Even if Jazmine Sullivan‘s 2008 debut, the Gold-selling and Grammy-nominated Fearless, wasn’t littered with strong, neo-classic entries like The Best Lauryn Hill Song Not Recorded By Lauryn Hill first single “Need U Bad” or the melodramatic Broadway-soul ballads “Bust Your Windows” and “Lions, Tigers & Bears”, the newcomer was destined to be a standout anyway, her throaty and rasp-tinged alto offering a pleasant throwback to the similarly distinctive-toned R&B divas of yester-decade (Toni Braxton, Anita Baker, the aforementioned Hill) and an appreciated change of pace from the high-pitched, caterwauling sirens that surround her these days.
On new single “Holding You Down (Goin’ In Circles)”, the first taste of her upcoming sophomore collection Love Me Back, Sullivan further proves why she’s needed now, reminding one of the pleasures of ’90′s R&B as she strains her deep, husky pipes in the frustration of unrequited passion (“Its a shame that you don’t care enough to even give me half the love I give to you/ I live for you baby”) to an ever-evolving smorgasbord of that era’s best-of urban contemporary sounds (the latest nostalgia-fueled production from Missy Elliott).
Can (relatively) slow-burning hip hop-soul joints like these please start making a comeback into radio playlists? There’s only so much fist-pumping one can do in a day.
Hear the Fat Joe-aided remix of the track, as well as the Stonebridge Club edit of her Daft Punk-sampling “Dream Big” (hey, fist-pumpers can still be good…on occasion), below.
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”.
Eve kicked 2010 off with the announcement that she was parting ways with long-time label Interscope and re-entering the studio to start piecing together a new new incarnation of her long-delayed fourth LP; in response, we couldn’t even muster up the mildest of shrugs.
Why, you may ask? Let’s just say it’s hard getting excited anymore over the potential release of an album that has been promised to drop every year for the past three years now (let’s not forget that the project’s one-time lead single, the still-amazing “Tambourine”, arrived waaaay back in 2007).
If the set (now entitled Lip Lock) does manage to make it’s way to stores sometime before we have to start shopping for 2011 calendars though, we hope it follows through on the somewhat intriguing idea of her going after atypical soundscapes (like the Salaam Remi/ Benga dubstep beat she pasted her vocals on on the ’09 leak “Me N My”), rather than feature ho-hum repeatings of the tried-and-true, a category in which the newly leaked “Fire” falls.
Don’t get us wrong, as far as re-igniting the interest of faded-away audiences, “Fire” does a decent job: Its backing beat gives a sleek, Southern(-rap)-fried spin to White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army” instrumental; the hook (“All y’all can spell my name/ E-V-E, ain’t nothing changed”) carries a certain double-dutch chant charm; and, in Eve’s rhymes, there’s a flicker of that old “pitbull in a skirt” we first fell in love with over ten years ago as she coolly dismisses grapevine gab of her retiring from the rap game (“What, you thought I gave it up?/ Like I was done and over?/ Guess I done fucked up your luck/ Better throw out your four leaf clover…”).
It’s just that, in our heads, we’d much rather have this street buzz-ish banger be the jump-off for a comeback-themed mixtape collection, where it could help build excitement for an official LP full of true game-changing efforts in a similar vein as aforementioned delights “Tambourine” and “Me N My”.
British electro-pop singer/ songwriter/ producer Dan Black shook up the music blog scene back in 2008 with his mash-up-to-the-next-level “HYPNTZ”, a half-sung cover of Notorious BIG’s “Hypnotize” backed by an entrancing beat that merged bits of Rihanna’s “Umbrella” with parts of the soundtrack to John Carpenter’s 1984 sci-fi flick Starman. In short, the aural patchwork was utterly brilliant, the kind of stop-you-in-your-tracks introductory record that instantly had you eager to hear more of what this genre-blurring newbie (a sort of modern-day Beck) had to offer in the future.
Two years later, on the eve of the U.S. premiere of his all-originals debut UN (due February 16th, and featuring the Kid Cudi-featured remix of his non-Biggie-”borrowing” “HYPNTZ” rewrite “Symphonies”), Black has put together six more of these dope mix-and-match creations for his new (and free!!) mixtape Weird Science.
You can fnd the entire set here, but check out a couple of our highlights, the Madonna & Kate Bush-fusing “Gimme Into The Cloudbusting” and “Slave To Paper” (a gorgeous synthesis of some hazy 80′s pop number, Dizzee Rascal’s “Stand Up Tall” and a teeny-weeny drum snippet of Missy Elliott’s “Beep Me 911″) below:
Jack Splash has quietly made a name for himself over the past few years in his roles as singer, rapper, songwriter and producer.
