I Like Sex and I'm Good At It

The irascible John Mayer and his foray into hip-hop.
Source via the internet

Do you believe him?

So Far Gone

I might as well touch down to let y'all know what's been rocking my world lately. So Far Gone is the latest mixtape from Drake, the Canadian rapper of Degrassi fame. Well, I'm something of a long time listener first time caller. I've enjoyed his style for a while but I never really spoke about him, because no one else (that I know) really seemed to know or care who he was but with the positive buzz surrounding his latest effort I'm comfortable enough to lean over to you and tell you with confidence that if you don't know, you need to ask somebody. As is customary with mixtapes 'Drizzy' rides over a lot of other artists beats but he's done a great job of making each track his own and not just sounding like noise over a great instrumental. He, for instance, remixes Lykke Li's 'Little Bit' and adds his own dimension to the already haunting sort-of love song. He also beasts through Santogold's 'Unstoppable' again, making you wonder how he wasn't already on the track in the first place. This mixtape is great winter music, which is something I've been on the hunt for lately. Live, but not too exuberant. Just haunting hymns and heavy shit that you can drive through dusky snow covered landscapes to. 808's type shit. 'Successful' featuring Lil Wayne and Trey Songz is the track that I would say exemplifies that.
'Drizzy' isn't a gangster and he mostly raps about his actual current life as a pseudo celebrity and yet he is lyrically compelling. I'm willing to venture that the only time he's seen shots fired was that very special episode of Degrassi when he became a cripple but hey, it's only entertainment. I would say that this mixtape has been getting attention not simply because it shows that he can rap, but that he can make an album of listenable songs. I know it's great to be able to 'spit hot fiyah' but it's pretty annoying when your favorite mixtape rapper has no concept of bridges and arrangement and just barrels down each track as if the beats were irrelevant. Do you even like music or do you just like to rap? Enough of my ranting just cop this shit.


Drake - So Far Gone

Grammy Awards 2009

Here we go again. It's the 51st annual Grammy Awards and i'm going to liveblog it. Mostly because that's the only way I can sit and watch the whole thing. I'm going to be drinking tonight. Which was my mistake last time I tried to liveblog. I was stone sober. Big Mistake. But let's go...As we proceed!

