mixtape maestro (2.0)

Just like the rest of us, Estelle has probably grown tired of waiting around for Missy Elliott to emerge from whatever studio she’s been secluding herself in to bless us with a new crazy club banger. Here’s the difference between us and her, though: whereas we would have simply…well, just kept waiting for “Misdemeanor” to re-emerge with some heat, Estelle has gone one better and decided to simply unleash a Missy-esque track herself…and boy are we happy she did.

Rocking an immediately grabbing hook chant (“I can be a freak-every day of every week”) and a taut, B-more-styled fashion house strut (helmed by the increasingly everywhere David Guetta) that’s damn near impossible to sit still to, Estelle’s new single “Freak” finds the singer/ rapper boldly expressing her S&M-loving side while pushing the rest of the female population to embrace their inner-naughtiness as well.

“Don’t be scared, don’t be shy/ Yes, you gotta let it breathe,” she preaches, assuring the ladies that “he wanna see you handcuffed up/ he wanna see your leather gear” and using an interpolation of Soul II Soul’s deathless “Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)” to stress her bedroom-spicing ideas further. Repping for all men everywhere, featured guest Kardinal Offishall can only respond with a major case of the byoing-yoing-yoings (“I pitch a tent with an XL Magnum on the cover!!”).

Missy, we DEMAND you make an appearance on the inevitable remix…

Purchase the track through Estelle’s website. Expect Estelle’s third album, All of Me, later this year.

Freak BMF
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Uncategorized Bmore club, david guetta, estelle, house, kardinal offishall, sex-rap, UK soul

Not to beat a dead horse, but it’s still so amazingly dumbfounding how Nina Sky continually release such great material with none of it ever able to bubble into commercial success. This past year alone they’re unleashed at least two well-acclaimed tracks (“On Some Bullshit” and their heavily remixed Major Lazer/ Ricky Blaze collabo “Keep It Goin’ Louder”) that are deserving of topping some pop single chart somewhere in the galaxy instead of just being the blog-crit/ club sect sensations they are.

Really, what do these girls have to do to score another over-ground hit? Could nicking an old hook from the Hall & Oates’ platinum-lined catalog be the answer? Probably not, but if it’s any consolation, “Here He Comes”, the “Maneater”-biting third single from B-more club hero Tittsworth’s 12 Steps, has quickly risen up the rankings of our own personal Hot 100.

Tailor-made for a club-set scene in a CW tween soap, with Tittsworth’s light R&B-house thump carrying a distant bump as if to illustrate it’s source being outside the central camera shot, “Here He Comes” hones in on the inner-thoughts of Nicole and Natalie Albino, who are quietly going nuts as their crush casually brushes past them. “Tense up my body/ Can’t talk about it/ These feelings got me, got me…”, their forlorn harmonies trail off, the breathtaking appeal of their favorite boy so overwhelming, they’re rendered speechless.

The track carries such an alluring overall mood, that the fact that it breaks no new ground for the twins stylistically (these girls have managed to successfully marry every single human emotion possible to a “in the club” setting over the years), or that fellow featured guest Pitbull somewhat mars things with his needless misogyny (“I spread legs like a gynecologist”), don’t even begin to matter…all of which only makes it a bigger shame that “Here He Comes” likely won’t ever reach the massive audience it deserves.

You can sample the original below (in addition to a bonus Tittsworth remix of a beloved ’90’s R&B classic), but don’t forget to also cop the complete single EP, featuring remixes from AC Slater, Nadastrom, Stretch Armstrong & Jaimie Fanatic and Rico Tubbs & Will Power.

DL: “Here He Comes” (alt)

Bonus DL: “Poison (Tittsworth Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized bell biv devoe, Bmore club, dance remix, girl group, house, nina sky, pitbull, R&B, tittsworth

During the summer of ‘96, you couldn’t go anywhere without the inviting anonymous female vocals and giddy booty bass bump of Ghost Town DJ’s “My Boo” being blasted from some passing vehicle or neighborhood window. And even if it was heard close to two million times a day, nary a complaint was made, because the song was THAT GREAT.

Fast forward a decade and some change and this one-off smash has lost none of it’s feel-good appeal, especially when updated with a choppy B-More stutter-swing courtesy of the consistently solid remixer DJ Solly.

DL: “My Boo (Solly Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized '90's, Bmore club, dance remix, dj solly, ghost town dj's, summertime

With “I’m The Ish/ Shit” (and it’s many star-laden remixes) continuing to pierce the hearts of dance, hip hop and pop lovers alike around the globe, the song’s creator, DJ Class, now seems intent on maintaining this new plateau of mainstream-edging fame.

Class’ newest cut, no-brainer future club staple “Dance Like A Freak”, sees him cooking up a near-overwhelming ear assault of minor key taps, Prince-like drums and blurting synths as continued inspiration for the sexy dancefloor babe who’s got every set of male eyes in the spot fixated on her every sensuous shimmy.

Her choreography is so hypnotizing, it’s turned the robo-vocalled Class into a stalker-ish fool, invading her headspace with nosy digs into her personal info (“Lemme get your phone number…”; “Tell me where you stay at…”) before quickly moving to bank account-denting promises of whisking her and her friends away on a trip through the skies. And just in case she’s not easily swayed, he makes clear she fully understands how legit his big baller status is, matter-of-factly adding “No I don’t fly Delta/ We charter up at ‘Million-Air’”.

The perfect successor to “Ish” (the uber-annoying Ron “Jumping Out The Window” Browz should take notes; this is how you do Auto-Tune-enhanced club anthems right), “Dance Like A Freak” should have plenty of bodies following it’s titular order long enough to sustain DJ Class’ appeal until his new album, Alameda & Coldspring, drops later on this year.

Can’t wait to see what rapper jumps on this one first!!

DL: “Dance Like A Freak” (alt)

Uncategorized auto-tune, baltimore, Bmore club, dj class

“Okay Yeezy/ You know I had to touch this/ It feels so…so European”, giggles Estelle, the latest artist to attach her name to DJ Class‘ increasingly popular “Bmore club”-turned-nationwide anthem “I’m The Shit”.

Giving us a little “American Boy” reunion by embedding herself into the Kanye West-assisted version (alternate takes include guest contributions from Lil’ Jon, Pitbull, Jermaine Dupri and Trey Songz), the self-tagged Stelly-Stelle gets appropriately braggalicious against “Shit”’s delirious dancefloor workout, dishing out boasts of a fierce fashion game that’s got all the “fashion papers talkin’”. But the winner of Best Line would have to go to this verse-concluding lyrical middle finger to all those gossip-page haters: “Got these gold-bottomed braces just to match my Grammy, bitch!!”. Three snaps up, Estelle.

DL: “I’m The Shit (Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized baltimore, Bmore club, dj class, estelle, kanye west, remix