Still obsessed with kick-starting a solo career that no one really cares to hear, head Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger’s latest singular career move sees her popping up on the “official” remix to Pitbull’s party rap, infidelity-anthem “Hotel Room Service”…because what we all really needed was a verse-long female perspective on a song in which Pitbull gleefully explains where on his multiple sex partners’ bodies he would like to plant his “egg whites”.
Pitbull is nice enough to keep this new uni-sex version clean though, penning up a brand new, far less titillating verse where all that ejaculation talk is omitted. But Nicole’s breathless contribution in which she mostly focuses on the perks of the room (“Penthouse, top-floor/ Suite, presidential/ Overlook the whole city/ Standing from my window”) feels like a waste of opportunity.
All that time spent leading the “Blow-Up” Dolls, and she can’t give us at least a smigden of Lil’ Kim, circa ‘96, lady raunch? Shame shame, Nicole. If was up to us, we would have completely bypassed her and just hired up one of those cruelly under-appreciated background Dolls she so yearns to distance herself from. They’re so desperate to break out from the shadows that we bet one of them would have brought the nasty stuff this kind of track begs for (complete with expert hoochie ballet choreography for the accompanying video clip).
Wale excitingly recreates the jubilant mood of the African parties he attended in his youth (he’s of Nigerian blood) on the recently released “My Sweetie (Spray It)”, a feel-good party jam built on a sampling of Bunny Mack’s 1979 African disco classic “My Sweety, My Sugar (Let Me Love You)” that’s definitely got us re-inspired to cop his official debut Attention: Deficit after being left slightly underwhelmed by it’s uncomfortably radio-targeting jump-off single, “Chillin’”.
“If your last name’s got thirteen letters in it-this one’s for you”, Wale rhymes over the sample’s contagiously rhythmic merriment, revealing how he keeps parties live and nabs the finest ladies with ease while armed with his trusty Guinness and Dr. Pepper blend, “more green than Whole Foods” and pocket-bulging rolls of cash money he carelessly tosses into the air to rain on the ecstatic dancing masses like confetti.
After listening to this heat (helmed by the ill Apple Juice Kid, one up-and-coming producer it would be best to keep an eye on in the future), you’ll be begging for someone to make you their “plus one” to the next one of these functions.
The Black Eyed Peas‘ latest single “Boom Boom Pow” hasn’t even been on radio for two whole months yet and it’s already devoured the airwaves, become one of the biggest downloads of the season and is currently spending it’s third week atop the Hot 100. Didn’t take long for the quartet to reclaim their position as one of pop music’s most ubiquitous entities, did it?
But as much as we all enjoy taking another trip back to the party-centric electro terrain of “Planet Rock” (even if it is attached to vapid rhymes about HD screens and being “so 3008″ here), is anybody else out there suffering from futuro-pop fatigue and all of it’s Auto-Tuned “next level” promises right about now? Hell, will we ever reach that “level” so we can move onto something new, or would that “new” basically consist of a return to backwards-focused exercises in old Beatles pop/ Motown soul again for a few years before the pendulum swings back to every one attempting to rock what Y4K-circa music will be? How will that even sound?
While you sit on those thoughts, catch the (somewhat underwhelming) clip for “Boom Boom Pow” below, than snatch up the incredibly…um, next level (?) B Flat remix afterward. The kid is only 18 and he’s a remixing monster. Need proof? Head on over to his MySpace to hear his amazing dancefloor re-works of Raheem DeVaughn’s “Customer” and Cherrelle and Alexander O’Neal’s 80’s R&B classic, “Saturday Love”.
“Boom Boom Pow”’s parent album, The E.N.D. (Energy Never Dies) , drops June 9th.
For this upgrade to his late ‘08-leaked Weezy-assist “Up In The Club”, Swizz Beatz trades in the obscure, mid-90’s Brit-pop sample reference of the original for the far more familiar old-school knock of “It Takes Two”, effectively transforming “Club” from a mild head-nodder to a surefire banger.
No alcohol in your system? No problem, as this track’s delirious combination of a Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock swipe, “Don’t stop! Get it, get it!” hype-man chants, Wayne’s Auto-Tuned trills and a sturdy Busta verse that starts with the classic line “I wanna rock right now…” could bring even the bone sober to drunken-like heights of giddy euphoria.
Swizz may not be…hell, anyone’s favorite emcee, but when it comes to rocking a party and rocking it right, you can’t argue that the man doesn’t know how to deliver the goods.
The never-ending reports concerning our current nightmare of an economy got you down this holiday season? Well, here’s something that might lift those spirits a bit. After spending most of the year watering the mouths of music fans with a handful of individual cuts and accompanying live dates, Idle Warship, the alt-urban side-project featuring Talib Kweli, Res and, now, Canadian singer/ rapper Graph Nobel, have plans to drop a mixtape set sometime soon.
The first taste off that project is “Steady”, a “fame isn’t all it’s cracked up to be” cautionary built on a Paisley Park hand-clap shuffle and the still-spine-tingling synth-paranoia of 80’s New Wave staple “Sunglasses At Night”. Pulling back the curtains behind the paparazzo flashes and big buck bank accounts, Idle reveal a far less glitzy wasteland filled with the trampled-on and soul-sapped. “I didn’t know the game/ I just knew I could play/ You build me up like a team/ I represented the dream,” Res reflects on her naive industry beginnings, but after veering thisclose to losing herself while in dogged pursuit of the glamorous life, she quickly revamps her life plan: “I got to fight for my name/…No more doin’ what you say”.
In addition, there’s the haunting distant cries of “Murder”, a half-singing Talib inquiring “Is it the sex or the drugs?/ Which poison you choose?” and Graph running down a mocking list of random celeb-isms while shouting out her crew and declaring, “Yeah I said it, I’m avant-garde!!”.
Another stand-out creation from this increasingly on-fire trio.
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!)
Still obsessed with kick-starting a solo career that no one really cares to hear, head Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger’s latest singular career move sees her popping up on the “official” remix to Pitbull’s party rap, infidelity-anthem “Hotel Room Service”…because what we all really needed was a verse-long female perspective on a song in which Pitbull gleefully explains where on his multiple sex partners’ bodies he would like to plant his “egg whites”.
Wale excitingly recreates the jubilant mood of the African parties he attended in his youth (he’s of Nigerian blood) on the recently released “My Sweetie (Spray It)”, a feel-good party jam built on a sampling of Bunny Mack’s 1979 African disco classic 
The 
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