As if to remind the public that he’s good for more than just over-the-top sex jams, R. Kelly steers in a Sam Cooke-inspired vintage soul direction on fantastic new single “When A Woman Loves”, a classy, “grown folks R&B” ballad that finds him showering praise on his woman’s undying devotion towards him, even after all those times he’s been a pure knucklehead and failed her.
With the backing arrangement taking on the dramatic orchestral flair of his parents’ favorite slow-paced two-steppers, Kellz digs deep into the supper club soul-man persona, paying tribute to her allegiance with an award-baiting vocal performance filled with hand-wringing intensity and sincere passion.
Yeah, lines like “She’s got more, more faith in me than a beach got sand”, his repeated bellows of being “forever indebted” and a slight chintzy feel to the production come close to edging the song into hokey territory, but the track is moving nonetheless, easily one of the best Pied Piper creations in years.
From his forthcoming thirteenth (!!) album, Love Letter.
It’s not the New Amerykah Part Two second single we were hoping for (that honor would fall onto the album’s Wings-looping seducer “Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long”), but that’s okay: you’d have to be severely deaf not to have some love for official “Window Seat” follow-up “Turn Me Away (Get MuNNY)”, Erykah Badu‘s playfully lightweight update of Sylvia Striplin’s 1981 old-school fave “You Can’t Turn Me Away” (better known to the kids as the sample source to the Junior M.A.F.I.A./ Biggie classic “Get Money”).
Weaving multi-layered Betty Boop-ish chirps in and out the Striplin jam’s familiar rubbery funk and quirky hiccups, Badu sounds like she’s having a ball as she tries on what can be taken as either a prowling gold-digger guise or a satire swipe at artists willing to sell their soul for that almighty dollar (“I look like a model/ I’ll do what I gotta/
To stay in the runnin’/ Cause I want you money”; see…works both ways).
Whether Lauryn Hill‘s newly unleashed “Repercussions” is something new or old doesn’t really matter. It’s L-BOOGIE DAMMIT, and hell, we would go nuts over it if all it featured was her simply breathing atop a lone drum loop.
Thankfully, “Repercussions” actually involves lyrics and some production, with Hill’s much-missed husky alto wading through a shimmering sea of spacey neo-soul groove, reflecting on her own mortality (“Time has moved on/ And death has grown a little closer”) and offering a few pearls of wisdom along the way.
There’s, sadly, no rapping, and in the grand scheme of things, “Repercussions” likely won’t land as an essential part of the Lauryn Hill catalog (at least as is, this might just be a demo), but whatever, between the song’s unearthing and the earlier-this-summer announcement of Hill headlining next month’s 2010 Rock The Bells festival, we’re just happy to have a couple new reasons to keep celebrating our girl.
Grab “Repercussions” below, alongside a live performance of Hill taking on the 1970 Curtis Mayfield soul classic, “The Makings of You”.
Being that jazzy R&B newcomer Avriel Epps is also credited as a model and actress, it makes some sort of sense that when hit with a vicious attack of the nerves while courting a smooth-talker who makes her feel like “the center of his attention whether we’re in his room or up on the moon”, the only way she can calm herself down is by imagining that they’re actors playing roles on a soundstage. Then again, she might also want to spend a few sessions on a shrink’s couch to deal with these internal issues if she plans on giving this seemingly promising relationship some real length.
All that psychoanalyzing aside, “Be Cool”, the first single from the Cali singer/ songwriter/ producer’s forthcoming EP Liberation is a luscious one, wrapping Epps warm coo in a silky swirl of dreamy synths and gentle bass-line funk (shouts to producer Cook Classics) that refreshingly reminds us that not all modern-day R&B is distracted by the poppy flash of European clubs and Auto-Tune.
Liberation is due for a late July/ early August release, in the meanwhile though you might also wanna check out Avriel’s “Bouncer” from Cook Classics’ super-nice new compilation album,Recharged.
You’ve got to have some major balls to take on The Spinners’ Stevie Wonder-produced-and-co-penned 1970 R&B classic “It’s A Shame”, not only because it stands as one of Motown’s most vibrant creations ever (bringing about instant feelings of joy with its opening guitar flutter and sunny horn blasts, and the group’s sterling background harmonies), but then-frontman G.C. Cameron just rocks the joint, his five-octave range bringing an awe-inspiring theatricality to the lyric’s cheated-upon protagonist role, veering effortlessly from heart-bruised falsetto to gruff soul-man belts.