8:01 - U2 doin their U2 sht. I wanna like then more than I do but only some of their songs are jams to me. Maybe I lack culture.
8:03 - However this 'let me in the sound' breakdown is kinda dope. This song might be winning me over.
8:04 - Whitney looks ...she looks pretty good considering. Still sounds crazy.
8:06 - Awwe, it seems like Whitney's lost her voice. I heard that show she did a few months back where she sounded a mess but I was hoping it wasn't permanent.
8:07 - J. Hud accepts the award for best R&B. I think i'm gonna tear up with her on this one. I love her.
8:08 - Duane Johnson..remember when he was the Rock? Also..remember when he was too sexy for words? Now he's treading in Shemar Moore territory.
8:10 - Justin Timberlake is on already, filling in for Chris Brown's assault and battery punk ass. Yeesh, the day before the Grammy's Chris? You couldn't wait? Let me stop. That type of sht is never appropriate. I knew somethin was wrong with him...remember??
8:21 - Mmm Simon Baker. introducing Coldplay performing Lost! which is a pretty hot banger from Coldplay of all people.
8:23 - Aaannd they proceed to destroy any love for this song I had while on stage. Jay puts on this dumb drunk flow that only sounded hot under the congo drums and guitar production of the album recording.
8:25 - Their performing the Ipod commercial song. It sounds good but the performance looks mad goofy.
8:28 - I kinda like Carrie Underwood's white trash steez even if its made up. Her getup is kinda Mad Max though, and not in a good way.
8:32 - Sheryl Crow and Leanne Rhimes. I like Leeanne's dress but thas the only positive thing I'll say right about now. I only ever think about Country music when watching the Grammy's and then I remind myself to listen to it more and forget again. Maybe next year.
8:42 - Wow Al Green again. He ain't even know he was going on stage tonight
8:42 - Coldplay wins for Viva La Vida. They gon let purple coat talk. He acknowledges the Sgt. Pepper look. Thank the Lord for the self aware
8:45 - Kid Rock takes the stage...I don't know how he's still around. That 'Sweet Home Alabama' riff moves units though. It sells records, pizza, KFC. You can't beat it.
8:54 - the Cyrus is on with Taylor Swift. This is cute cause I don't think I could deal with Miley on her own.
8:58 - The two least known people in the running win it. I knew it! I'm happy for them though. I hope they get off the stage in a timely manner.
9:00 - Jennifer Hudson takes the stage, acapella at that. She looks very nice in this sequined black dress. Her wig is wiggy though, but we're not gonna talk about that because her vocals are killing it.
9:09 - This lady just compare the Jonas Brothers to Cain and Abel. Aaaaallriight.
9:10 - Why do they get to perform with Stevie Wonder? This is my jam though I must admit. I guess this is my punishment for being an Nsync fan back in the day..
9:12 - This must be mashup night. They are performing superstitious..they all sound constipated. I can't tell if Stevie is constipated as well or making fun of them. Probably both..
9:15 - Wow time warp, Blink 182 comes back on stage to announce they're getting back together. They get points for mocking the fuckery that was just onstage.
9:16 - Coldplay gets the award. called themselves a limestone rockband...wock wocka...
9:23 - Craig Ferguson is funny tonight. But I will never forgive him for seguing to Katy Perry. I'm not a fan.
9:26 - She's finally off the stage and now its Kaye and Estelle and Ye's fro mullet. This performance looks cheap and tacky and underproduced. Shiny suits on a red circle. The recession is really getting to people. "Look at this pea coat tell me he's broke" BROKE!
9:29 - Then they gotta turn around and present the next award for best New Artist. Yayy Adele won. I dig her but I was rooting for Jasmine. She's got one of those working class Brit accents like some of my fam (we international, yo!)
9:36 - Morgan Freeman takes the stage. Now theres a man that knows how to put his shoe on a woman and get away with it. That wasnt tasteful at all but I won't delete it.
9:39 - Kenny Chesney...taking a big sip out my cup right now.
9:40 - Diddy does not give a shit. White tee, shiny shirt, sad gold chain. He looks like he's dressed to get the laundry.
9:41 - Robert Plant and them is winnin again, just to piss everyone off i'm sure.
9:48 - Gueen Latifah looks sexy tonight. Blinking at this segue from the Rat Pack to the Rap Pack
9:50 - Wowww at M.I.A. being gigantic in a polkadot bathing suit. This black and white filter is killing me though. FAIL!!
9:54 - Kate Beckinsale saying something...introduces Sir Paul McCartney who won't go away for some reason.
10:04 - Jack Black ...we've reached MTV VMA award status. Jazz musician Hank Jones gets a Lifetime Achievement Award
10:05 - John Mayer gets the award. Talks short and fast, but he has anxiety issues so he gets a pass. The Grammy's nominated Kid Rock for some reason.
10:07 - LL Cool J and Jay Mohr come out together cause they both got J's in their names. Jay proceeds to amuse himself and no one else.
10:07 - Sugarland and Adele take the stage. Performing a song about being the 'other woman' I love those kinds of songs. I like anything that explores the complications of love.
10:11 - Adele takes the stage. Repping for white Team Chunk in a positive way. Finally a representative that isn't a horrid mess. w00t! Also the two sounded beautiful. I gotta look into Sugarland.
10:19 - Gwyneth Bland Paltrow introduces Radiohead who apparently are still on some other shit. I enjoy when they are on some other shit. Listening.
10:22 - Radiohead is rockin the shit tonight. I love it.
10:28 - Samuel L. Jackson takes the stage in his Do the Right thing steez and starts yelling at the audience immediately.
10:29 - T.I. and Justin Timberlake take the stage. Meh.
10:33 - Wolf Blitzers hippie brother takes the stage and mentions that Obama won two Grammy's. GoBama.
10:37 - Now he reveals hes just kissing Obama's nuts to get a Secretary of the Arts position instated in the White House. Politricks.
10:38 - Sweet sweet Smokey Robinson takes the stage to give the Four Tops the Lifetime Achievement award.
10:39 - Fake Four Tops come out consisting of the remaining member, Smokey, Jamie Foxx, and Ne-Yo. This is my song and they not ruinin it.
10:47 - Josh Groban comes on..thank God he's not singing tv show theme songs again. Introduces Neil Diamand
10:48 - Neil Diamond looks better than he did the last time I seent him. My mother is somewhere throwin her panties at the tv.
10:55- My bad I tuned out for a bit there. They did the Memoriam dead faces reel. Then BB King and John Mayer performed a tribute to Bo Diddley
11:02 - Gary Sinese ...still looks like a robot clone. He's about to introduce Weezy and Robin Thicke and friends
11:03 - They doin 'Tie My Hands'.
11:07 - They follow it up by bringing out some New Orleans greats. Well performed and well orchestrated. A thousand brownie points to Weezy
11:09 - T. pain and Will.I.Am present the nominees for best rap album. Embarrass themselves.
11:10 - Lil Wayne done won his ass a Grammy award.
11:10 - There's a good boy. Keep it simple. His family looks nice.
11:18 - Blah blah blah Zoe Deschanel..so that's how you pronounce her name.
11:18 - Robert Plant and 'em are performing. Let's hear if this is actually what it is and nobody knew. This song would go well with a nervous breakdown and some LSD.
11:23 - Green Day shows up promising tobring sweet release in the form of the final Grammy and the end of the show.
11:24 - HA! Grammy of the year goes to Robert Plant and friends. Well hell. Goodnight everybody.
11:27 - Stevie gets on again to close the show down.