Besides drawing raving acclaim for his contributions to Plantlife, a wildly entertaining, three-albums-deep funk outfit based out of L.A., he’s also hooked up some of the brightest talents in modern-day R&B (Alicia Keys, R. Kelly, John Legend, Raheem DeVaughn, Solange, Estelle, Jennifer Hudson, Jazmine Sullivan) with these amazingly lush sounds and classic-tinged romantic scripts steeped in the always-rewarding luster of yesteryear soul (credits include throwback-seasoned singles like Keys’ “Teenage Love Affair”, Legend’s “P.D.A.” and Solange’s “T.O.N.Y.”).
This year has the potential to be Jack’s true breakout year though, thanks to the premiere of his much-delayed solo debut, Technology And Love Might Save It All. But just in case you’re still not yet completely sold on why it should be a necessity for you to circle the May release date of the project (or, hell, are still scratching your head trying to figure out who dude is), we’ve gathered three previously unleashed cuts for your listening pleasure below. Promises you’ll be an instant fan after hearing them:
“I Could Have Loved You” featuring Missy Elliott & Jazmine Sullivan
-leaked to high praise last summer, this infectious four-on-the-floor delight finds the ladies and Splash in the midst of a flirtatious stand-off. “I could have loved you,” they tease in a buttery smoove R&B hook, but because they’re both already attached, they can only offer a naughty twirl on the dancefloor. With their mates nowhere in sight though, Jack isn’t fully convinced they’re telling the truth, inquiring in his best Prince voice, “If you gotta man at home/ Why you got them high heels on?”.
-here, Splash is once again on the prowl (“Baby I just wanna get with you/ In a most familiar way/ I don’t wanna cause a spectacle/ I just had to stop and say…”) and being flanked by a supporting cast of A-listers (T-Pain drops a rap verse, an Auto-Tuned Kellz provides the chorus); but the track’s most noteworthy element is it’s oddly meshed groove, a surprisingly effective combination of synth-R&B quirk and acoustic guitar sunniness
-Splash’s latest leakage, from the forthcoming mixtape King of The Beats (due this week), re-teams him with The Heart Attack partner Cee-Lo, for an exquisite dishing of needly guitar funk, golden age mic braggadocio (“I ain’t talkin’ bout a gun/ My .38 special, I spit from my tongue…”) and the kind of soul-stirring Gnarls Barkley-ish hooks Cee handles so well.
On the recently leaked “Fast Car”, a quick-paced, pop-leaning shuffler that feels like it was constructed in the mad scientist lab of a Gnarls Barkley, Andre 3000 or k-os (note it’s production similarities to the latter rapper’s “Sunday Morning”), the Queen adopts a half-sung/ half-rapped vocal as she yearns for a man to fly her away through the stars so she can “forget all the bullshit” that’s suffocating her on the ground below.
And while it’s an extremely catchy creation (who doesn’t dig a clap-happy groove or a freakalicious Missy Elliott cameo featuring raunchy lines about “fruit cocktail” or “poon poon”?) and much in line with the rappa-ternt-(pop)sanga trend that’s been devouring the game for years now, “Fast Car”, like “Rain”, only really works when you try to mentally blank out the fact that it’s a Queen Latifah record, which is really kind of a sad truth.
So what in the hell is really going on with Missy?
From ’96 to ’06, the rapper/ singer/ songwriter/ producer/ “hee-hee”-ist was the life of the (hip hop) party, consistently freaking our inner-spirits with her seemingly endless gifts of visually-stunning music videos, amazing lead singles, WTF rap lines (Who could forget “Beep beep/ Who got the keys to the jeep?/ Vrooooom…”?) and nonsensical mouth-noised catchphrases. But not since the manic electro-hop romp “Lose Control” has Elliott given us anything truly noteworthy.
Yeah, those two singles from the Step Up 2 soundtrack were okay, in a watered-down-”Work It” sorta way, but the sporadic guest raps and leaked future album material she’s been serving the past few years have felt increasingly uninspired, too focused on lame references to her booty jiggle and not attentive enough to the “next level” ish that’s so sick it would leave our mouths dry and our brains a pile a mush.
Our concerns are further heightened with her most recent leakage, “Rather”, a fairly ordinary R&B ballad (!!) in which she urges a boyfriend to stay at home with her and watch a DVD instead of going out doing all kinds of debaucherous things with his friends (?????).
