mixtape maestro (2.0)

As enticing as it might be to have Usher move away from the boring “grown-man” vibe of 2008′s Here I Stand for a second go ’round at the tabloid-baiting drama that themed it’s multi-platinum predecessor Confessions, ultimately all we really ask from the forthcoming Raymond v. Raymond is that it feature a sureshot club banger on the level of that album’s mega-jump-off “Yeah!”.

“Oh My Gosh”, one of many recently leaked Usher entries that may or may not end up on the official set, definitely sounds like that request being granted.

Helmed by Will.I.Am, “Gosh” can essentially be summed up as an extension to the stylistic efforts of Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D., but don’t let that simple description scare you off because like “Boom Boom Pow”, it will eventually (if not instantly) draw you into it’s guilty pleasure vortex thanks to a punchy, electro-glossed pizazz that never loses it’s exciting edge, an infectious flurry of giddily chopped and distorted vocals explaining some random chick’s hotness, and the recurring whoops of a hyphied-out crowd.

Of course, silly stabs at songwriting are included (sample: “Honey got a booty like pow, pow, pow/ Honey got some boobies like wow, oh wow”), but when you’re half-way sloshed and grinding up against some hot babe you’ve just met only seconds before in the middle of a crowded nightclub dance floor, those same lyrics feel less dumbed-down than they do that moment’s irresistible truth.

First quarter of 2010, meet your signature jam.

DL: “Oh My Gosh” (alt)

Call us losers, but since “Meet Me Halfway” started getting endless spins through our earbuds, we’ve been scouring the World Wide Web daily hoping to come across some amazing remix that’ll only deepen our undying adoration towards the Black Eyed Peas single.

There haven’t been many to emerge (which is strange, seeing as though “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” inspired what felt like a million revamps between them both), but we did come across a couple that earned at least a couple repeat listens:

Rokuro’s Tidy Club Mix:

Helmed by Japan’s DJ Rokuro, this one follows a relatively simple remixing formula, accenting the original track with some catchy synths while giving that vocoder-assisted bridge (the track’s best non-Fergie moment) a well-appreciated repeat spin.

DL: “Meet Me Halfway (Rokuro’s Tidy Club Mix)” (alt)

Anna & Ruby’s Intergalactic Booty-Shaker Remix:

This second (and sadly, MP3 link-less) one was created by the same girls who delivered that cutesy acoustic cover of Drake’s “Best I Ever Had”. And like that treat, this one is equally impressive in a lo-fi, “let’s throw something together during a sleepover” kind of way, replacing Fergie’s laborious wails with a surprisingly effective Cassie-like featherweight vocal while it’s beat bypasses state-of-the-art Y3K-aiming production complexity for a simple electro throb.

Kinda frightening to think what the rap landscape will be like once Wayne has to spend his year in prison, innit?

Even at his most irritating ubiquitous, the man has the power to heighten hip hop-themed conversation unlike very few others, with whatever new song, remix, freestyle to emerge from him destined to light up the blogosphere commentary world with record speed no matter how great or meh said product is.

Knowing Weezy though, he’ll make sure the twelve month sentence will fly by without folks getting the chance to miss him too much, as he’s probably in the lab right this moment cooking up enough freestyle dishes to ensure one new lyrical treat premieres each of the three hundred and sixty-five days. Alongside “official” joints set for planned near-future releases both solo (the long pushed-back rap/ rock question mark Rebirth, The Carter IV) and label related (Young Money Fam; solo debuts from Mack Maine and Nikki Minaj), Wayne will likely remain just as omnipresent as he has been the past few years.

But to steer focus back to what this post was really supposed to be about…Wayne’s newest mixtape, No Ceilings, has hit the Webs (four days earlier than expected), and for all those longing to hear the Young Money king slather some of the hottest hip hop beats of 2009 (from Jay’s “Run This Town” to Gucci Mane’s “Wasted” to, er, the Black Eyed Peas’ “I Gotta Feeling”) with his typically WTF vocabulary (you could make a drinking game out of the many creative ways he spins an “I’m the shit” boast or cleverly embeds an athlete’s name into a line)…think of this as an early Christmas present.

