mixtape maestro (2.0)

Monica featuring Missy Elliott & Notorious B.I.G. “Everything To Me (Remix)”/ “Blackberry”

While most other mainstream R&B artists are too busy trying to keep the kids’ attention by sounding like malfunctioning robots and wannabe rappers, or awkwardly straining (and usually failing) to inject as much soul as possible in between club-happy house thumps and electro bleeps and bloops, Monica aimed to keep it simple and just saaang on her Missy Elliott co-produced lead Still Standing single “Everything To Me”, a vintage-hugging, Broadway-sized tribute to the “perfect man”.

Though the back-to-basics move has proven successful (the track is currently spending it’s third week atop the R&B/ Hip Hop singles chart, making it Monica’s first #1 in seven years), the song falls a bit on the bland side, mostly making us wish to hear the tune it samples (Deniece Williams similarly theatrical, albeit far more dynamic, ’81 classic “Silly”) more.

Slightly better is the summer jeep jam-styled remix, which again lifts it’s musical foundation from the ’80′s R&B world (this time, Rene & Angela’s “I Love You More”), as well as a completely unnecessary re-heated Notorious BIG verse from the Life After Death number “I Love The Dough” (tie-in for the confused: both songs sample the R&A joint), though we should note that the best song we’ve heard from Monica so far in 2010 was one that didn’t even officially make the album. That would be “Blackberry”, a midtempo cut that brings back the dual joys of both snap & b and Monica’s sassier side as she hits the roof after breaking the code to her man’s titular cell phone and finding out, through texts and voice mails from another chick, that he’s not being on the up-and-up. Oh, the drama.

DL: “Everything To Me (Remix)” (alt)

DL: “Blackberry” (alt)

T-Pain “Reverse Cowgirl”

It usually takes a good month or so for us for a new T-Pain single to make the transition from being just plain dumb to severely addicting (but still dumb), so it makes sense that right about now, after weeks of the Auto-Tune soul-man/ walking spoof’s latest bringing about all kinds of raging “What’s wrong with music today!?!” and “Why his this guy still around?!!” tantrums, we would start coming around to admiring “Reverse Cowgirl”.

Of course, like all the times before when it came to taking a liking to this guy’s solo material, we were drunk and “slow-dancing” (read: dry-humping some chick on the dancefloor) when we reached this epiphany, but admit it: there’s something awe-inspiring about the way T-Pain excels at making the silliest lyrics/ concepts (in this case, a certain sexual position and bleats of “Giddy up girl” and “Yee-haw”) sound SO DAMN DEEP with just a sprinkle of his yearning, “studio-sweetened” vocals.

Plus, we kinda dig the “artsy” moves of it’s video (see it below), where, especially under the influence of things we don’t feel the need to mention, watching T-Pain shake his dreads in slow motion is on par with seeing Avatar in 3-D for the first time.

DL: “Reverse Cowgirl (Young Jeezy Version)” (alt)

Next “You Are Not Alone (Michael Jackson Cover)”

More surprising than discovering that Next, the late-’90′s/ early-00′s hit R&B boy band who turned a song about getting erections on the dancefloor into a five-week #1 US pop smash, are still together and making music?

Finding out that their recently dropped cover of Michael Jackson’s “You Are Not Alone”, done in the synth-bedazzled Euro-R&B style of the inexplicably currently popular Taio Cruz/ Jay Sean/ Jason DeRulo (we know they’re different artists, but deep in our hearts we think they are all one person), is kinda-sorta not all that bad.

DL: “You Are Not Alone (Michael Jackson Cover)” (alt)

Faith Evans “I Wanna Rock (Snoop Dogg Freestyle Cover)”

The Former First Lady of Bad Boy peaks her head out of hibernation (really, where has Faith been)…with an unfortunate alter-ego tag (“Fizzy”)…to drop some boasting “rhymes” about her flow over a 2009 Snoop instrumental…and then some cat named Deuce Hanna (who?) raps.

Yeah, we don’t know what to say either…but here you go:

DL: “I Wanna Rock (Snoop Dogg Freestyle Cover)” (alt)

Lucy Pearl “Dance Tonight (Siik Remix)”

It’s another hot one from Siik, this time melding the acapella of short-lived soul supergroup Lucy Pearl‘s 2000 feelgood jam “Dance Tonight” with the seducing neo-soul grooves of the sorely under-appreciated The Foreign Exchange.

Oh, what we would do to have another LP album (with both Dawn Robinson and Joi in the mix)!!!

DL: “Dance Tonight (Siik Remix)” (alt)

YahZarah “Why Dontcha Call Me No More”

Foreign Exchange-affiliated singer-songwriter (and former Erykah Badu vocalist) YahZarah previews her forthcoming fourth album, the enticingly titled The Ballad of Purple Saint James, with “Why Dontcha Call Me No More”, a song that finds her going through the blues over a cheating beau (“Obviously you never had a broken heart/ Or you would’ve known better than to play with someone else’s”).

Don’t think that the song is another one of those depressing slow burners though. In fact, it plays more like a mood-lightener thanks to punk-ish kiss-off dialogue like “I hope you’re happy or whatever/ On second thought…not really” and a boppy, new wave-inspired backing beat that, in our heads, would be featured as the walking-down-the-aisle soundtrack for the wedding of Prince and Janelle Monae.

DL: “Why Dontcha Call Me No More” (alt)

Purple Reign “Say Something”

Newbie girl group, and latest Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins find, Purple Reign position themselves as ones to watch in the two-thousand-and-dime on this R&B twist of Timbaland & Drake’s “Say Something”. Of special note is the acapella intro, in which they both introduce their solid three-part harmonies and give a shout out to the inspiration behind their name with a melodic swipe from Prince’s “Purple Rain”.

Head here to hear the ladies tackle Drake’s “Fear”, Waka Flocka Flame’s “O Let’s Do It” and Young Money’s “Bed Rock”.

DL: “Say Something (Timbaland & Drake Freestyle Cover)” (alt)

Still highly-missed rap icon Notorious BIG is paid tribute to yet again on “Letter To B.I.G.”, a recently unearthed cut from Jadakiss (featuring the golden-hued vocals of one-time Mrs. Biggie Smalls, Faith Evans) that sees the LOX member updating his late labelmate to the going-ons since his passing over a decade ago.

An intriguing tune steeped in such intimacy that you feel slightly rude for listening in, Jada’s signature de-animated flow stirs up all kinds of blue feelings inside as he peppers the “letter” with details of the sadly fragmented current status of Junior M.A.F.I.A (“I ain’t heard from Cease in a minute…”) and moving reveals of how BIG’s offspring have turned out (“Teyana so pretty/ CJ turned into Lil’ Biggie/ Just a little lighter, but so witty”), all upon a sleepy R&B backdrop

Probably the most striking portion of his extended verse, though, is when he begins talking of how uninspired the hip hop scene has become since Biggie’s passing: “Game has got cheaper/ And rappers is more commercially successful now, but the heart’s a lot weaker”. Sentiment more than a few of us could agree on.

From the soundtrack to the highly anticipated 2009 biopic, Notorious.

DL: “Letter To B.I.G” (alt)