calculating Chucky doll. The title is also disturbing. Calling All Crack Babies. And yet the music within this new EP from the gifted young recording artist Marcellus The Singer belies the packaging, being gracious, gentle and uplifting throughout.

Marcellus first gained recognition with the single "Toxic Love" from his well-received debut album Music Therapy. Though consisting of only five tracks, Calling All Crack Babies is even better, representing a huge leap forward in musical maturity, most of it embodied in two melody-rich ballads.

Pristine songwriting, vocalizing and production are on full display in "You Baby" (#3 February DBN's Top 10), a duet with Cecily Wilborn, who has attracted her own significant fanbase with the southern soul anthem "Southern Man" (Best Collaboration of 2023 with West Love) and more recently her gutsy foray into country with #1 single "Red Cup Blues" (March). When Wilborn enters mid-way through "You Baby" with---

"We fuss and we fight.
We make love all night."

---the song reaches a dazzling apogee.

But the show-stopper of the set is the eight-minute-long ballad "Until We Meet," in which a stately chord progression and a scintillating guitar usher us through the touching stages in the life of a loving couple. Here's the commentary from January:

------------
Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 "BREAKING" Southern Soul Singles For. . .

-------JANUARY 2024-------

1. "Until We Meet Again"-----Marcellus The Singer

This ballad deserves a place on southern soul's top shelf alongside such slow jams as Sir Charles Jones' "Just Another Love Song" (w/ La Keisha) and Big Robb's "Good Loving Will Make You Cry" (w/ Carl Marshall). Nearly eight minutes long, it sails by, never grows repetitive and has every chance of becoming Marcellus's breakthrough and signature song.
------------

The balance of the EP is adequate, providing respectable background for "You Baby" and "Until We Meet". "You might fuck around and fall in love with a toxic nigger" from "Watch What You Doing" is as aggressive as Marcellus allows himself. "Stress Me Out" charted on the Top 40 Singles.

Incidentally, Marcellus himself is a guest artist on another southern soul song of the moment, Curt The Countryman's "Back Road". Marcellus's fans will enjoy his vocal. He also has a song out with the rapper Boosie BadAzz---both since Calling All Crack Babies. That seems to be a prerogative of the new generation. Ciddy Boi P doing southern soul, hip-hop and country all at the same time. Wilborn shuttling between southern soul and country. Marcellus seamlessly transitioning from southern soul to country. And yet, Marcellus, like these artists, is a true-blue southern soul creative. His "Until We Meet" deserves top-shelf classic next to Wilborn's "Southern Man".

---Daddy B. Nice

Buy Marcellus The Singer's CALLING ALL CRACKBABIES EP at Apple.

Listen to all the tracks from Marcellus The Singer's CALLING ALL CRACKBABIES EP on YouTube.

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Honorary "B" Side

"The Letter"