Artist Guide

F.P.J.

#34 ranked Southern Soul Artist

"Po Me Up Some Mo"

F.P.J.

Originally published in Daddy B. Nice's New Album Reviews.

October 26, 2025:

F.P.J.: The Introduction (F.P.J./ONErpm) Five Stars ***** Can't miss. Pure Southern Soul heaven.

Buy F.P.J.'S new The Introduction album at Apple.

THE INTRODUCTION Track List:

1. Intro
2. Certified Dog
3. Bossman
4. Blind Man
5. 30 & Up
6. Demon Time
7. Last Time
8. Still With Her
9. Walls
10. Lick It
11. Wrong
12. Juke Joint
13. 2 20's
14. Rodeo
15. Dusse (feat. Rubberband OG)
16. Po Me Up Some Mo

A conveyor belt of musical vignettes featuring solo performances on all but one of its sixteen tracks, The Introduction boasts something that many accomplished recording artists lose over time. Immediacy. Impact. The belief by the fans that the song's message is coming directly from real life: unfiltered, uncensored, unafraid. Like James Baldwin---like Richard Pryor---FPJ's a compulsive story-teller, and since 2023 he's been on a creative roll that older artists can only envy and admire, that magical time in a songwriter's life when the songs just keep raining down, like manna from heaven.

Fred Palmer Jr. isn't flashy. He doesn't exude the effortless cachet of 803Fresh or the golden-timbered showmanship of Tonio Armani. In fact, his voice takes a little time getting used to. It's a blues voice, somewhat limited in range, occasionally monotonous, with a hint of smoker's harshness. But those flaws are mostly forgotten as you wade out into the current of his songs, which---as THE INTRODUCTION attests---come at you as aggressively as life itself.

"Intro," The Introduction's opening cut, starts like this:

"Tell me what you know about the back wood,
That's where I was raised in my childhood.
That's where I learned how to be a man,
From spending summertime with my grand-daddy.
Down that old dirt road where I had my first kiss.
Down where I caught my first fish.
I remember when being country was cool.
Now it's like everybody trying to."

"Intro" is softer than FPJ's usual fare, revealing not only in its autobiographical lyrics but in its hints at the songwriter's singing roots. The next track, "Certified Dog," transports you to the opposite side of the FPJ oeuvre, beginning with a woman yelling, "You better bark like you want it!," which becomes a back-up chorus in the best, storied, "tough black bitch" fashion. Here FPJ's vocal tone firms up, like the old, worn leather jacket I asked my grandfather for in my teens and cherished above all other outfits until I stupidly left it in a movie theater in my forties. Everything in this generous set shuttles between these two extremes.

There are the odes to the older and the elderly, a recurring theme of FPJ's tradition-based world. "30 And Up" extols the exotic pleasures of "partying with the old folks," and "Juke Joint" skips a couple of generations to romanticize the baby-boomers:

"Welcome to the juke joint, baby,
Where the old folks like to get down.
One thing about the juke joint that I like,
It don't take a whole lot of money
For me to have myself a good time."
He said, "Ten dollars get me some chicken.
Five dollars get me some whiskey,
And I can party all night long
To my favorite blues songs."

There are the mellow (but always gritty) observations on romantic life. "Still With Here" delves into imperfect fidelity:

"I know my lady,
She been doing wrong.
And my friends say I'm crazy
'Cause I just can't leave her alone.
But we got too much time involved
Just to throw it all away.
You see we got too many years, too many tears,
To let it all go to waste.
That' why I'm still with her."

And "Last Time" will be familiar to any seasoned lover:

"I pulled up outside, she said it's open,
She said I ain't got no clothes on, let yourself in,
I walked up in the room, she looking so good,
She said baby all I wanna know is,
Can we do it like the last time?
When you came over and we got drunk on that patron.
Can we do it like the last time?
Put me on the sofa, give it to me all night long."

And there are the "bad boys" anthems, the hymns to the "players" and the "partiers" like "2 20's," Palmer's laid-back take on Arthur Young's "Funky Forty,' or "Rodeo," where it's so good FPJ barks, "Get on top already!" FPJ's signature song, "Po Me Up Some Mo," in the same raucous vein, closes out the album, and by the time you reach it you've been through so much music with impressively diverse melodies and tempos you've almost forgotten this five-million-viewed-streamed Palmer classic.

Not only does this recap omit scads of other tunes on this lavish LP. It excludes many FPJ songs that didn't make it into the album, like last year's "Blues Paradise" or FPJ's Daddy B. Nice-awarded Best Southern Soul Club Jam of 2024: "Whatcha Know". The more you want to praise the contents of The Introduction, the more you realize you've forgotten yet another of its wonderful pieces, for example "Blind Man," which isn't a remake of the O.V. Wright standard but shares the almost identical, iambic pentameter-rich, "Blind Crippled & Crazy" chorus.

Introduction? Really? Is that what it is? For most performers this sprawling, virtuosic album would constitute a career retrospective.

--Daddy B. Nice

Buy F.P.J.'S new THE INTRODUCTION album at Apple.

See Daddy B. Nice's Artist Guide to F.P.J.