Catch some of our favorites below, including “Break Up”, a collaboration with Short Dawg and Gudda Gudda over the beat behind Mario’s current smash (and oh how much better that circular Bangladesh-produced loop sounds when it’s not being awkwardly used to support a R&B track), and “Throw It In The Bag”, which sees Wayne narrating the pleasures of lavish life-aided rap sex-mance (“Fuckin’ on Versace/ Napping on satin/ I love to hit it backwards, Call it Pig Latin…”) atop the seducingly hypnotic instrumental of Fabolous’ Dream-sampling “Bag” remix.

(Or you could simply save a bunch of time by downloading the entire [more often-than-not awesome mixtape] from Nahright.)

DL: “Break Up” (alt)

DL: “Throw It In The Bag (Remix)” (alt)

Black Eyed Peas are finally moving on to a third single from their The E.N.D. set, and we’re actually quite excited about this. Not only because it seems we’re finally going to get a airplay break from the US chart-topping stranglehold of previous E.N.D. singles “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Gotta Feeling” (they’ve been at the top of the Hot 100 for a record-breaking TWENTY-THREE STRAIGHT WEEKS people-that’s more than enough love for two songs that were irksome long before they got played 50 billion times!!!), but also due to the fact that the album’s official junior joint will be the far more likable “Meet Me Halfway”, previously hyped here as “an amped-up ballad which bites the soaring drive of The Killers’ “When You Were Young” in it’s epic “oh-oh-oh” melody while The Dutchess commits a solid vocal performance that hints of a newly reinvigorated interest in her old, childhood Cyndi Lauper/ Madonna records” (ahh, we’re so good when we try).

And look, the track has already begun inspiring hot remixes.

Likely the first of many, this re-haul by the production duo of Joshua Bass and Aaron Jones is tricked out with some trash-can percussion stomp, synthesized marching band fanfare and flashes of electric guitar, nicely competing with the club-ready beat of the will.i.am/ Keith Harris-helmed original in the kitchen-sink, dance-hip-pop-crafting department.

DL: “Meet Me Halfway (Joshua Bass & Aaron Jones Remix)” (alt)

“Welcome to the future”, Jay-Z intros on the latest (ho-hum) Blueprint 3 pre-leak.

And by ‘future’, he means an era where having a “high yellow broad” and a “best white mate” named “Chris” (Martin) and not wasting dough on “making it rain” or rocking rims, Timbs or ‘Cris puts him a cut above the rest. Oh, and slightly generic Timbaland shuffles will rock the clubs while promising “future” mic hopefuls are disappointingly reduced to only hook cameos.

Sssiiiiggghhhh. Something’s definitely not right when the Black Eyed Peas corny glimpse into what will be hot tomorrow sounds more appealing.

DL: “Off That” (alt)

Ragga-froggy-voiced curioso Sean Kingston is back, and while his latest effort “Fire Burning” might not have the power to distance him from the novelty whispers that will probably always surround him, it’s conveniently armed with a dancefloor-ready charge that’ll surely earn him lots of spins alongside the Lady Gaga, Flo Rida and Black Eyed Peas tunes currently dominating Top 40 playlists.

In need of someone to blame for your inability to break from under “Fire Burning”‘s spell? Target producer RedOne, the man behind GaGa’s trio of Top Ten hits. He envelops Kingston’s disinctive growls about some dame’s mesmerizing “birthday cake” (read: ’09′s version of a badonkadonk) in a spirited assault of gleaming synth work and buzzing bass sounds that may come across a bit chintzy when heard while alone, but when heard blaring from the DJ’s speakers while stuck within a mass of drunk and sweaty party-goers, feels like the peaking moment of an excitement-filled Friday night out.

From the album Tomorrow, due August 25th.

We have a confession to make.

For the past couple weeks-starting with our delayed appreciation for “Boom Boom Pow” and continuing with a fondness for the superb “two-for-one” deal that was “Imma Be”-we’ve slowly come to terms with the fact that we actuallly might kinda love the Black Eyed Peas. GASP! SHOCK! HORROR!

Now don’t worry, we’re not entirely insane (we totally despite their “Mazel Tov”-citing new single, “I Gotta Feeling” for being just a little too damn cheery), but we’ve got to admit that two other E.N.D. tracks that have boiled to the surface recently have got us completely enraptured by the foursome’s shameless, 80′s new wave-meets-hip-pop meshings.

On “Alive”, pinings after an old love might be delivered in the vein of a SNL teen-pop spoof (Notes Fergie: “You are my best friend and boyfriend/ Now it seems like you’re my worst friend/ I gotta do soul searching/ Without you I’m a whole different person…”), but it’s the suave dance sonics subtly bumping beneath the lyrics that ultimately win you over.

