Music Friday: Seratones Remind You to 'Keep a Diamond in Your Mind'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you new tunes with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, the Seratones — fronted by gospel-trained powerhouse A.J. Haynes — remind you to "keep a diamond in your mind" in their 2022 release, "Good Day."

The song tells us that if we keep our thoughts pure and full of love — the characteristics of a diamond — then we're well on our way toward making it a good day. Haynes also believes that our society is unnecessarily distracted and stressed out by the internet and social media and that it's healthier to put our phones away, get outdoors and enjoy the simple things in life.

Haynes sings, "Keep a diamond in your mind / Don't you know that you are so divine? / Baby, you were made to shine."

In the song's last line, she emphasizes that "being in love is free."

"Good Day" is the fourth track on the band's third studio album, Love & Algorhythms. The band got a big boost at the end of April when they performed "Good Day" on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The single currently ranks #23 on the US Billboard Adult Alternative Airplay chart.

The song provides the perfect vehicle for Haynes to showcase her amazing range and booming falsetto. Haynes developed her singing talents at the Brownsville Baptist church, starting at the age of six.

Formed in Shreveport, LA, in 2013, the Seratones quickly became a favorite of the Louisiana club circuit and won the Louisiana Music Prize that same year. Paste Magazine picked the Seratones as one of the "Top 20 new bands of 2015."

The group would go on to earn national fame in 2016 with its debut album, Get Gone. The soul-rock group will be promoting its new album with a tour that will make stops in 13 states and three European countries.

Please check out the video of the Seratones' live performance of "Good Day." It was filmed at Skydeck in Nashville, TN, and featured on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

"Good Day"
Written by A.J. Haynes. Performed by the Seratones.

Good day (good day, good day, good day)

Do you really wanna get better?
Do you really want to be well? (Well, well, well)
Baby, it could be so simple
As turning off your phone
But you can turn me on.
Let’s make it a

Good day (good day, good day, good day)
Rollerskatin on the haters
Glowin up and gettin paper
with me and my family
Good day (good day, good day, good day)
Not going through the motions
Baby, you are my devotion.
Being in Love is free.

Keep a diamond in your mind.
Don’t you know that you are so divine?
Baby, you were made to shine.
You can get it how you like.
I got you, you got me.
We gon’ be alright.
Let’s make it a

Good day (good day, good day, good day)
Rollerskatin on the haters
Glowin up and gettin paper
with me and my family
Good day (good day, good day, good day)
Not going through the motion.
Baby, you are my devotion.
Being in Love is free.

This is the day that Love has made.
Rejoice and be glad in it.
Did you hear what I said, I said--
This is the day that Love has made.
Won’t you rejoice?

Good day (good day, good day, good day)
Rollerskatin on the haters
Glowin up and gettin paper
with me and my family
Good day (good day, good day, good day)
Not going through the motions
Baby, you are my devotion.
Being in Love is free.
(repeat)

Credit: Screen capture via Youtube.com / The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

Cullinan-Sourced, 103-Carat 'Light of Africa Diamond' to Headline Christie's NY Sale

Sourced at the celebrated Cullinan mine in South Africa, the internally flawless, 103.49-carat, emerald-cut gem known as "The Light of Africa Diamond" will headline the New York Magnificent Jewels sale on June 8, as part of Christie’s Luxury Week.

The D-color diamond, which was cut from a 299.3-carat rough stone unearthed in January of 2021, is estimated to fetch between $11 million and $18 million.

In March of 2021, Petra Diamonds announced that it had sold the ultra-pure Type IIa stone to Belgium-based Stargems DMCC for $12.18 million. Stargems’ diamond cutters used state-of-the-art technology to map and cut the rough diamond into a polished gem that the Gemological Institute of America classified as "the pinnacle of the diamond pyramid."

(Type IIa diamonds are colorless and chemically pure with no traces of nitrogen or boron impurities. They account for less than 2% of all natural diamonds.)

The Light of Africa Diamond will be revealed at Christie’s Geneva this Friday, May 6. It will remain on exhibit in Geneva through May 11. The gem will appear at Christie’s Hong Kong from May 22 to 24, before returning to Christie’s New York from June 3 to 7.

Located at the foothills of the Magaliesberg mountain range, 37 km northeast of Pretoria, the 120-year-old Cullinan Mine has been a prolific source of large, high-quality gem diamonds. It is also one of the world’s most important sources of rare, blue diamonds.

The Cullinan Diamond Mine is responsible for producing six of the world’s largest 50 diamonds based on carat weight. These include the The Legacy of the Cullinan Diamond Mine (#45, 424.89 carats, 2019), an unnamed diamond (#39, 460.2 carats, 2009), Cullinan Heritage (#32, 507 carats, 2009), Centenary (#27, 599 carats, 1986), The Golden Jubilee (#15, 755 carats, 1985) and the granddaddy of them all — the Cullinan Diamond (#1, 3,106 carats, 1905).

The 299.2-carat rough diamond, from which The Light of Africa Diamond was cut, ranks 65 on Wikipedia's Largest Rough Diamonds list.

Another famous gem sourced at the Cullinan mine is “The Blue Moon of Josephine,” which achieved the highest per-carat price for any diamond sold at auction. When the hammer went down at $48.5 million in 2015 at Sotheby’s Geneva, the 12.03-carat, cushion-shaped gem’s per-carat price had topped out at $4.03 million.

Credits: The Light of Africa Diamond image courtesy of Christie's. Rough diamond image courtesy of Petra Diamonds.

Diamond's Amazing Properties to Revolutionize the World of Quantum Computing

Japanese researchers have created an ultra-pure, two-inch-wide diamond wafer that has the storage capacity of 25 billion gigabytes. That's equivalent to the information on one billion Blu-ray Discs or the amount of data distributed by all the world's mobile devices in a single day.

Developed by Adamant Namiki Precision Jewel Co. and Saga University, the "Kenzan Diamond" will make its debut at the International Conference on Compound Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology in Monterey, CA, from May 9 – 12. The wafers will go into production in 2023 and could revolutionize the world of quantum computing.

Conventional computers use processors made from silicon chips, but researchers are now experimenting with diamonds as a superior substitute. A minuscule defect in a diamond crystal — know as a nitrogen-vacancy center — is the key to data storage. But, if there is too much nitrogen, it won't work efficiently.

Adamant Namiki Precision Jewel Co. and Saga University improved its production method to achieve an ultra-pure wafer with no more than three parts per billion of nitrogen, making it ideal for quantum applications.

Previous limitations in production methods allowed for diamond wafers only 4mm square (See the tiny wafer in the lower left of the image, above). These wafers were made by growing crystals on a flat substrate material. They were designed in this size because they were vulnerable to cracking.

The new 55mm wafers are grown on a step-shaped substrate, which spreads the strain horizontally and makes the wafer less susceptible to cracking even though it's much larger.

Beyond being nature's hardest naturally occurring material, diamond also achieves impressive marks when it comes to its chemical, physical and mechanical properties — and that's what's got the scientific community buzzing.

The researchers at Adamant Namiki Precision Jewel Co. and Saga University are already working on a project to double the diameter of the Kenzan Diamond to four inches.

Techradar.com pointed out that at a time when corporations are returning to tape storage to help fend off ransomware attacks, diamond wafers could provide the answer for the high-capacity storage needs of the future.

Credit: Image courtesy of Saga University