It seems like every three months brings about some new teen rap group emerging out of whatever regional pocket of the nation to push some new fashion/ dance/ hip hop sub-genre movement for the young’un set to heavily obsess over then just as quickly forget about a season later. Right now that group is Cali Swag District, an Inglewood quartet riding the viral sensation wave with their minimalist, cowbell-laced single/ how-to “Teach Me How To Dougie”.
Naturally, with us being grown folk and all, we’re left feeling ambivalent towards CSD and their “hit”, distracted in trying to figure out how they tie in to the New Boyz or The Pack, if at all, but we will admit to appreciating how simple the “Dougie” dance is to master, especially when compared to the overly-complex physical workout that is “jerking”.
But back to why we’re even mentioning “Teach Me How To Dougie” here in the first place: it’s all-star remix, which features Jermaine Dupri (always eager to attach himself to the latest hot kiddie rap craze), Red Cafe, Bow Wow and B.o.B, who rides the beat best here with another welcome dose of his energetic flow and charismatic rhyme-play (“I hit her with that flex/ So she get impressed/ You heard what I said/ Hit her with a text/ Then she know what’s next…”).
Catch the video to the original so you can get your “Dougie” practice on, then grab the remix afterward.
Even with Katy Perry‘s 2008 breakout album, One of the Boys, managing to strike platinum and peel off four Top 30 US hits (two of which-“I Kissed A Girl” and “Hot n Cold”-we’ll most certainly be hearing at least once a week for the rest of time), it’s huge success never really solidified the idea of the shtick-reliant singer being necessary beyond it.
If anything else, Perry seemed to be one of those flash-in-the-pan types who would fade away back into obscurity, only to make re-appearances in I Love The ’00‘s-type pop culture retrospectives or future “What ever happened to her?” coffee table conversations concerning the year-long time she somewhat ruled the pop roost.
That being said, it’s not only surprising that Katy would re-emerge with a new record on par with the sugary irresistibility of her biggest cuts and that it would speed it’s way to a spot on the top of the pop charts (and plenty of people’s current summertime guilty pleasure lists), but-and here’s the main shocker-that we would actually be welcome to her return.
Yearning for an explanation? Well, to put it simply: The past year has produced so many forgettable one(and sometimes two)-hit wonder plastic-pop sensations, it’s kinda of nice to have an “established” act of the genre around. Yeah, if you found Katy annoying before (whether because of all the overly-cutesy stage persona tics or her odd, caterwaul vocals), you probably still won’t have much tolerance for her, but if not having her back means more pop radio space for lesser-forgivable entries from the Ke$ha’s, 3OH!3′s and Jason DeRulo’s of the world, than we say “hurrah” for “California Gurl”‘s existence.
Besides, if you look past the titular’s awful spelling of “girls”, the lame Snoop feature, the lyrics’ lazy (and/or awkward) “Cali is the place to be” signifiers and…hell, it’s overall corniness (the West Coast answer to “Empire State of Mind”,as it has been proposed, this surely is not), the track’s effervescent disco-ish sparkle can work wonders on a bad day.
Catch “California Gurl”‘s Candyland-inspired clip below, then afterward grab The White Panda crew’s mash-up of it with Trey Songz’ “Say Ahh”.
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”.
Vintage-obsessed blue-eyed-soul crooner Mayer Hawthorne may not have anywhere near the same radio-ready presence as The-Dream, but we would imagine this ‘G-Mix’ take on Snoop Dogg‘s 2009 semi-hit, featuring the much-buzzed-about indie soul man on the lushed-out hook substituting “shawty” with the more suave “darlin’”, being the version that gets the most play in the Broadus household.
Give the remix a sample and you’ll just as immediately envision the Doggfather getting his two-step (and, of course, puff) on to the track’s horn-spiked, grown-and-sexy strut too.
Snoop and Cudi go a bit “green” on this Diplo-produced collaboration for the former’s deluxe edition re-release of his Malice N Wonderland album (entitled More Malice, of course).
Beyond a slightly engaging, descending bubble-pop beat supporting the verses and one semi-humorous line from the Doggfather (“Groupies on my head like a kufi”), though, the track never quite lands as the essential release it should be, especially considering the star power it boasts. Shall we say its lacking a certain…ahem, spark? Or maybe we’re just a little too distracted by the creepy, mutated hand Snoop’s sporting in the pic seen left to even give the song a good listen. (Look at it though, aren’t his fingers weird-looking?)
More Malice, which includes five new cuts, a couple remixes and a mini-movie (!!!), drops March 23rd.
Speaking of Cudi, as a bonus, peep an Iron & Wine-sampling, electro-folk (?) cover of the rapper’s woozy single “Pursuit of Happiness” by L.A. newcomers Barbara that works far better than it really should.
While nothing could match the heights that Snoop Dogg scaled when his lackadaisical delivery was paired with Dr. Dre’s G-funk beat terrains, in his late-career excursions, it’s been The Neptunes who have consistently provided the Doggfather with the material needed to remain just as commercially relevant as he nears closer and closer to age 40 and his twentieth year in the game, whether it’s through digitized updatings of the rapper’s old hood-boy bop (“From The Chuuuch To Da Palace”, “Drop It Like It’s Hot”) or radio-friendly ditties that paid tribute to his undying adoration for summertime soul (“Beautiful”) and sleek, ’80′s-era disco-funk (“Let’s Get Blown”, “Signs”).