Old-school R&B enthusiast Raphael Saadiq steps up to the challenge on this Levi’s Pioneer Sessions-supporting remake, and while we’re not all the way sure that’s him pulling off the falsetto notes, he nonetheless passes with flying colors, beautifully re-capturing the original arrangement’s spirited jubilance, while committing a stellar vocal performance (especially towards the fade-out) that has us itching for the man to release another (hopefully retro-themed) solo album as soon as possible.
Contrary to what the Billboard charts print every week, Robin Thicke isn’t the only white boy these days who can convincingly pull off silky slow jams; as proof, just check “She Needs Me”, a woozy, bedroom funk concoction from music crit-beloved English soul man (and Beck BFF) Jamie Lidell‘s latest album, Compass.
Bringing to mind the rich and sultry R&B blueprints of Prince and Mint Condition at their most romantic mood-setting, “She Needs Me” is the kind of tune a guy pulls out when he wants to let his main lady know that it’s about to really go down this evening, it’s densely-layered and steadily-paced groove basically demanding the accompaniment of a candle-lit chamber decorated with rose petals and glass bowls of chocolate-dipped strawberries as Lidell’s nether-region-charging pipes fill the room, giving spectacular multi-tracked voice to his inner-most thoughts (“I wanted this so much from the moment I met you/…You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever known”).
We firmly believe that the world would be a much peaceful place if everyone in it had the slightly gruff, Southern soul-soaked belts of Cee-Lo piped into their ears at the start of each day. Because, really, has this guy ever produced a vocal performance that didn’t coat your insides with a blissful warmth (or, hell, fail to remind you why you fell in love with music in the first place)?
To further support our vote for Cee-Lo being the Everyday Wake-Up Soundtrack For All of Earth’s Inhabitants, check out his Gilles Peterson-premiered “I Want You”, a Jack Splash-produced cut that, like nearly everything else Cee’s voice touches, manages to already sound like a timeless classic you’ve been enjoying with friendsand family for ages on first listen.
Splash’s chilled, two-step summertime groove just sparkles, especially with those anonymous female background singers fixing glowing “ooh”‘s atop it and the teasingly brief snippets of violin heard toward its end, but, of course, it’s Cee-Lo’s comforting old soul presence that truly takes “I Want You”‘s feel-good appeal to the next level as he announces his giving up of the night life (“Sweetheart it’s been real but, the thrill is gone…”), then spends the rest of the track trying to coax some honey belle into settling down with him.
If it hadn’t arrived a couple months too late, “I Want You” would have served as the most perfectly perfect Valentines Day jam.
Check out the much blogged-about radio rip (complete with one those usually annoying, but in this case very justified, “REEE-WIIINDD” DJ moves), then re-visit one of Cee-Lo’s hottest solo tunes, the funk-tastic “Closet Freak” from his 2002 debut opus Cee-Lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections (if you don’t already own this album, you SHOULD!!!).
Cee-Lo’s next solo release, Lady Killer, is due sometime later this year.
Currently being given an early preview streaming over at NPR, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings‘ fourth album I Learned The Hard Way (due, officially, April 6th on Daptone) unsurprisingly lands as another bravura demonstration of the electrifying front-woman and her nine-piece backing male accompaniment’s killer way with horn-spiked, retro-fueled soul that sounds like it’s supposed to be coming from an old, rusty jukebox in some Quentin Tarantino flick.
Highlights include the timely, “broke folks” lament “Money” (sample lyric: “I got to pay my bills/ I got to pay my rent/ I’m hungry and I’m tired but my money’s all spent/ Money, where have you gone to?”) and the lean backporch jamming, girl-group harmonies and pleading pipes that ignite the album-closing “Mama Don’t Like My Man”, but tops for us would have to be “Better Things”, a feelgood slab of wobbly soul-funk in which Sharon revels in walking away from a cheating partner.
The jovial handclaps and various horn blurts of the arrangement seem to signify the clicking of Jones’ heels as she heads out the door and down the road, giddily bopping with pride over her relationship-ending decision. “I got a new life and I’m feeling right on,” she beams infectiously, provoking the listener to reward her with a well-deserved standing ovation at song’s end, not only in honor of her strength, but as appreciation for her and her band’s continued excellence in bringing that old school groove back.
