City is muse for Esquire's superstar songwriting contest

Ah, Detroit -- for every sound you've created, from furious punk to swooning Motown gems or fierce hip-hop anthems, you tell a different story. That's why Esquire magazine located its 2011 Songwriting Challenge in the Motor City -- a city, they noted, that embodied all the qualities they wanted their A-list team of musicians to mine for inspiration. Love. Loss. Redemption. Hope. Cars.

So they came to Detroit. Dierks Bentley, Raphael Saadiq, Brendan Benson, Ben Blackwell and Dhani Harrison. They each wrote a song. And all the proceeds from mp3 sales will benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters of Detroit. Sound check, please.

Excerpt:

In shitty dive bars and majestic concert halls, the music of Detroit pulses with the sound and fury of a city in the fight for its life. We came to Detroit to witness this fight and to honor it, and to announce that -- by selling these five original songs and donating the proceeds to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Detroit -- we intend to join it.

Watch the video, read more about the artists, and download the songs here.

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