As you may or may not know, philanthropy has been a big part of my life for a long time. I ve found that artists like myself are uniquely positioned to raise awareness and make a difference in our own communities and beyond. As such, about a year ago, I decided to make philanthropy a more permanent part of my life by establishing the SOS Foundation. The goal here is to use music, both recorded and live, to raise money for causes I m passionate about. With the help of some amazing people, I m happy to announce the upcoming release of the first SOS Foundation record. This is a follow up of a record we put out years ago called SOS:Save Our Soul, which was a covers record. This new record will be similar except that we dug a little deeper into history and pulled together a fantastic playlist of cover songs ranging from Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, Aretha Franklin and many more. Most importantly, 50% of all profits will go to our charitable partner, City Of Refuge. City Of Refuge is an Atlanta, GA based organization that does some of the most comprehensive work, dealing with homelessness and poverty, in the country! My first encounter with COR was 2 years ago when I performed for one of their fundraisers in Atlanta. I was able to meet with the folks that work there and the folks that are served by the work that COR does. I was so impressed with what I saw that day that I began to research more about the group and, needless to say, became convinced that I wanted to get involved in any way I could. Through vocational training, youth education, and lifetime job placement assistance, COR is more successful at getting people permanently out of poverty than any other program I ve ever seen. You can see for yourself the amazing work they re doing at City of Refuge .