Erykah Badu psyched many when she launched the era of 2008′s New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) with “lead single” “Honey”, a flirtatious throwback-baked R&B gem that ultimately had little tie-in with the set’s highly-praised psychedelic freak-funk soundscapes and socio-political dialogue (no wonder it ended up being stripped onto the album as a “hidden track”).
The track would, however, make a perfect fit on the High Priestess of Headwraps second New Amerykah installment Return of The Ankh, a sort of yang to World War‘s yin that presents Badu making a return trip to the less experimental neo-soul sleekness of her breakthrough Baduizm days with a focus on more traditional matters-of-the-heart themes. Mid-album track “Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long” stands out as one of the better displays of this more streamlined approach to songcrafting.
Based around a seducing sampled loop from Paul McCartney & Wing’s mostly forgotten 1979 dip into slinky blue-eyed-soul territory (their minor Back To The Egg hit, “Arrow Through Me”), “Baby” employs Erykah’s always welcome girlish coo to capture the role of a girl with such “a fiendish crush” for a hustling chap, she barely knows what to do with herself whenever he leaves her side to start his “workday” on the streets.
“I know you got to get your hustle on,” she casts him off (while simultaneously winking to her early-career tune “Other Side of The Game”, which featured the same exact line), but while she’s projecting understanding on the surface, internally she’s bubbling with anxiety for his quick return so they can take their relationship to the next level (“I can’t wait to see how you move/…So gone baby, gone baby, don’t be long”).
Stream the song below, followed by Erykah’s thought-provoking, Matt & Kim-inspired clip for the enchanting “Window Seat”, and a MP3 offerings of “Gone Baby”‘s sample source and a “Honey” live performance.
It’s difficult seeing the greatness in Gorillaz‘ Plastic Beach on first complete listen: the album lacks focus, kind-of drags, bears no immediate “Clint Eastwood”/ “Feel Good Inc”-type confections and is based around a environment-friendly concept that, while commendable in theory, initially comes across lame as theme. Give it a few more spins, though, and you’ll eventually be sold on it’s efforts, especially when it comes down to the album’s well-crafted handful of lazily drifting, haze & fuzz-cloaked midtempo fare (expect plenty of crit shout-outs for “Rhinestone Eyes”, “On Melancholy Hill”, “Broken” and the two Little Dragon-assisted pieces “To Binge” and “Empire Ant” when all is said and done).
Being such fans of the oddly mesmerizing jump-off that was “Stylo”, with featured guest Bobby Womack‘s crazed soul-man beltings, the cut we most anticipated upon Beach‘s release was Womack’s second contribution to the project, as we were swept away with intrigue on how else the Gorillaz could fancifully utilize the R&B veteran’s talents.
Tucked near the end of the album, that record, “Cloud of Unknowing”, ultimately ends up the rewarding experience we hoped it to be.
Bookended by the soothing sounds of cawing seagulls and crashing waves, the track beautifully captures a pensive moment of one man sitting beachside, his toes digging into the sand and his gaze fixed upward into the sky’s starry abyss, trying to figure out it all.
“On the cloud of unknowing/ My world seems open/ Every satellite up here is wanting/ But I was here from the very start,” Womack muses, his funereal moan tinged with an aching twang. What he’s going on about, you feel like you need a half-drunken bottle of wine and a bruised heart to completely understand, but there’s no mistaking the piercing his vocals do your emotional core, especially when accompanied by Damon Albarn and the East Midlands-based sinfonia ViVa‘s spaced-out, classical composition.
Peep the standout below, than enjoy two of our favorite B. Wo tracks ever: his 1976 single “Daylight” (the ideal theme song for anyone who can’t let the night life go so easily) and his soul-tastic take on the Neil Diamond karaoke staple, “Sweet Caroline” (“bah, bah, bah…”).
As nice as it is to get free music, think of how much better your soul would feel if you purchased it the old-fashioned way.
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(MP3 posts are for promotional and/ or previewing purposes only; if any artist or their representation wish to have the links removed, contact me and I will happily comply!)
As if to remind the public that he’s good for more than just over-the-top sex jams, R. Kelly steers in a Sam Cooke-inspired vintage soul direction on fantastic new single “When A Woman Loves”, a classy, “grown folks R&B” ballad that finds him showering praise on his woman’s undying devotion towards him, even after all those times he’s been a pure knucklehead and failed her. 
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