Howard Scott has spent more than five decades watching songs he helped write find new audiences, new meanings and new lives. Now, as another generation of artists discovers WAR’s music, the singer-songwriter and guitarist is using the moment to look forward as much as back.
Random Lengths recently spoke with Scott and his son, producer Howard “Scotty” Scott Jr., about WAR’s latest honors, the enduring influence of the band’s music and the father-son collaboration behind Scott’s new single, Morena, which dropped on June 26.
Scotty is the founder of Arch1 Entertainment, a San Pedro-based multimedia production and artist-development company working in music, film, television and live entertainment. The company is producing and promoting Scott’s new music and developing Straight Into Compton, a documentary about the WAR co-founder’s life and career.
On June 25, Scott and his original WAR bandmates were honored at ASCAP Celebrates Rhythm & Soul 2026 for their songwriting contributions to music sampled by a new generation of artists. Scott was recognized as a writer of Slippin’ Into Darkness, which provides the musical foundation for BigXthaPlug’s 2024 Southern rap single The Largest.
For Scott, the recognition was another reminder that songs written decades ago continue to resonate with artists and listeners who were not yet born when WAR recorded them.
“When I first joined the band WAR, I was writing songs for the band,” Scott told Random Lengths. “I never thought that, you know, if I wrote a song called The Cisco Kid … Slippin’ Into Darkness, it would be playing today.”
The longevity of those songs has changed the way Scott views the music he helped create.
“We went past survival into legend,” Scott said. “Those songs are going to be around for centuries. A hundred years from now, somebody’s going to tell somebody about Low Rider, The World Is a Ghetto’ or Why Can’t We Be Friends?”
Scott pointed to artists including Kendrick Lamar, Wiz Khalifa, Rick Ross, Tupac Shakur, Eazy-E and Dr. Dre as part of a long line of musicians who have sampled WAR’s recordings. He also recalled meeting younger artists at the ASCAP ceremony who surprised him with their knowledge of the band’s catalog.
“It’s really a new generation of artists that are picking up on WAR songs,” Scott said.
One day after the ASCAP ceremony, Scott and his son turned their attention from WAR’s catalog to their own collaboration, releasing Morena, a club-oriented song built around attraction, dancing and celebration.
Although Scott emphasized that Morena is meant to be fun rather than overtly political, the song also acknowledges Afro-Latina women and other darker-skinned women throughout Latin America and the Caribbean who are often overlooked in popular music and media.
“Morena was like a love song or an acknowledgement of all the brown-skinned Afro-Latinas out there across the world,” Scott said. “I saw something in Colombia where they have this whole area of dark-skinned women and men who are not paid attention to. They are like invisible.”
Scotty said the song’s message began reaching listeners almost immediately. He recalled hearing from a woman in Panama who contacted him through Instagram after listening to the single.
“She heard the song and immediately sent me a message through Instagram,” Scotty said. “She’s like, ‘Wow.’ She said that the song is so beautiful. She said, ‘It really resonates with me and my people and where I’m from.’”
For Scotty, working with his father represents more than producing another record. Growing up around WAR’s music shaped his instincts as a songwriter and producer, he said, and collaborating with his father has allowed him to help extend that musical legacy.
“All my life, I’ve listened to him,” Scotty said. “When I’m writing, I think like him.”
The experience of sitting down with his father to write music together has also given Scotty a different appreciation for the catalog Scott created during his decades with WAR.
“It’s an epiphany to have sat down with my father and written a song — just me and him, one pen together, writing the song,” Scotty said. “You’ve got to think how amazing that is when you collectively think of all the songs that he’s already written by himself. So it’s an honor.”
The renewed attention surrounding WAR extends beyond sampling and new recordings.
In November 2025, Playing for Change released a global rendition of Why Can’t We Be Friends? featuring WAR’s original members alongside musicians, singers and dancers from around the world.
Scott said the collaboration developed from conversations between WAR harmonica player Lee Oskar and Playing for Change, eventually leading to an invitation for the band to record its contribution in Long Beach.
The project added another chapter to the history of a song Scott believes remains relevant because of the simple question at its center.
“Certain WAR music, we ask a simple question, and the question is to be answered by each person,” Scott said. “Everybody can take a message and put it into their own heads. What does it mean to you about Why Can’t We Be Friends?”
Scott recalled the song being used in contexts far removed from the circumstances in which WAR originally recorded it, including Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the first joint U.S.-Soviet space mission.
“I think it’s real heavy to have created the kind of music that is used to make [those connections],” Scott said. “I don’t know very many people that I can think of off the top that have the kind of relevancy in their music.”
Scott and his son are now working to document the history behind that music.
Arch1 Entertainment is developing Straight Into Compton, a documentary tracing Scott’s life from his birth in San Pedro and upbringing in Compton through WAR’s early development in the Harbor Area and the band’s rise to international prominence.
For Scotty, preserving that history is one of the most important projects he and his father are undertaking.
“One of the next things, and one of the most important things for me, is that we’re working on a documentary,” Scotty told Random Lengths. “Just the importance of telling Pops’ story, my father’s story.”
The documentary will explore Scott’s personal history as well as the local roots of WAR, whose earliest performances included appearances in Harbor City before the band became internationally known.
“Pops was born in San Pedro, grew up in Compton, and part of WAR’s beginnings was right here in Harbor City,” Scotty said. “The infancy stages of where their music started [were] right here in this area.”
Scotty said the film will offer audiences more than a conventional account of his father’s career.
“There’s a lot of stuff in there that people will find humorous,” he said. “A lot of it will be real deep for you, and a lot of it will be fun and funky for you.”
For Scott, the current moment represents another stage in a career he once hoped would simply survive. New artists continue to sample WAR. Listeners around the world continue to discover the band’s songs. And now, working alongside his son, Scotty, is creating new music while documenting the history behind the old songs.
As Scotty put it, the work they are doing now has consequences beyond the next release.
“What you do now has a ripple effect,” he said. “It will be here at times that man won’t be — or you either.”
Morena is available on major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and YouTube. And check out the Scotts’ upcoming projects on their website, arch1media.com.