Featuring nine non-sappy “dedicated to the ladies” cuts coolly baked in a summery, ’90′s neo-soul & boom bap chill, To…From…, the debut project from Cali-based hip hop trio Tomorrow, Yesterday, arrives just in time as salvation for those concerned over where they’ll get their new new-Native Tongues fix post-Slum Village’s recent deterioration.
Most recommended? The Pharcyde-meets-Dwele mid-set joint “Fight”, which makes good use of the umpteenth sampling of Michael Jackson’s tender Thriller ballad “The Lady In My Life” for members Yep and T.i.E’s playful look at how silly relationship squabbles can lead to the most intense make-up sex sessions (“We can yell loud now/ Yell loud later/ Two different ways/ But they both wake the neighbors”).
Hear the cut below, then download the rest of the excellent To…From… (for FREE) here.
Following in the footpath of Q-Tip, who threw props to the King of Pop via borrowed groove and music video inspiration on his 2008 single “Move”, Method Man’s dro bro Redman makes a triumphant comeback from the edges of our memories with his own MJ-tributing new offering “Lookin’ Fly”, a braggalicious entry made oh-so-slick thanks to it’s sampling of The Jackson’s 1980 post-disco sizzler “This Place Hotel”, while boasting a clip highlighted by some of Mike’s most memorable visuals.
And just in case you were wondering if Redman had lost his comedic flair in his…erm, mature age (the rapper hit the big 4-0 this year!!!), chuckle-worthy lines like “Open your eyelids/ You see the bedpans all around?/ That mean it’s real sick in my crib” prove the man still knows how to bring the wit.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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”.
To have Wu Tang MVP’s Ghostface, Method Man and Raekwon all together on one track, rocking their usually winning thug-in-love swagger atop a shimmering ’70′s soul loop, made “Our Dreams”, an early preview of the trio’s highly anticipated joint offering Wu-Massacre, an immediate win; and if we had to point out the track’s true star, hands down it would have to be “hook guest” Michael Jackson (the song samples his 1975 solo hit “We’re Almost There”), melting our hearts all over again with the awe-inspiring ways of his then-16-year-old pipes.
So why, after noting all the praise-worthy elements the original has, do we consider a remix version replacing MJ with Alicia Keys the better grab? Simple: A better production polish.
The one thing keeping us from completely loving the original was it’s mixtape-level beat-crafting: More specifically, the awkward chorus-to-verse transitioning. Whether this was done on purpose to retain a certain street edge or was an early rough draft misstep ultimately left alone doesn’t matter, because the jarring cuts completely erupt the song’s flow.
Thankfully, the “Ant Acid Mix” rights this distraction, mashing M/G/R’s verses with Alicia Keys’ cover of “Almost There” (a bonus offering from last year’s The Element of Freedom) with far smoother (and therefore aurally satisfying) results.
Hear the original here, grab the “Ant Acid Mix” and the full Alicia cover below.
Just in time for last week’s obsession with all things Halloween-related (we know, we’re a little late here, but…so what), Imogen Heap (better known these days as the best part about Jason DeRulo’s otherwise forgettable current-hit “Whatcha Say”) performed a cover version of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” for a radio event, and in the context of a haunting piano ballad with Heap’s breathy yelps attaching a bone-chilling sense of tension to every single syllable of the song’s spook-filled lyric, it registered as a surprisingly amazing rendition of something that would seem un-cover-able.
Incidentally, it was when listening to her version, that we discovered an intriguing, and oft-overlooked, aspect to the original that had never once caught our attention in the billions of time it had met our eardrums over the years.
Now, we get that when one thinks of “Thriller”, it’s quite difficult to try to disassociate it away from being the musical foundation behind one of the greatest music videos (and choreography breaks) of all time, but has anyone ever really just listened to the song? We mean, like, REALLY LISTENED to it?
It’s an actual song about monsters that are killing people, yes, but has anyone ever noticed the cleverly pimp-ish way MJ sneaks in lines about how he’ll be the one to save you from the horrors of ghouls and goblins if you just cuddle with him, before dishing “I can thrill you more than any ghost would ever dare try/…So let me hold you tight and share a…thriller with me tonight”.
Past all the sheer (but oh-so-brilliant) absurdity of Halloween-time frights and a Vincent Price “rap” clothed in a post-disco R&B/ funk boogie, “Thriller” was also all about MJ trying to get in some girl’s drawls!!! (Instead of “Thriller night”, think “Thrill-her night” and it’ll all make sense).
If nothing else, this new revelation only re-reminds us of the pop genius that MJ was, especially considering the fact that if one of today’s big-named pop or R&B male artists had attempted something like this first, you just know that in an effort to not appear so corny, the monster shtick would have been greatly toned down with the sex element hyped the hell up (with a likely far less memorable, and expensive, video clip to accompany it).
LL Cool J has always had this amazing ability to go years without dropping anything really worthwhile, then out of nowhere bust out with a gem that makes you re-realize how much of a respectable hip hop icon he is. His latest release, the MJ-tributing “Billie Jean Dream” is one of those records.
Atop “BJ”‘s still dynamite instrumental, LL relates a dream-inspired fantasy in which he’s viewing the world through Mike’s eyes, and through crisp lyricism, he effectively reminds the bling-adorned emcees of today that when it comes to swagger, no one on the corner could beat the King of Pop.
