Apparently Robyn thinks she’s Sade, what with the way she’s been cruelly holding out on releasing a new album (It may have only been five years since Robyn first hit stores, but that’s like, what, a thousand lifetimes in pop music time). Hopefully, though, the wait may be over sooner rather than later, as a possible early preview of the still-untitled LP has made it’s inevitable way to the Internets recently.
Previously sampled in it’s early stages via a brief YouTube clip back in December, the Diplo-helmed “No Hassle” casts Robyn as a patois-adopting “dancehall queen”, turning heads and garnering various shout-outs with the way she winds her body to the DJ’s hypnotic reggae-pop groove; all that she asks is that you don’t bother her while she’s lost in the rhythm’s “boom boom boom”.
Compared to Robyn’s previous catalogue highlights, “No Hassle” does seem a bit lacking in “wow” moments (Diplo’s production provides a mostly basic exercise of the dubstep/ dancehall sound), but that’s neither here nor there considering it carries a sturdy amount of pop hookiness and, hell, is A…NEW…ROBYN…JAM.
While most of Sade’s unsurprisingly exquisite (and equally unsurprisingly pre-leaked) comeback platter Soldier of Love lands as the go-to soundtrack for one to drown all their post-break-up sorrows to (the bleak scenario of having to let go of a lover you’re nowhere near ready to be separated from is one of it’s main recurring themes), it doesn’t completely reside in the land of heartache and woe.
Four tracks in, the band offer a welcome flash of optimism with album highlight “Babyfather”, a touching mother-to-child ode in which Miss Adu is found reassuring her daughter that she’ll always be her father’s blue-ribbon prize.
Coasting upon a gentle, reggae-lite lilt (which like the single “Soldier of Love”, registers as an immediate surprise for how unlike a typical Sade joint it sounds), the song opens with Sade narrating a “love at first sight” scene between two strangers at the bus stop. Eventually we learn that she’s describing to her daughter how her parents first met, leading to heart-tugging lines “And so love grew a flower/ And that flower was you”, “Your daddy knows you’re a flame” and “Your daddy love come with a lifetime guarantee”.
Shades of darkness do surround “Babyfather” as it’s central theme brings about tabloid-y-like inquiries of whether or not we’re dealing with a woman doing her best to try to make up for a father’s absentee-ism, but it’s hard to let such seriousness get you down when your heart is too busy melting to “Babyfather”’s overall sweet-cored sunniness, especially once the out-of-nowhere children choir start piping in their own paternal adoration towards the song’s end.
Remember Collie Buddz? The white Bermudian had trunks rattling all across the globe waaaay back in 2007 with the release of his breakout single “Come Around”, a tokers’ anthem steeped in an old-fashioned reggae slow churn, but seemed to drop off the face of the Earth after his self-titled debut was met with less fanfare.
Well, after a few years toiling away in the more obscure corners of the mixtape scene, the singjay seems prepped for a minor comeback of sorts in 2010 with the recent unleashing of new single “Phonecall”, a Beatnick & K. Salaam-produced late-night booty call ode draped in the sensual allure of ’90’s-era slow jam R&B/ reggae.
And just as with “Come Around”, it’s “Phonecall”’s throwback-ish touch that lands as it’s greatest asset: it’s busy, albeit smoove, backing groove pleasingly triggering memories of the genre’s “Flex”/ “Mr. Lover Man” heyday as Collie croons through every steamy detail of the late-night sex session (“Said she wanna start with massage…”, “She wanna ride from side-to-side and on top…”).
Whether you smoke or not, promises you’ll be craving the comfort of a cigarette once this seductive jam has left your speakers.
Damn. Just when we were beginning to wish for Mark Ronson and his signature, retro-fixated sound to disappear for a bit so that we could get a chance to start to miss him, he would have to go and drop something that’s so brilliantly…well, retro-fixated, we start hoping for him to produce everything all over again.
The latest killer achievement to get us back on the Ronson bandwagon? A remix to Miike Snow’s “Animal” which, perhaps inspired by the slight reggae feel of the original, Mark completely drowns in a gently loping, throwback island groove. It’s amazing how natural singer Andrew Wyatt’s now highly reverbed vocals sound when locked into this context; so amazing in fact, one could probably be easily fooled into believing that this 2.0 take on “Animal” was actually originally recorded back in the ’60’s in some Jamaican recording studio.
Imagine the delicate falsetto of Eddie Kendricks delivering a love letter over a laidback rocksteady riddim and you would perfectly nail the vibe of Jamaican crooner Courtney John’s deliciously vintage-tinged new single “Lucky Man” (from his recently released third album, Made In Jamaica).
The gentle island ballad, currently rising up playlist charts everywhere from Miami and New York to Holland and Australia, nicely meshes the classic soul textures of Motown and reggae (love those subdued horns!!!), with John’s creamy-toned vocals providing the cherry on top as he revels in the midst of giddy romantic bliss (“Girl you know there’s no other place I’d be right now/ Holding hands with my baby…”).
If you’re currently with someone, listening to this will definitely have you wanting to stop whatever you’re doing and run off to be in their arms. If you’re single, bet you’ll be flipping through your cell’s contact list desperate to get back in touch with the last person that ever made you beam the way John does here.
Catch the video, backed by Courtney’s equally divine cover of the Car Wash/ Rose Royce classic “I Want To Get Next To You”, below.
