mixtape maestro (2.0)

If Mariah had really wanted to boost sales and some chart longevity from the mostly public-ignored Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel (rather than quickly move on to it’s guest-laden, all-remixes sequel Angels Advocate), she would have been smart to unleash set highlight “Ribbon” as an official single: it’s seducing, slow-motion flow and chopped-n-screwed hook saw Carey and co-album collaborators The-Dream and Chris “Tricky” Stewart at the peak of their combined powers, and felt like a serious R&B smash waiting to happen.

Alas, she didn’t…but all is not lost, as the diva has only upgraded the track’s future hit potential greatly under this new Advocate revision.

It’s addictive hook sadly doesn’t make it’s first appearance until the track is half-way done, but it’s hard to fuss about that too much when the remix’ front-end is loaded with great turns at the mic from Ludacris (who, curiously, makes much more of an impact littering uzi-fire rhymes and animated vocal tricks atop “Ribbon”’s crawling midnight groove, than he does on his own oh-so-paint-by-numbers recent material) and Dream (who, as on “My Love” and the “Touch My Body (Remix)”, continues to prove to be one of Carey’s better duet partners [especially on the fade-out here], despite the huge gap in vocal ranges between the two).

Angels Advocate arrives, exclusively through Target & iTunes, March 30th.

DL: “Ribbon (Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized angels advocate, ludacris, mariah carey, sex-rap, the-dream, tricky stewart

Just like the rest of us, Estelle has probably grown tired of waiting around for Missy Elliott to emerge from whatever studio she’s been secluding herself in to bless us with a new crazy club banger. Here’s the difference between us and her, though: whereas we would have simply…well, just kept waiting for “Misdemeanor” to re-emerge with some heat, Estelle has gone one better and decided to simply unleash a Missy-esque track herself…and boy are we happy she did.

Rocking an immediately grabbing hook chant (“I can be a freak-every day of every week”) and a taut, B-more-styled fashion house strut (helmed by the increasingly everywhere David Guetta) that’s damn near impossible to sit still to, Estelle’s new single “Freak” finds the singer/ rapper boldly expressing her S&M-loving side while pushing the rest of the female population to embrace their inner-naughtiness as well.

“Don’t be scared, don’t be shy/ Yes, you gotta let it breathe,” she preaches, assuring the ladies that “he wanna see you handcuffed up/ he wanna see your leather gear” and using an interpolation of Soul II Soul’s deathless “Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)” to stress her bedroom-spicing ideas further. Repping for all men everywhere, featured guest Kardinal Offishall can only respond with a major case of the byoing-yoing-yoings (“I pitch a tent with an XL Magnum on the cover!!”).

Missy, we DEMAND you make an appearance on the inevitable remix…

Purchase the track through Estelle’s website. Expect Estelle’s third album, All of Me, later this year.

Freak BMF
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Uncategorized Bmore club, david guetta, estelle, house, kardinal offishall, sex-rap, UK soul

For those who’ve longed for more than just a simple hook-boy contribution from Lloyd on the Young Money smash “Bedrock”, you’ll probably take a liking to this “sequel” version, which sees all of YM scrapped (except for Weezy and Drake’s original verses, of course) to give the R&B singer more of a leading role.

What does Lloyd have to say now that he’s given the spotlight? Unfortunately, more goofy metaphors that make you wish the expert at this sort of XXX-rated R&B wordplay, R. Kelly, had had a hand in the writing process.

Still, we’ll gladly take “I can beat it up like an ultimate fighter/ I can eat it up like a Siberian tiger” and “I can make your body rock/ Me no Rubble” (as in Barney Rubble) over mucho horrific Gudda Gudda quotables like “I see me with her/ No Stevie Wonder” and “I got her nigga/ Grocery bag” anyday.

P.S.: Were we the only ones to only JUST NOW figure out that Drake’s quoting some “Are You That Somebody?” in his portion? Yeah?…Oh…nevermind.

DL: “Bedrock (Part II)” (alt)

Uncategorized drake, lil' wayne, lloyd, sex-rap, young money

With the return of Maxwell in 2009 giving male falsetto-led slow jam R&B it’s rightful throne-holder back, it almost feels unnecessary for Alan Thicke’s son to even be around anymore offering his comparably inferior take on the form.