See all the appearances of FPJ on the Daddy B. Nice Charts in the Comprehensive Index.

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January 1, 2025:

Best of 2024 Southern Soul Awards

Click here.

Best Southern Soul Club Song (Fast-Tempo)

Of all the young, up-and-coming southern soul recording artists, FPJ owned 2024 with an astounding sequence of well-received singles including "2 20's," "Last Time," "Still With Her" and "Blues Paradise". But it was "Whatcha Know (About This)," the follow-up to his 2023 dance floor classic "Po' Me Up Some Mo'," that impressed the most. Reminiscent of Juvenile's devastating monochrome groove in "You're A Big Chief" ("Ha" Remix feat. Jay-Z) "Whatcha Know" was FPJ's most odds-defying accomplishment.

"Whatcha Know" ---- FPJ

Listen to FPJ singing "Whatcha Know" on YouTube.

Buy FPJ's "Whatcha Know" at Apple.

Honorable Mention: "Do Right" by Shae Nycole, "Let's Get Drunk" by L.J. Echols

August 1, 2024:

F.P.J. Enters The Top 100 New Generation Southern Soul chart at #34!

Listen to FPJ singing "Still With Her" on YouTube.

See the chart.

August 1, 2024:

Daddy B. Nice's Profile:

The words say it all:

"I know my lady
She been doing wrong,
And my friends say I'm crazy
Cause I just can't leave her alone.

"But we got too much time involved
Just to throw it all away.
You see we got
Too many years, too many tears,
To let it all go to waste.

"That's why I'm still with her,
Still with her...
Trying to let somebody out there know
I ain't going nowhere.
Because I'm in love, lord I'm in love,
I'm still with her...
Through all the heartache
And all of the pain.

"And I know people talk behind my back
But I don't care
Cause I'm still with her.
Tell my momma and tell my daddy
I ain't going nowhere.
Still with her...
Still with her..."

Still With Her came out in early 2023 and has amassed more than twelve million views on YouTube. To say it has struck a chord with the southern soul audience is a huge understatement, and the 773 comments on its YouTube page (as of this writing)---all variations on the "still with him" or "still with her" theme---constitute a sobering testimony for romantic lovers contemplating partnering and marriage. Just as there is no joy without pain---no success without sacrifice---there is no long-term relationship without struggle, adversity and, as FPJ so aptly puts it, "too many years, too many tears".

And yet, F.P.J. has not only struck gold with this melancholy and ruminative ballad. He's the proud instigator behind one of the most mindless and party-hardy anthems of the last year, "Po Me Up Some Mo". In a southern soul genre thoroughly awash in lyrically cookie-cutter drinking songs, "Pour Me Up Some Mo" has somehow amassed an astounding 10 million YouTube views. I say "somehow" because it's rare for a new singer not only to exhibit this kind of range (slow vs. fast) but to be so successful at it. One of FPJ's chart-climbing young peers, Marcellus The Singer, by comparison, is becoming well-known for his mastery of the ballad form but seldom ventures beyond mid-tempo range. Yet FPJ appears comfortable belting out a fast jam like "Po Me Up Some Mo" one minute and a ballad like "Still With Her" the next.

In the current Top 10 Singles (July 2024), for instance, FPJ scores both an unadulterated club jam and an inspirational, mid-tempo jewel.

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

-------JULY 2024-------

....2. "Whatcha Know (About This)"-----F.P.J.

This is one of those club bangers that makes you leap out of your chair tripping over people to get to the dance floor. Husky and dark, FPJ's vocal tone grounds this bubbly groove that otherwise might float away like a kid's balloon and makes it down-to-earth, grown-folks real.

Listen to F.P.J. singing "Whatcha Know" on YouTube.

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...6. "Blues Paradise"-----F.P.J.

A fine reworking of Johnnie Taylor's "Soul Heaven" by a young singer who dreams the dream of singing his "Po' Me Up Some Mo'" surrounded by his idols, "with us all onstage, standing hand in hand, with nobody trying to hate, nobody trying to 'be a man'".

Listen to F.P.J. singing "Blues Paradise" on YouTube.

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I was slow to come around to FPJ. Not slow compared with other critics or writers, who thrive on years of "distance" before they make any proclamations, but slow compared to the fans who like the blues are always "alright". I didn't realize how impactful "Still With Her" and "Po Me Up Some Mo" would become, and I wasn't impressed by a couple of other early FPJ songs. "Auntie, " for instance, didn't excite me as much as the simultaneously released Mike Clark Jr. tune "Auntie Outside Tonight".

What I've come to realize, however, is that F.P.J. has something that veteran artists tend to lose over time. Immediacy. Impact. The belief by the fans that the song's message is coming directly from real life: unfiltered, uncensored, unafraid.
In other words, the joy is so palpable it's infectious. Or, conversely, if its a sad song or an angry song, that the sadness or anger is as immediate as an overheated skillet burning your grasping hand. Not just another song but a slice-of-life experience, steeped in emotion, with its technique (if there is technique) buried and invisible in the bowels of its message. This is what has propelled FPJ to swift prominence. Fans recognize a new FPJ song isn't just another half-hearted swing at a follow-up record. It's coming from the heart, the guts, the hormones.