Electrik Red’s “Top Rankin’” may be an unreleased cut from the girl group’s earlier days (the group actually formed way back in ‘05), but even with it’s age, it still serves as a nice companion to the other R&B goodies the ladies have given us so far this year.
The song is an updating of the 1978 Althea & Donna classic “Uptown Ranking”, to which the ladies of ER, as expected, embed a lip-licking, Vanity 6-like edge: “So you say you wanna a girl that can ride?/ Nice lips, thickness that’s nice/ Well I’m looking for a dude that can hang/ While I ride that — to the sun rise”.
Slightly icky references to “punanny pie” aside, like the original it’s based upon, “Top Rankin”‘’s sleepy dancehall thrust is inviting, effectively re-igniting our anticipation for the triple-degree-peaking summer days ahead.
Major Lazer is a side-project collaboration between revered DJ/ producers Diplo and Switch that will supposedly take their love for all things reggae and dancehall and give it a tantalizing digital wash. Unfortunately, the album, Guns Don’t Kill People…Lazers Do, isn’t due until June (lone teardrop), but the boys thankfully delivered an early 4/20-soundtracking gift (Props to Mad Decent!!) with the recent unleashing of dizzying cut “Hold The Line”.
Powered by a sharpened surf guitar loop and giddily decorated with all kinds of random sound effects (including horse cries and cell phone rings), “Hold The Line”’s modern island shuffle is quite overwhelming on first listen, but once one grows accustomed to it’s rapid-fire rhythm, and the accompanying skittish chants of featured guests Santigold and Mr. Lexx, with repeated listens, the busy bag o’ tricks displayed land as a very intoxicating concoction.
Reason No. 1,025 for why summer needs to be here like YESTERDAY?: The full release of this album. Frustrated sigh.
With Jazmine Sullivan’s “Lions, Tigers and Bears” finally being pushed as an official single (giving more and more a chance to witness it’s magnificence), odds are tons of remixes and remakes of it will be hitting our ears soon. Joining the expected onslaught early is this pseudo-cover from Rock City, a hip hop/ R&B/ reggae duo signed to Akon’s label, who take “Lions” in a rather interesting direction.
Avoiding the predictable “let’s just gender-swap the lyrics” move, RC do away with the song’s love theme altogether, instead choosing to focus their lyrical aim on the real-life nightmares of their Saint Thomas ghettos origin and how growing up amidst the constant threat of violence has shaped them into the hardened young men they are today (Revised chorus: “I’m not scared of lions and tigers and bears/ Cause I came from the jungle too/ I’m not scared of gunshots, although that seems rare/ It’s a sound that I’m used to…”).
Nowhere near as stellar as the original, but a nicely done re-do nonetheless.
A scan over the ‘09 Grammy nominations list brought upon the usual shock-and-awe reactions (MIA actually made it into Record of The Year!?!…Past Grammy fave Alicia Keys was NOT nodded in the Best R&B Album category!?!…), but none was as WTH!! as seeing old school rap heavyweight Heavy D sitting alongside Elephant Man, Sly & Robbie and Shaggy in the Best Reggae Album field.
Heavy D released a new album!?! And it was a REGGAE release? And it was good enough to earn some Grammy attention?
Turns out Heavydid (very quietly, it seems) drop his eighth studio effort recently, and that project, entitled Vibes, saw the “Now That We Found Love” rapper-turned-actor turning his full attention to the sultry sway of the island. What the bloodclot?!?
Below, catch the video to first single “Long Distance Girlfriend”, a surprisingly not-all-that-bad entry that finds him crooning (!!!) after his “faraway bay-bay” upon a quite addictive Jamaican jaunt (and it seems he’s not really all that “Heavy” anymore).
Hmmm…wonder how long it’s gonna be before Rihanna is called on for the remix.
Despite it’s head-scratch-inducing featuring of Shaggy (what is this, the year 2000?; was the usually ubiquitous Sean Paul’s line busy or something?), a backing beat that sounds a little too close to the 2007 Double Up album cut, “Freaky In The Club”, and the fact that it’s basically a lazy re-adaptation of the classic Mad Cobra number of the same name, R. Kelly’s latest leak, “Flex”, still turns out to be yet another one of his effortlessly Grade-A bump & grinders.
Kelly always knows where to go to put a listener in that kind of mood, and he doesn’t disappoint here with a silky, island hop of a groove that easily woos your body into some slow-twisting, suggestive rhythm. Of course, with this being a Pied Piper concoction, we’re served a bunch of lyrical gab not meant for a minor’s ears (though, in his case, you never know…) as well as mandatory stupid-dumb rhymes like “Lamborghini” and “white bikini”, but we’ll ignore his running-in-place creativity (not like we haven’t before) and try our best to temporarily withdraw from those embedded feelings of child-porn-associated ickiness since this surefire bedroom soundtracker rides so damn smooth. It’s just too bad he couldn’t have tracked down Mad Cobra and truly made this joint an official “Flex” redux.
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!)
Apparently Robyn thinks she’s Sade, what with the way she’s been cruelly holding out on releasing a new album (It may have only been five years since Robyn first hit stores, but that’s like, what, a thousand lifetimes in pop music time). Hopefully, though, the wait may be over sooner rather than later, as a possible early preview of the still-untitled LP has made it’s inevitable way to the Internets recently.
Damn. Just when we were beginning to wish for 
Imagine the delicate falsetto of Eddie Kendricks delivering a love letter over a laidback rocksteady riddim and you would perfectly nail the vibe of Jamaican crooner 
With Jazmine Sullivan’s 
A scan over the 
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