mixtape maestro (2.0)

Even if Taio Cruz hasn’t completely convinced us we’ll care about him (or even remember him) by this time next year, you got to give the Auto-Tune-obsessed singer-songwriter-producer credit for knowing how to temporarily distract us from our everyday troubles with a slick guilty pleasure.

Neither one of his back-to-back international hits, “Break Your Heart” and “Dynamite”, sound like a human was involved in their respective creations, but in their behemoth by-the-numbers Top 40 club thumps and pasted-together cyborg vocal work, they both manage to edge into the realm of being okay pop jams, especially when drunk and stuffed on a crowded dance floor or trapped in a car in the middle of a traffic jam with little else to do but tap along on the steering wheel.

Current smash “Dynamite” has now been given the requisite, big name-boasting remix spin, but rather than simply toss in a Fabolous, Rick Ross or, hell, Ke$ha contribution and call it a day, Taio has opted to really go big, employing brief American Idol judge hopeful Jennifer Lopez to join along in his T.G.I.F. celebration. Sadly, the desperate attempt to re-ignite interest into the artist-once-known-as J. Lo’s abilities as a “singer” instantly falls flat with Lopez offering a bland (and damn near unrecognizable) vocal contribution that fails to really add anything new to the track.

Hell, homegirl (or should we say “Fly Girl”) would have been better off staying out the studio and just playing lead chick in a re-release of the track’s music video (would’ve probably made a bigger impact that way too).

We’ll be sticking with Original Recipe “Dynamite” thank you very much, but the curious can hear a radio rip of this “duet” below anyway.

(via)

Taio Cruz ft. Jennifer Lopez – Dynamite

Contrary to what the Billboard charts print every week, Robin Thicke isn’t the only white boy these days who can convincingly pull off silky slow jams; as proof, just check “She Needs Me”, a woozy, bedroom funk concoction from music crit-beloved English soul man (and Beck BFF) Jamie Lidell‘s latest album, Compass.

Bringing to mind the rich and sultry R&B blueprints of Prince and Mint Condition at their most romantic mood-setting, “She Needs Me” is the kind of tune a guy pulls out when he wants to let his main lady know that it’s about to really go down this evening, it’s densely-layered and steadily-paced groove basically demanding the accompaniment of a candle-lit chamber decorated with rose petals and glass bowls of chocolate-dipped strawberries as Lidell’s nether-region-charging pipes fill the room, giving spectacular multi-tracked voice to his inner-most thoughts (“I wanted this so much from the moment I met you/…You’re the sweetest thing I’ve ever known”).

Definite panty-dropper, this one right here.

DL: “She Needs Me” (alt)

After experiencing heartache at the hands of a compulsive liar on her infectious debut “My Baby Left Me”, London-born soul newcomer Rox opts to keep that whole “can’t find a good man” shtick alive on the equally likable follow-up “I Don’t Believe”.

Set to a sunny, acoustic guitar and handclaps soul-pop shuffle that lead one to nearly mistake the track for being another happy-in-love R&B number, “Believe” finds Rox relating the inner frustrations in still carrying a flame for a lame former partner. Yeah, she knows he’s a dog, but damn if even thinking about his “dangerous smile” doesn’t leave her all aflutter.

“I better get a grip on myself”, she internalizes, before launching into an irresistibly upbeat chorus of self-lambasting (“I don’t believe that you did it to me once again”) that brings to mind the best of The Noisettes’ last album.

Check out the “I Don’t Believe” video below, followed by a live clip of Rox pulling off an amazing reggae-fied rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams”.

Rox’ debut, Memoirs, drops in June.

BONUS DL: Rox “I Don’t Believe (Don Diablo Remix)” (alt)

BONUS DL: Rox “My Baby Left Me (Terror Danjah Mix)” (alt)

For most of 1996 and ’97, you almost couldn’t go anywhere on the planet without being bombarded on a daily basis with the sound of Mark Morrison‘s pinched, reggae-tinged chops hyping the “Return of The Mack”. The slickly produced number, in which he was found re-collecting his swagger following an ego-crushing break-up, enjoyed a seemingly endless stranglehold on several international pop charts, turning the Germany-born singer into a multi-platinum success damn near overnight. Then came an incident with a stun gun, followed by numerous other run-ins with the law, all of which helped bring a quick end to Morrison’s commercial fortunes.

