Artist Guide

803 Fresh New Generation Southern Soul

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

March 2025

1. "Boots On The Ground"----803Fresh

"Boots On The Ground" is the biggest phenomenon to hit southern soul music since King George's "Keep On Rollin'". TikTok is swimming in video shorts of fan-waving line dancers. The YouTube page has notched five million views in the blink of an eye. The artist's upcoming bookings are enviable. A lot of planning---concentrating on brevity, danceability, the roll-out with the new line-dance) obviously went into this record, but you can't calculate this kind of success. I was reading only this morning that King George's financial worth is estimated at 19 million dollars. Fresh isn't there yet, but he's catapulted into that stratosphere, and he must be pinching himself. And even if you've heard "Boots On The Ground" dozens of times and watched clips of people dancing for more hours than you ever bargained, you have to love its barely three-minute, bass-heavy, jug-band simplicity. It makes people happy, and current southern soul is bathing in its effervescent glow.

Listen to 803Fresh singing "Boots On The Ground" on YouTube.



See Daddy B. Nice's Top 10 Singles March 2025.

--Daddy B. Nice

About 803 Fresh New Generation Southern Soul

April 25, 2025:

Daddy B. Nice's

News & Notes:

Southern Soul in New York City!

I never thought I'd see it. They're street-dancing to 803Fresh's "Boots On The Ground" in Times Square outside the discount Broadway tickets booth. Ubiquitous in NYC, these street buskers are taking the line dance moves to a whole 'nother level, attracting crowds who watch, stupefied, wondering what the hell they're witnessing. Very few will comprehend they're listening to a genre called southern soul, and even fewer will enter the nirvana where we southern soul fans pass our pleasurable days. But it's happening nevertheless, and what was unimaginable for the southern soul scene a couple of decades ago---that is, the younger generation completely enthused and energized by southern soul---is now a reality. One amusing footnote: most of the YouTube and TikTok videos chronicling these impromptu street dances in Manhattan label it "Texas culture". Guess they don't know it originated in South Carolina. Are line dances Southern Soul's entree into the national consciousness?

Listen to a new interview with 803Fresh on YouTube.

"Boots On The Ground" lyric references are proliferating in new music by other artists. That's the evidence a tune has become a sure-fire classic (i.e. "Stand Up In It," "Hole In The Wall," "Keep on Rollin'," "Slow Roll It".). Even musical snippets are showing up in the music of others, particularly the three-beat verse-end that makes the line-dancers shake their fans and butts. 803Fresh fans can listen to an interview with their beloved singer/songwriter on YouTube: "I Am Carolina featuring 803Fresh (Episode 3)". And out of left-field: Rickey Smiley has a YouTube video called "Church Folks Version of Boots On The Ground".