For Aloe Blacc, music isn’t just sound—it’s service.
The Grammy-nominated artist has built a career on catchy melodies with real meaning, whether it’s the working-class anthem “I Need a Dollar” or the hopeful hook of “Wake Me Up.” But with his latest album, Stand Together, Blacc is taking that philosophy even further. Each song on the project is rooted in the story of a real nonprofit organization, transforming grassroots missions into soulful, purpose-driven tracks designed to amplify change.
“This is a long time coming,” Blacc says. “A concept that I think was born in many conversations and a little bit just from my wife, who is the consummate artist but specifically only for message music. She has written songs and recorded in honor and in amplification and celebration of positive social missions. And so this album, Stand Together, is an album full of songs that amplify positive social missions and amazing nonprofit organizations.”
The project began with a simple idea: What if music could do more than inspire? What if it could actually elevate the work of people doing tangible good in the world?
That question became real during the pandemic, when Blacc first encountered the Stand Together organization—a philanthropic network supporting innovative nonprofits across the country. He was drawn to their grassroots, solution-focused approach to social issues and wanted to help shine a light on the stories often overlooked by the mainstream.
“I just thought, you guys are doing amazing work. More people should know about you so that they can get involved and invest,” he says. “Well, the word invest really means donate. And I said, how about I create some songs inspired by the nonprofit organizations that are part of this mission?”
Blacc didn’t want to write from a distance. He met with leaders, visited nonprofit sites and listened to the stories behind the work. He saw firsthand the impact of places like Café Momentum, a restaurant and support program for youth affected by the juvenile justice system, and Bonton Farms, an urban agriculture initiative transforming a historically neglected Dallas neighborhood into a thriving community hub.
“Café Momentum is an organization that supports system-affected youth,” Blacc explains. “It helps them find work, employment and housing and education. It gets them through high school if they need it, gets them into college if they need it.”
Bonton Farms left a similar impression. “It was an experiment in humanity,” he says. “Really just transforming an underserved, underrecognized community that had no real upward mobility, no jobs and used vacant lots, turned them into urban farms, gave work to the local community members… turned that into a restaurant and a café.”
For Blacc, the mission wasn’t just to name-drop these organizations but to turn their work into musical stories—mini-anthems that listeners could connect with emotionally and spiritually. “After visiting Café Momentum and Bonton Farms… just recognizing amazing concepts that I think should be translated across every city in the U.S., if not the world. They are great lessons in how we can stand together, how we can come together and do better.”
Writing songs inspired by nonprofits required a different kind of creative process. Blacc wanted the music to feel both personal and universal. He looked for entry points in the stories that could translate into broader themes—hope, redemption and resilience.
“There’s a nonprofit called Breakthrough. Great name for a nonprofit, makes for a great name for a song,” he says. “This is an anti-recidivism organization… one that helps returning citizens who have been in prison, who served their time, paid their debt to society and are ready to return into their communities.”
Some of the people served by Breakthrough had been incarcerated for a decade or more. Reentering society wasn’t just about freedom—it was about starting over in a world that had changed while they were gone. That tension inspired the song “Breakthrough,” which captures both the pain of the past and the hope of new beginnings.
“I wrote about and from the position of an individual who recognizes that they have to make changes in their life,” Blacc says. “It’s a story of redemption and a story of breaking through barriers.”
Blacc’s music doesn’t easily fit into one genre. Instead, he describes his approach as thematic. “I call it AIM—it stands for Affirmation, Inspiration and Motivation,” he explains. “I want to make the songs that can be the soundtrack to you living your best life, songs that can motivate you through the most trying of adversities.”
But while Stand Together is filled with deep, sometimes heavy themes, it doesn’t sound like homework. The album is intentionally hopeful, even joyful—something Blacc says was essential to the project’s mission.
“I learned that it is not impossible to make something that is fun and substantive at the same time,” he says. “A lot of my peers will probably err on the side of fun without the substance and some of my peers will err on the side of substance but no fun. And my goal ultimately is to amplify. And one of the best amplifiers is fun.”
That sense of playful purpose is what makes Stand Together stand out. Blacc isn’t interested in making charity music—he’s building songs that move people in every sense. “It should be fun all the time and you should want to share it with somebody,” he says.
The album is also deeply personal. Blacc credits his parents—his father, a Marine for 30 years and his mother, a longtime municipal courthouse employee—with instilling in him a sense of responsibility to use his platform for good.
“I think I’m passionate because I’m fortunate,” he says. “I’m lucky enough to wake up in the morning and write songs that could potentially make people smile. And with that, I want to honor the privilege that I have by offering some people a little respite from maybe the monotony or the calamity within their lives.”
Plans are already underway to create a digital companion to the album, offering listeners a landing page to learn more about each nonprofit and get involved themselves. But Blacc hopes Stand Together sparks something even bigger.
“My goal is to continue doing this kind of work for more organizations,” he says. “If I can inspire my peers to do the same—maybe not a full album, maybe one song out of 10 could be in service to a nonprofit organization—that’d be awesome.”
In a music industry often driven by profit, Aloe Blacc is betting on purpose—and proving that songs built on service don’t have to sacrifice soul.