That same expert juggling of (guilty)pleasure and heartached Fergie showstealing-ness is captured on the even better “Meet Me Halfway”, an amped-up ballad which bites the soaring drive of The Killers’ “When You Were Young” in it’s epic “oh-oh-oh” melody while The Dutchess commits a solid vocal performance that hints of a newly reinvigorated interest in her old, childhood Cyndi Lauper/ Madonna records.

We’re sure that once we get a full listen to the rest of The E.N.D. and the many embarrassments it’ll no doubt provide, our current kooky infatuation with will, Ferg and the other (less important) two will subside a-plenty, but for the moment, we’re officially getting in line with the millions of other BEP fanatics around the world we used to so enjoy publicly mocking before.

The E.N.D. drops June 9th. As a bonus, peep this nice “(Not Just) Knee Deep”-sampling remix of the Peas’ ’03 single “Shut Up” (found on The E.N.D. Deluxe Edition) below:

DL: “Shut The Phunk Up” (alt)

Sometimes, when discussing Black Eyed Peas shameless inanity, the top-notch production and songmaking talents of head Pea will.i.am can be overlooked. His rapping chops may not be all that great, but the man does have skills when it comes to crafting good material built off a hodgepodge of various music styles.

Take a glance at his production discography, and you may be surprised to see that he had a hand in acclaimed cuts from John Legend (“Ordinary People”, “Save Room”), Talib Kweli (“Hot Thing”) and Common (“I Want You”). Plus, let’s not forget that the fizzy instrumental behind Estelle’s Grammy-winning “American Boy” first premiered as “Impatient”, an album cut from will’s 2007 solo album, Songs About Girls.

Speaking of Girls, that set may have ended up a major commercial flop, but there were some definite treasures within it’s tracklisting. One we had almost forgot about was past MM favorite “Heartbreaker”, which we just knew would blow up the album’s sales if pushed as an official single (alas, it was never released State-side).

Thanks to BBC’s Live Lounge though, we were quickly reminded of “Heartbreaker”‘s infectious appeal when the Peas hit the studio to perform a live version of it.

Catch the performance below:

Can you believe that “Boom Boom Pow” is currently celebrating it’s seventh week atop the Hot 100? That when the record books sum up the biggest single successes of 2009, this joint may actually be the one atop the heap? Now think about this frightening notion: we’re starting to get the feeling that it won’t be the last trip to the top of the Pops that the group makes this year, and even more scarier, we might not even mind the next record to possibly get there.

Recent album cut leakage “Imma Be” is basically a sequel to “Boom Boom Pow”, dipping into the same recipe of club-friendly electro-hop production and dumb-to-the-infinite-power dialogue that The E.N.D. lead single brought to the table, but while it took us a minute to come around to “BBP” (with it being played like twelve millions time a day, wasn’t like we really had a chance to escape it), on first listen, “Imma Be” is actually…not…that…bad.

Of course you have to mentally delete the accompanying lyrics (more silly gibberish about being “next level” and “futuristic”) and the “A Milli”-styled stutter hook scheme should have really been retired back when Beyonce adopted it, but when the passable marching band thump of the first halve suddenly transitions into a frenzied Euro-dance thingamajig mid-way through, “Imma Be” immediately morphs from an eye-rolling “why can’t they just disapear” to a brow-raising “I think I might need to hear this again!”.

If this turns out to be the second single, and not the rumored-to-be official “BBP” follow-up (and truly atrocious) “I Gotta Feeling” that’s also making the blog rounds right now, the Peas may actually have a stranglehold over the Summer just as they did in the Spring. This time with nary a complaint from us.

While we still find something unshakably irksome about Asher Roth (and don’t act like you don’t), we’ve got to give him props for the awesomely goofy “cover” of Black Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” he and his crew birthed on a recent BBC Live Lounge appearance.

From Asher’s shameless plugging of his own material (“I got that single out now/ Check iTunes if you don’t know/…Gotta get that (ALBUM!)”) amongst other dorky re-writes (“She got the boobs that bounce”) to that one guy’s hilarious attempt at a Fergie “wail”, to the magnificent drumming and scratching work that adorns the second halve, this is hands down one of our favorite Live Lounge sessions of the year.

DL: “Boom Boom Pow (Black Eyed Peas Cover)” (alt)