“Iced out glove on a Bentley wheel/ Look at how I’m spinnin’, your boy’s so real/ Number one in the world, imagine how it feel/ To hit up Sony for a billion on a deal”, he opens, one of many highlights of a solid single verse that references everything from MJ’s shrewd businessman chops (“Buy out the Beatles/ Tell Paul to chill…”) to how he might have felt towards the overabundance of Mike wannabes in the current pop/ R&B market (“All of y’all emanate from one source/ Try to imitate it, but you can’t pull it off”).
A brilliant nod from one G.O.A.T. to another, this easily lands as one of the best MJ tributes we’ve heard so far in a year sure to bring plenty more. Hell, it’s so good, we’ve now actually become super excited for LL’s next project. Color us surprised.
This past weekend, understandably, saw countless MJ tribute/ covers emerging all across the Web as various artists, producers and DJ’s scrambled to their respective studios, anxious to pay some sort of musical homage to their idol. And while we promise that this site won’t be housing too many of them, we couldn’t pass up on sharing one of the best of the bunch: The Roots and Erykah Badu’s dazzling rendition of Mike’s 1972 solo hit, “I Wanna Be Where You Are”.
Erykah has pulled off great remakes in the past (highlights from her stellar ’97 Live album included amazing takes on Mary Jane Girls’ “All Night Long”, Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights” and Chaka Khan’s “Stay”), and this gem, recorded prior to her guest appearance on last Friday’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, is no different, raising your spirits to a blissful crest with it’s hypnotizing merging of her expert vocal performance and The Roots’ jazzy support groove.
If we had to pick one track we were most excited about from Discovery‘s long-awaited debut, aside from recently realized addiction “So Insane”, it would have to be the album’s proposed cover of Jackson 5′s “I Want You Back”.
It’s no secret how much we adore cover songs around here, and it should be stated that we geek off crazy over anything Jackson-related (hell, we give Rebbie Jackson’s underappreciated hit, the MJ-assisted “Centipede”, at least one good spin a week), so yeah…the idea of this definitely excited us.
Then we actually listened to it.
Now, don’t get us wrong, not all of Discovery’s remake effort is tragic as there’s a certain delight in the sound of “I Want You Back”‘s familiar bassline slowly moving to the forefront in the intro, followed by an exciting explosion of shimmery electro-pop noise around the :30 mark. But shortly after that arrives the beginnings of this strangled, computerized croon and instantly, it’s like someone pierced our joy balloon with a rusty shank.
We understand how difficult it might be in grown men perfectly replicating the bright chops of a young Michael Jackson, but couldn’t the Auto-Tune/ vocoder effects (or whatever the hell was used here) been passed over just this once?
We’re still Discovery fans, but we have to give this one a low grade just because it let us down so hard.
With every other young male pop or R&B singer making it their purpose to record Michael Jackson-esque tunes, the King of Pop himself will seem like a trend follower when he launches his own inevitable comeback. The latest single to feel like it was left on the Off The Wall editing room floor is “Nasty Girl”, a halfway-pleasant disco-soul entry from R&B newcomer Sterling Simms.
All wah-wah bass, teasing guitar and falsetto lust, “Nasty Girl” expertly takes on the groove of late ’70′s R&B but ultimately lacks the joy and wonder that made those arrangements so illustrious and timeless. Getting the vibe only somewhat right, Simms and his producers settle for a uniform stab at neo-disco that doesn’t carry the sinful fire and innate sensuality the sound is known for. The stiff premise snags onto lame New Jack Swing lines (“The way that dress is on your body/ It ain’t no secret what I wanna do”) and a singular attempt at Prince-like double entendre that’s dead on arrival (“I can see it in your face girl/ That you really wanna come”) while Simms’ lifeless vocal fails to excite against a vibrant arrangement that’s stuck in first gear.
Most of the problem with neo-soul is that the artists’ of it’s ilk were too retro to appeal to modern listeners but not retro enough to really be all that satisfying. Even though “Nasty Girl” would apply more in a neo-disco context, Simms still falls into the same predicament. A little more effort and this could’ve been an electric affair, instead it’s noticeable shortcomings make it feel ten times worse than it really should be. I guess if cats keep doing Michael this badly, the real MJ won’t have to try so hard to win our embrace next time.
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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Featuring nine non-sappy “dedicated to the ladies” cuts coolly baked in a summery, ’90′s neo-soul & boom bap chill, To…From…, the debut project from Cali-based hip hop trio Tomorrow, Yesterday, arrives just in time as salvation for those concerned over where they’ll get their new new-Native Tongues fix post-Slum Village’s recent deterioration. 
Just in time for last week’s obsession with all things Halloween-related (we know, we’re a little late here, but…so what), Imogen Heap (better known these days as the best part about Jason DeRulo’s otherwise forgettable 
LL Cool J has always had this amazing ability to go years without dropping anything really worthwhile, then out of nowhere bust out with a gem that makes you re-realize how much of a respectable hip hop icon he is. His latest release, the MJ-tributing “Billie Jean Dream” is one of those records.
This past weekend, understandably, saw countless MJ tribute/ covers emerging all across the Web as various artists, producers and DJ’s scrambled to their respective studios, anxious to pay some sort of musical homage to their idol. And while we promise that this site won’t be housing too many of them, we couldn’t pass up on sharing one of the best of the bunch: The Roots and 
If we had to pick one track we were most excited about from 
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