Still, we’ll give Robin this: his fourth album lead single/ title track “Sex Therapy” slithers and seduces in all the right places, blending yet another retread of the steady-pulsing late-night R&B groove behind Ciara’s “Promise” (producer Polow Da Don helmed both), a brief lyrical nod to Twilight, and a hook inspired by Lesley Gore’s 1963 No. 1 “It’s My Party” (“It’s your body/ We’ll go hard if you want to/ As hard as you want to…”) with far more successful (and less hilarious) results than a merging of the three might seem on paper.

For the inevitable guest rap-laden remix, Thicke even has the smarts to employ Ludacris, who, even as he edges long-in-the-tooth rapper status, still manages to come out with goofy XXX winners like “Got the banana/ Now let me split you” that the tween-aged schoolyard set can no doubt appreciate.

Sex Therapy is in stores now.

DL: “Sex Therapy (Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized blue-eyed soul, grown folks R&B, ludacris, remix, robin thicke, sex jam, sex-rap

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).

DL: “Hotel Room Service (Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized miami, nicole scherzinger, party rap, pitbull, remix, sex-rap

Ghostface Killah’s eighth studio album, Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City, will be a R&B-inspired affair? Okay, we all nodded, completely confident that if anyone could pull this concept off with exciting results, it would be the man who padded his incredible catalogue with acclaimed “softer” joints like “All That I Got Is You” (with Mary J Blige), “Never Be The Same Again” (featuring Carl Thomas) and his 2006 commercial peak “Back Like That” (guesting Ne-Yo).

But with the arrival of early leaks “Baby” and “She’s A Killer”, two ill-fitting tracks that traded in the classic 70’s soul-washed soundscapes ‘Face has always sounded so good over for Auto-Tuned-enhanced stabs at radio-friendly thug-love rap and “Pop Champagne”-influenced club-hop, Ghostdini was beginning to sound like a bad idea that needed to be scrapped, pronto.

This week though, we were finally able to let out a sigh of relief thanks to the “web premiere” of “Let’s Stop Playin’”, a mid-tempo crush ballad that finds Ghost right where we’d rather have him when he’s getting his mack-flow on: bathed in soothing soul samples (in this case, Marvin Gaye provides the sophisticated beat source) and supported by a classy crooner like John Legend.

The song’s premise: Despite both being committed to other people, Ghost is really feeling a female neighbor in his building of residence, going so far as too memorize her daily schedule and make sure he’s around when she gets off from work at six to help her upstairs with the groceries because the elevator’s broken. Even when she’s had it out with her man and is giving him the cold shoulder, he still can’t help but find her attractive (“But still, you was lookin’ mad cute to me/ With your lips poked out being rude to me”).

The second verse is the one that completely seals “Playin’”’s status as a solid favorite though, with Ghostface masterfully juggling another dazzling lyrical display of his revered humor and storytelling skills as he scripts out a fantasy sex scene set in a laundromat with him and his dream girl getting buckwild amidst spilled Clorox bleach and scattered Bounce sheets.

Now this is the “soft”-mode Iron Man we know and love.

Ghostdini drops September 29th.

DL: “Let’s Stop Playin’” (alt)

Uncategorized east coast rap, ghostface killah, john legend, marvin gaye, sex-rap, soul sample

Making it almost a week before it’s due date, Kid Cudi’s major label debut Man On The Moon: The End of Day has officially leaked to the ‘Net, and take it from us…after one quick run-through it unquestionably legitimizes all the anticipatory hype it’s frothed forth since “Day N Nite” first began it’s slow trickle into inescapable pop smash seemingly forever ago.

Of it’s many featured highlights sure to garner much play on iPod playlists and mix CDs well into the future (and by “many” we mean damn near the entire thing!!), Moon’s “first favorite” to us (read: the first one to inspire some replay button action) would have to be the mid-album/ “Act III”-closing stunner “Enter Galactic (Love Connection Part 1)”.

“You’ve never done this before and that’s cool and all/ But I want you to try this with me,” intros Cudder here, an invitation to some babe to zoom away with him on an drugged-out erotic trip. Rocking a near-whispered conversational flow, the Kid titillates with requests “to kiss you on your space below your navel-ette, the place that you keep neat-so moist like a towelette” before urging girl to have “just one more stem” so they can keep their psychedelic sex-perience at it’s “highest” potency.

And what a trip it is thanks to beatmakers The Illphonics, an on-the-rise production duo who bring the journey to vivid life through a gently insistent electro-disco groove that’s giddily tickled with starry-eyed keyboards and so gripping in it’s comprehension of the sleek and futuristic, you could almost believe it to be a sex-jam construction that has somehow time-travelled it’s way back from the Star Trek age (and Jay thought he knew how the future would sound).