For “Special”, the Neptunes’ lone offering to Snoop’s tenth album Malice N Wonderland, that hit-making chemistry is kept afire with the Virginian production duo lacing Snoop’s eased flow and Valentine’s Day promises with another one of their purrty, keyboard-dominant arrangements while Pharrell and (a suddenly everywhere) Brandy blissfully croon sweet nothings back and forth on the hook.
It’s a blatant “Beautiful” re-write and far away from the aggressive, undercover cop-spooking lyricism that Snoop became a household figure with so long ago, but of all the various ’90 hip hop sub-genre detours Snoop (sometimes awkwardly) skips through throughout Malice, “Special” is the one where he fits in the most comfortably, not only because you could totally envision Snoop giddily vibing with the instrumental on loop as he rides through the streets of Cali, but the “grown man” way he praises Wifey (“I’m puttin out the blunt cause I see/ That I need you more in my life than I need a bag of weed”) carries this endearing grasp of authenticity and intimacy, sounding like something that could have actually been in his vows during his 1997 wedding (or 2008 vow renewal) to high school sweetheart Shante.
“Special”:
BONUS DL: Snoop Dogg featuring Justin Timberlake & Charlie Wilson “Signs (Siik Remix)” (alt)
If any other rapper touched the mic with some nonsense like “I beat it up like Harpo”, it would likely register as an instant FAIL. Have those same six words delivered via the slippery flow of Snoop though, and the cornball line magically ranks as yet another one of Mr. Dogg’s genius, casually tossed-off poetics.
Beyond that lyrical niblet and a brief shout-out to True Blood (making the HBO vamp soapthat much cooler), not much else in Snoop’s verbal contribution to “Gangsta Luv” (the first single off his December-due tenth LP, Malice N Wonderland) really merits a double take, but don’t let that dissuade you: just hearing the man’s familiar drawl supported here by the summer-toned breeziness of Tricky Stewart’s synth-stabbed and bongo-accented production and a decent, if a bit paint-by-numbers, hook from The-Dream is all that’s needed to make this sorta-“Beautiful”-rewrite a welcome addition to the MP3 player library and easy fall-season radio success.
First presented as a chugging, acoustic rock ballad on the original Swedish edition of Robyn’s critically-slobbered over self-titled triumph before being updated into a sharper, Euro-dance pop confection for the album’s international drop, “Bum Like You”, Robyn’s canny “I’m in love with a scrub” ditty, has now been re-worked yet again for inclusion on, wait for it…ONE MORE RE-RELEASE of the three-year old project (Talk about stretching out a good thing).
This time around, Robyn isn’t found alone in her questionable (yet so relatable) infatuation with average-looking deadbeats; featured guest Snoop Dogg pays her back for her work on the Fyre Department remix of “Sensual Seduction” from earlier this year, instilling himself within “Bum”‘s clubby fizz for a little hook harmonizing before relating his own inability to eject a certain mooch-ess out of his heart: “You got no job/ No life/ It’s so wrong/ But it’s so right…”.
It’s an okay additional thirty seconds of new material that Robyn fanatics will surely eat up, but all these revisions don’t hide the fact that as much as she’s universally adored, the singer really needs to finally put Robyn to bed and start working on the next full-length project.
Capping off at a disappointing #44 on the R&B singles chart (and failing to even land on the pop listings), Solange’s “I Decided”, a 2008 highlight that provided the young singer’s best chance of finally moving out from up under her big sis’ ever-looming shadow, deserved much better. Thankfully, she hasn’t completely given up on making sure it reaches as many audiences as possible.
Following the still-solid original form and it’s sequel, a bombastic Freemasons-handled revision aimed for the UK/ club scene, a third re-working sees “I Decided” attached to a slight hip hop-like feel. But don’t fret, Solange hasn’t needlessly ventured down a “crunk & b” route. No, the track’s effervescent, Supremes-meets-Vandellas classic girl group twinkle remains; it’s just now filtered through a jazzy, horn-accented stomp you could imagine those Outkast boys (or, at least Andre 3000) freaking to and featuring a satisfyingly mindless cameo from Snoop (one of the few, if only emcees, who could rhyme “Pick your ‘fro” with “Do-si-do” and make it sound so effortlessly cool).
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!)
It seems like every three months brings about some new teen rap group emerging out of whatever regional pocket of the nation to push some new fashion/ dance/ hip hop sub-genre movement for the young’un set to heavily obsess over then just as quickly forget about a season later. Right now that group is Cali Swag District, an Inglewood quartet riding the viral sensation wave with their minimalist, cowbell-laced single/ how-to “Teach Me How To Dougie”.
While nothing could match the heights that 
If any other rapper touched the mic with some nonsense like “I beat it up like Harpo”, it would likely register as an instant FAIL. Have those same six words delivered via the slippery flow of 
Recent Comments