Fourteen years after that mega-hit’s reign, Morrison is planning a comeback with the release of his fourth studio effort, I Am What I Am sometime later this year. First single “B’ Day” pairs him with another semi-forgotten ’90′s radio staple (G-funk icon Warren G) and, all Holy MTV-Jams-Hosted-By-Bill-Bellamy Flashback, Batman! jokes aside, actually doesn’t sound all that bad.

Atop the track’s better-than-decent, squelchy house party funk, Morrison and G spend their lines praising an champagne-assisted night of feel-good, with Mark’s still intact nasally tones (now, of course, seasoned with a lil’ Auto-Tune aid) urging everyone to “Be on your worst behavior”.

True, it’s likely that those mature folks raised off of G-Funk’s Greatest Hits and Morrison’s previous pop peak will enjoy this the most, but we could definitely hear “B’ Day” earning some spins amidst the Jason Derulo’s and Taio Cruz’ of the world this summer. Besides, if someone as random as Cypress Hill can re-emerge with a solid, hot weather banger in 2010 (still a shocker), why not these two as well?

DL: “B’ Day” (alt)

If the first thing we had heard from Talib Kweli & Hi-Tek’s sophomore Reflection Eternal set Revolutions Per Minute was the slightly more radio-oriented Estelle collaboration “Midnight Hour”, we might have been a tad concerned that the much-praised duo’s comeback wasn’t going to be the deliciously underground-laced and thought-provoking lyric-focused affair we had been waiting a decade for. Hearing it after RE have already kept us entertained with a recent string of excellent pre-album leaks (“Back Again”, “In This World”, “Strangers (Paranoid)” and the HOT Jay Electronica, J. Cole & Mos Def-featured “Just Begun”) though, and we can better appreciate it’s more mainstream-leaning change of pace.

Centered around a reunion between lovers following Talib being on tour for months, “Midnight Hour” has the rapper and Estelle revving eachother up for the long-delayed sex-capades about to go down once he hits the door, as Hi-Tek cooks up a bouncy beat shuffle based around perkily chopped samples of The Shirelles’ 1961 classic “Mama Said”.

“He said ‘When you get home/ Unplug the phone/ The lights is off/ You know it’s on”, Kweli teases, while Estelle edges horny-fueled implosion awaiting his return, drawing on the blissful doo-wop harmonies of girl groups past to relate her inner-anticipation: “See I’ve been going crazy thinkin’ about you late night”.

Revolutions Per Minute drops in May. Pick up the duo’s The Re:Union mixtape here.

DL: “Midnight Hour” (alt)

BONUS DL: Reflection Eternal featuring Erykah Badu “The Blast (Remix)” (alt)

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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Even if you know nothing about the tragic reality that lingers beyond it’s script, “I’d Do It All Again”, the lead single from multi-Grammy nominee Corinne Bailey Rae’s second set The Sea, still manages to pierce your insides with it’s arresting balance of melancholy gorgeousness and lump-in-throat-conjuring honesty.

Penned following an argument with her husband (who would, sadly, end up passing only months later), “Again” starts off dripping in tear-stained wistfulness, precious acoustic guitar licks supporting Rae’s delicate crooning of “You did it all again/ You broke another skin”.

But just as you begin to settle with the idea of this being nothing more than a woeful lament to the dark lows of couple-dom, the subtle weaving in of other instrumental elements (drums, organs, strings) start to push the arrangement to a skyward swell, beautifully illustrating the bubbling forth of Rae’s personal epiphany: Yes, “someone to love is bigger than your pride’s worth”, she realizes, and in a breathtakingly climactic moment, she also reaches the conclusion that no matter how much pain it occasionally triggers, when it comes to their union, she’d “do it all again”.

Sigh. If your eyes don’t get at least a little misty after hearing this (now even more poignant) happy-sad gem for the first time, make sure you immediately check your pulse, cause odds are you have no soul.

The Sea drops January 26th.

Corinne Bailey Rae “I’d Do It All Again”

Corinne Bailey Rae | MySpace Music Videos

BONUS DL: Corinne Bailey Rae “SexyBack (Justin Timberlake Cover)” (alt)

When Sade‘s sixth studio album Soldier of Love finally makes it way to release in the early weeks of next year, it’s arrival will mark ten looooong years since the release of the band’s last studio effort.

Now, we’ve come to expect long hiatuses between projects when it comes to this crew (if you recall eight years flew by before they followed up the “No Ordinary Love”-housed Love Deluxe with 2000′s Lovers Rock), but AN ENTIRE DECADE!?!…that just ain’t right.