Sample the track below, but make sure to cop Man On The Moon when it truly arrives on September 15th (we know we will!!), if only cause the last thing we need is an amazing talent like Kid Cudi threatening to retire early (yet again) because the industry hasn’t figured out how to keep their product locked up tight.

DL: “Enter Galactic (Love Connection Part 1)” (alt)

Uncategorized electro-hop, kid cudi, sex jam, sex-rap, the illphonics

Twista speed-rhyming verses about the nastiest thing he could do to a lady isn’t anyhing new (from a distant perspective, it seems to be the main lyrical focus of about 90% of his output), but like his previous no-brainer smashes “Slow Jamz” and “Overnight Celebrity”, recent leak “I Can Make You Say” is mostly a keeper for the going-ons that surround his still ridiculous, uzi-fire flow.

In this case, a delectably chopped sampling of Prince’s 1981 late-night bedroom jam “Do Me Baby” which reduces His Purple Majesty to a loop of orgasmic falsetto yelps, the empty spaces between the diced-up groove filled in with Cali producer Doc Savage’s somersault-like percussion tricks.

Too bad it won’t become the major hit it feels destined to be with Prince not being in the mood to officially clear the sample. Damn you and your fun-stifling ways, Mr. “Purple Rain”.

Hear the track below, than peep the video for Twista’s latest, official single “Wetter” (from the forthcoming Category F5 album) afterward. It’s nice and all (and, unsurprisingly, another sensual one), but definitely less interesting than the Prince-affiliated number.

DL: “I Can Make You Say” (alt)

Uncategorized 80's, doc savage, prince, sex-rap, soul sample, twista

While it was sad to see Lil’ Kim get booted off of “Dancing With The Stars” a couple nights back, bringing an end to a surprisingly successful run, not too many tears are being shed from this corner of the “web-iverse”, since the elimination hopefully means she’ll now have the free time to start focusing on finally giving us the fifth album she’s pushed off for so long.

And by “album” we mean body of work that gives us the fierce-on-the-mic Lil’ Kim of the “Quiet Storm (Remix)”, not the lost-sounding rappress that’s been struggling at the music game comeback since her release from behind bars three years ago.

Though her current single “Download” lands as a capable summertime jam (mostly thanks to it’s lazy sampling of 80’s R&B fave “Computer Love” and another stellar vocal performance from the underappreciated Charlie Wilson), it’s just not the official re-introduction Kim (or the sadly dissipated female rap genre) needs right now. With it’s corny cyber-sex rhymes (“We goin’ back and forth, sendin’ e-mails/ He a thug, so i hit him on his Gmail/ His sense of humor got me writin’ L-O-L…”) and her trendy teeter-tottering from half-sung to provocative whisper raps, “Download” is third or fourth single material at best.

All we ask is that she take that inner-fire that made her a fan-favorite on the “Dancing” stage (or the same dedication she has towards plastic surgery) and somehow transport it to the pad and pen to give us something that will truly blow us away. Come on Kim, we know you got it in you.

Lil Kim Download Featuring Charlie Wilson & T – Pain Music Video

Uncategorized 80's, auto-tune, charlie wilson, female rap, lil' kim, sex-rap, soul sample, summertime, t-pain

What’s the hottest R&B sex jam of the moment? Well, that honor would probably have to fall on “Birthday Sex” by Chicago newcomer Jeremih.

It may not be the most original of it’s ilk-R. Kelly, T-Pain or The-Dream could have all tossed this one out in their sleep, and with better, more-outlandish XXX metaphors than “Girl without a broom I might just sweep you off yo feet/ And make you wanna tell somebody how I do”-but the combination of that sensual groove with it’s titular gift theme has enough going for it to get the mood started.

Of course, some horny-minded rapper would have to bless the remix, and while this would probably be the perfect opportunity for another raunchy Ludacris cameo, it’s Fabolous who jumps on board first, kicking off this 2.0 take with a mean-spirited (but kind-of cool) joke we wouldn’t dare say to any girlfriend (“My shorty called me like ‘You know what’s bout to come-come-come-come’/ I said ‘Your friend, shit, lemme come get some-some-some-some’”) as well as lines about “pussy reservations” and, in what’s disappointingly the lone B.J. reference offered here, the “blow”-ing out of “candles”.

DL: “Birthday Sex (Remix)” (alt)

Uncategorized chicago, fabolous, jeremih, ludacris, R&B, sex jam, sex-rap