Odds N Ends Vol. 3
Oh look, it’s in-box cleaning out time again.
Wale & Just Jack “Embers/ Good Girls (Phillip Martell Mash-Up Remix)”
For it’s first two-thirds, this mash-up concoction by ATL DJ Phillip Martell emerges quite effective in it’s enchanting blend of the acapella from Wale’s 2007 track “Good Girls” with a hyper-speed orchestral loop and sampled vocal snippets swiped from Just Jack’s ‘09 UK hit “Embers”, but it’s in it’s final minute-and-a-half when the project truly blooms, thanks to Martell completely doing away with the JJ instrumental for a killer assault of electro-house pomp.
DL: “Embers/ Good Girls (Phillip Martell Mash-Up Remix)” (alt)
Aaliyah “One In A Million (Belief Remix)”
The third installment in L.A.-based producer Belief’s on-going Aaliyah remix project
finds him taking on the late singer’s 1996 classic “One In A Million”, and while nothing could really come close to topping the way-ahead-of-it’s-time Y3K sonics Timbaland cooked up for the original, we’re digging the languid, neo-soul-ish incense vibe Belief brings here.
DL: “One In A Million (Belief Remix)” (alt)
Private “My Secret Lover”
First things first: Thomas Troelson, the main producer and lead singer dude of this Dutch dance-pop trio, looks a little bit freaky.
Once you get past his physical creepiness, though, you’ll likely be swept away by the pure ’80’s pop infectiousness on display in this single, an irresistible sugar packet of helium-voice mackadelics (“Girl take off your dress/ Let’s make this place a mess!!”), warped old-school B-boy-isms and glossy bubblegum-funk carved from the guilty pleasure-filled catalogue of Wham!.
DL: “My Secret Lover” (alt)
Tayma Loren featuring The-Dream “Tipsy”
This Detroit-born R&B newcomer’s real-life brother Carlos “Los Da Mystro” McKinney has co-helmed some of the best The-Dream jams (“Shawty Is A 10″, “Rockin’ That Thing”, “Walkin On The Moon”, “My Love”), as well as hits for Usher (“Trading Places”), Trey Songz (“I Invented Sex”) and J. Holiday (“Bed”), so it’s only right that he would hook up his sister with a joint that’s just as smash-worthy.
Tayma’s debut single “Tipsy” oozes that signature Dream/ Mystro radio magic, from it’s light and lazy piano bounce to the quirky, echo vocal mini-hooks speckled throughout it. It’s most entertaining factor, however, lies in the humorous honesty of it lyrics’, which detail how a drunken, post-nightclub one night stand usually ends up being a regrettable moment in one’s life rather than the mind-blowing sexcapades event most R&B acts blow it up to be (“When you wake up/ It’s all fucked up”).
When looking back at some of the best artist/ producer teamings in R&B and Pop music history, Timbaland and the late, great Aaliyah deserve to be recognized somewhere near the top of the pack. Though the singer didn’t have the biggest pipes, once her slinky, understated purr was interwoven into one of Tim’s mad scientist Y3K pop-funk sonics, the most incredible aural magic always seemed to happen. Hell, you could place any one of their joints next to a majority of what’s lodged on today’s Hot 100 list and their collaborations would still sound flyer, fresher and a million times more innovative.
Much to our pleasant surprise though, the two re-imaginations that Belief have so far unleashed have quickly swatted away all traces of our initial pessimism (both involve enough genre-melding imagination to actually sound like beatscapes Aaliyah might have possibly considered taking on), birthing an excited anticipation for the premieres of his future Aaliyah Remix Project works in it’s place. 
Many have tried to fill in the gap left in R&B in the eight years since Aaliyah’s passing (and you know the ones we’re referring to), but none have been able to really match the angelic-voiced singer’s always intriguing display of mysterious tomboy sex appeal and understated vocal grace or her excellent ability in complimenting Timbaland’s manic beats rather than being swallowed up and made irrelevant by them. 
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