Thankfully, Sade have opted on teasing their new release a couple of months early with today’s premiere of it’s first single/ title track, a slow-burning concoction about getting through heartbreak (“I’ve lost the use of my heart/ But I’m still alive”, Sade Adu opens, her dead-eyed tone still as piercingly chilled as we last remembered) that’s sparked by militaristic drum rolls, jagged electric guitar stabs, rousing background vox support and a “wild wild West” line that’ll surely draw smirks from those who perceive it as a shout-out to Kool Moe Dee.

Though it features a couple modern-ish production elements, longtime fans needn’t worry: “Soldier of Love” doesn’t try to re-write the cool Sade sound too dramatically, managing to perfectly fit side-by-side with the rest of the band’s much-adored nocturnal-soul catalogue.

Look for Soldier of Love to arrive February 8th, 2010.

Soldier Of Love

Sade  | MySpace Music Videos

We’re still not entirely sure it’s a good idea for Amy Winehouse to be helming a label right now (since A: we’d rather have her focusing all her energy on shaping up and recording another album, and B: well, would you want her as a boss?), but then again, what do we know. Her Lioness Records imprint is set to be launched this Fall and it’s first order of business is in releasing the debut album by her 13-year-old goddaughter Dionne Bromfield.

Somewhat un-surprisingly, the London-born Bromfield has been groomed to be a Winehouse mini-me. She may not be crowned with a ratty, on-the-verge-of-collapsing-at-all-times bee hive or look disturbingly under-fed, but she’s definitely presented as a precocious soundalike to her God-mama, down to the beyond-her-years soul pipes and penchant for remaking old R&B/ girl group material (her premiere long-player, Introducing Dionne Bromfield, is an all covers set featuring takes on “Tell Him”, “He’s So Fine” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, amongst other cherished oldies).

The project’s first single is a remake of The Shirelles’ 1963 Top Ten hit “Foolish Little Girl” and, as is the case with a majority of Winehouse’s stuff, it’s impossible not to appreciate. Yeah, it makes for an odd fit as a solo performance (part of the campy charm of the original was the way it was set of as a conversation between friends, the different members of the Shirelles’ trading off leads to play both the song’s jealous ex-girlfriend main role and that character’s well-meaning pals), but that can be overlooked with Bromfield having such sturdy, self-assured vocals and the track rocking this adorable lil’ reggae-for-beginners trot we could listen to over and over for hours.

It’s a decent jump-off for the Lioness label (maybe Amy knows what she’s doing after all!!!), but we gotta admit, we’re more interested in hearing what original stuff Bromfield will be serving up for the follow-up album.

Introducing Dionne Bromfield is due October 12th in the UK.

The past decade-and-a-half has seen so many classic pop and rock favorites sampled, interpolated or chopped up for some brand new pop, hip hop or R&B creation that we probably shouldn’t be too stirred that someone would think of messing with Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. But when we heard London-born R&B tart Cherri V‘s “Til The Sun Comes Up” and instantly recognized it’s utilization of both the ’90′s grunge-pop behemoth’s vocal and guitar melodies, we must admit we were floored: on one hand intrigued by such a ballsy move; on the other, ready to cry out “blasphemy” over someone actually daring to go through with the idea.

To it’s credit, “Til The Sun Comes Up” isn’t a complete nightmare: the combination of it’s “borrowed” rock “edge” and bubbly percussive jubilance generates a lively urban-pop kick that wouldn’t sound out of place supporting a manic Amerie wail or epic-sized Beyonce yowl. But thanks to flat lyrical boasts (“I’ll break you off/ You’ll never find another star shine like me”) and Cherri V’s underwhelmingly mixed vocals, which kind of simmer within the groove when they should be exploding like fireworks atop it, “Sun” lacks the over-the-top fire you would expect from a record made up of a such bold musical foundation, ultimately rendering it this anti-climactic letdown.

Surely the track’s Nirvana bite will attract some major attention Cherri V’s way (precisely the effect her and her handlers are banking on), but it’ll be interesting to see whether the response will ultimately skew positive (and make her pop’s hot new thing) or negative (and force her back to the drawing board to come up with an alternate introductory gimmick) as more and more ears catch whiff of it.

Cherri’s debut, Fast Cars, Silk Sheets and Favourite Guys, is slated for a late ’09 release.