It’s not necessarily a bad record, rocking a fine acoustic guitar groove and highlighting her still-buttery smoove singing voice, but it’s definitely better fitted for protogees Tweet (what ever happened to her?) or Jazmine Sullivan, not for the “Supa Dupa Fly” rap diva who has kept us waiting for a bonafide Y4K club-rocker for far too long.
While we’re just gonna go ahead and assume that this is a late-in-the-tracklisting album cut and not the first taste of a maturing Missy preparing some sort of Mary J Blige-like full-on R&B album, we still must vocalize our pleas: for the sake of female rap, Miss “Misdemeanor” PLEASE give us something new (and hip hop!!) that’ll rock our collective socks off.
Missy Elliott and producer Danja help guide Ciara back to her electro-crunk & b roots on (the somewhat under-performing) Fantasy Ride‘s second international single “Work”, an overtime-working futuro-runway strut built on club-aimed inspiri-chants (“You better shake that thang like a donkey/ And go hard for it bitch, you better work…”) and one of those manic galactic grooves any normal, non-Ciara person would probably find difficult to keep up with on the dancefloor.
But while it provides a much better artist-to-track fit than Ride’s previous singles, the slightly limp midtempo ballad “Never Ever” and the underwhelming FutureSex leftover “Love Sex Magic”, “Work” has a little too much going on, never really quite gelling as a comfortable whole.
The out-of-breath 4/4 hook slams and there’s a certain charm in Ciara’s sassy, L’Trimm B-girl-isms, but that’s about all to note that’s completely positive here.
Firstly, the lacking of a second sung verse only makes us wish that Ci-Ci would’ve omitted the opening verse altogether and just spent the whole time doling out double-dutch raps as the differing vocal performances on the verses presented here feel odd and disjointed.
Secondly, Missy (sporting a wacky Mad Max mullet in the accompanying video) unfortunately re-reminds us that her best creative days might really be behind her after contributing another one of those pedestrian, hype-woman guest turns she’s been fancying for over a year now here (Lines as elementary as “hee-hee-how” or “Beep Beep/ Who got the keeps to the jeep?” feel like Bob Dylan penmanship in comparison to the uninspired drivel she’s recently been dishing).
And thirdly, Danja’s ever-mutating production annoyingly teeters between genius, mad scientist studio wizardry and an over-the-top, overwhelming mess the track’s entire length, never once allowing us the breathing room to decide whether it’s the former or latter.
Yeah, it’s nice to hear Ciara attempting to return to a sound where she excels and, again, “Work” is perhaps the most instantly gratifying single released from Fantasy so far, but the overall lack of focus presented is hard to easily ignore, and that nagging sense of disappointment ultimately dulls the whole listening experience.
In response to the suddenly revived blog interest in The Gossip’s years-old cover of Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody”, here’s a couple other not-so-new, but still impressive, indie-dressed remakes of old R&B hits that are equally deserving of some re-pimping:
Rio En Medio “Let’s Groove (Earth Wind & Fire Cover)”
Coming off of a mid-to-late-’70′s peak commercial period that produced such R&B classics/ deathless wedding reception staples as “Shining Star”, “Got To Get You Into My Life”, “Boogie Wonderland” and “September”, Earth Wind & Fire were no doubt left more than a little frustrated as the turn of the decade saw their big band disco/ funk style feeling increasingly dated.
Determined to stay relevant in a genre that was growing more and more dependent on an electronic-based sound, EWF managed to score one last great hurrah with 1981′s feel-good “Let’s Groove”, a post-disco disco epic carefully crafted to reference the band’s previously winning sound while given enough of a slightly futuro-funk sheen to as not appear completely “old-school”.
Last year, wispy voiced indie-folk chanteuse Rio En Medio (aka New Mexico-born Danielle Stech-Homsky) released a stupefyingly brilliant recreation of the dancefloor favorite that found her using nothing but handclaps and circuitous layers of doo-woppy mouth-noise in place of the original’s extravagant instrumentation.
Try not to get lost in the dizzying delight of the most “groove”-iest musical art project you’ll ever hear.
When it comes to that mind-blowingly “next next level” rap shit, everyone knows that Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott is the one to seek out; but the “supa dupa fly” diva’s R&B side dishes rarely ever get as much shine, even though they consistently deliver interesting, buttery smoove renditions of the oft-generic form.
On her underrecognized 1998 treasure “All N My Grill”, Elliott’s silky vocal slides alongside lightning bolt-like strings stabs while demanding “If you want me/ Where’s my dough?/ Give me money/ Buy me clothes” to a deadbeat old lover she’s well aware doesn’t have the funds. At one point she even emerges as a possible influence of Sasha Fierce when she urges the reconcilation-craving homeboy to “show me a ring”.
