NPR

First Listen: The Como Mamas, 'Move Upstairs'

The family gospel trio's new album is soul-stirring praise music married to the electric rhythms of Memphis.

Growing up on the outskirts of Como, Mississippi, a town of only slightly more than 1,000 souls, there wasn't much to do – particularly not, during the years of Jim Crow and shortly after — for black girls like cousins Ester Mae Wilbourn and Della Daniels. After school, they did the chores of country life: gathering wood, bringing in water. They played games with other young relatives and neighbors in the backyard. And they listened to the radio.

"For a long time when

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