In the hands of Peggy Sue (via the enjoyable “indieghetto” online series), the combination of a downbeat acoustic folk reading and vocalists Rosa Rex and Katy Klaw’s moody, back-and-forth soul wailings strip away Elliott’s hood-toughened confidence for a tender vulnerability, adding some striking emotional depth to a track that had initially carried it’s appeal solely on the surface.
The Tapemasters crew recently unleashed the twenty-sixth installment of their The Future In R&B mixtape series, and as usual, it’s jampacked with the hottest in today’s urban/ soul. But amongst the usual suspects found within it’s tracklisting, the two that stand out the most at face value come from a couple of 90′s R&B stars who’ve saw their respective commercial footholds slip a couple notches in recent years. Might Ginuwine and Brandy have the fire necessary to re-claim their positions in the higher reaches of the singles charts?
First up, we have Ginuwine’s “Get Involved”. Set to be the second single off his forthcoming sixth album, A Man’s Thoughts, the track finally delivers what fans have been waiting for for years: a reunion between the stage-sliding, hip hop-soul Lothario and the “dynamic duo” who helped put him on the map way back when, Timbaland and Missy Elliott.
And from the instant it hits the speaker, the track burns, rocking a sweaty disco groove that peaks into an ecstactic delirium for the chorus as Gin, Tim and Missy all threaten to release their inner-freaks on the public. Yeah, it’s a bit sad to hear Ginuwine barely registering on a track in which he’s credited as lead, but who’s really concerned about minor gripes like that when we are gifted with Missy treating us with yet another one of her silly, but always in-demand, gabbledygook-filled verses (“Yeah you know I’m a freak-a-deek-leek/ Heavy D, tweet-a-deet-didda-a-deet-dee…”) and get to hear one of the best R&B forces of the late ’90′s side-by-side again.
For Brandy and her cut “Decisions”, a slow-burning duet with the Midas-touched Ne-Yo, the results are equally as pleasant.
Despite receiving critical kudos, Brandy’s last album, the mature and pop ballad heavy Human ended up being a major under-performer, it’s overt distancing from the day’s R&B trends perhaps a major factor in it’s lack of mainstream success. But if “Decisions” is to be looked as a precursor to her next project, she shouldn’t have any problems winning some of her old masses back.
Over a backing track that will cause more than a few people to have flashbacks of Ciara’s slinky “Promise”, Brandy and Ne-Yo rely on the old angel on one shoulder/ devil on the other gimmick to express whether or not they should hook up with one another, despite already being in relationships with other people. “You got a good man on your side and you know that he don’t deserve it,” the (still-)enchantingly smoky-voiced Brandy internalizes, only to completely change her stance a breath later: “How can a man get hurt when he don’t even know that it happened?”.
It’s difficult to think of the teenybopper that once trilled about “sittin’ up in her room” now having grown-up infidelity thoughts (we know, we know, it’s been over ten years…), but throwback “Moesha”-era fondness aside, we’re completely digging this (and privately hoping that Ne-Yo will be employed further on the next album).
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.
*
Come on, use Amazon or iTunes and help support your favorite artists so they can continue to give us the great sounds we love.
*
(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!)
Even if Jazmine Sullivan‘s 2008 debut, the Gold-selling and Grammy-nominated Fearless, wasn’t littered with strong, neo-classic entries like The Best Lauryn Hill Song Not Recorded By Lauryn Hill first single “Need U Bad” or the melodramatic Broadway-soul ballads “Bust Your Windows” and “Lions, Tigers & Bears”, the newcomer was destined to be a standout anyway, her throaty and rasp-tinged alto offering a pleasant throwback to the similarly distinctive-toned R&B divas of yester-decade (Toni Braxton, Anita Baker, the aforementioned Hill) and an appreciated change of pace from the high-pitched, caterwauling sirens that surround her these days.
Though Queen Latifah’s forthcoming ninth studio effort 
So what in the hell is really going on with Missy?
Rio En Medio “Let’s Groove (Earth Wind & Fire Cover)”
Peggy Sue “All N My Grill (Missy Elliott Cover)”
The Tapemasters crew recently unleashed the twenty-sixth installment of their The Future In R&B mixtape series, and as usual, it’s jampacked with the hottest in today’s urban/ soul. But amongst the usual suspects found within it’s tracklisting, the two that stand out the most at face value come from a couple of 90′s R&B stars who’ve saw their respective commercial footholds slip a couple notches in recent years. Might Ginuwine and Brandy have the fire necessary to re-claim their positions in the higher reaches of the singles charts?
Recent Comments