Later kiddies, i'm gonna go get housed!

Why Not

I've been taking in bits of new music here and there to ease my economic woes. I've discovered some new loves (Ms. Jazmine Sullivan) as well as hearing bits and pieces leaked and released from some old favorites.

Marshall- Most of you have probably heard the freestyle 'Relapse'. I suppose it's silly to even pass judgment on something like that, or even Eminem for that matter. I mean he's talking Jamaican again. Vibe magazine has recently announced him the greatest rapper of all time according to an online poll and more fights have broken out over this decree than they do over a spades tables (I had the misfortune of witnessing both disputes occur simultaneously). I think the 'best' title is always going to be impossible to determine particularly in a genre as diverse as hip hop. You can generate a 'top' list but there will always be confounding variables. Are we talking lyricism? Are we talking influence? Are we talking popularity? Hit making ability? Slim Shady has all of these things but he, like most rappers, owes credit to some of them to elements outside of his control. The verdict will forever be out on who the greatest is but if Vibe wants to say its Slim for now I suppose I won't argue too much.

50 Cent - Get Up. Dope meaningless shit from ya boy Curtis. (image unnecessary)

Mr. West- I hear Love Lockdown, I hear Heartless, and most recently I hear Coldest Winter. Well, hmm. His singing has improved between the first and the third. I actually like Coldest Winter a little better than I like Heartless. Not because I prefer singing Kanye to rapping Kanye but I just feel like Ye should be able to make a better rap song than Heartless if he's like, supposed to be a rapper. But, if you want to add an interesting twist to it, he's really supposed to be a producer. But let's not go there.
Coldest Winter has the same strengths and weaknesses as Love Lockdown in my opinion. It sounds more like what it feels like, but his lyrics ring of high school poetry. I suppose he's trying to say something. And I think we all have the right to judge it but I'm reaching the conclusion that this album isn't even for us anyway.
Lack of knowledge or information didn't prevent me from speculating before so why stop now? -On a human level, maybe he just needs to wail and get these things out of his system so that he can progress to something less miserable.
-On another level... I was watching the tube and some pop culture analyst popped up to say that slow meaningful somber songs become hits when the economy is bad whereas upbeat up tempo songs usually don't chart as well when people have no money. Maybe, Mr. West is a marketing genius. In any case, he's bound to have us all depressed and even more broke by the time he gets through with us.

The Weirdo: Kanye (Love Lockdown)

Anyway, I've had an abundance of Ye posts lately most likely because I've been intrigued by Love Lockdown. To be honest I don't really think its the best song ever but I like analyzing shit so that's what ima do. In my last post I was discussing whether or not I felt that Mr. West uses a mask. To cut to the chase I think he does a lot of hiding in plain sight but yes there is a mask. He uses cadence and emphasis to disguise that he's rhyming in platitudes. And it's a technique that makes the mundane seem significant and the personal, impersonal.

As I mentioned before, Kanye has suffered some personal upsets and tragedies this year, the likes of which one would expect an artist like him to discuss. But, anyone with an ego like his is going to have a hard time laying himself completely bare for his audience(remember we want the suit zipped closed.) His verse on 'Put On' was powerful and has been lauded as intimate but what is more interesting is the vocodered smoke screen of it. He starts off silly/obnoxious and then the brief emotional reveal ("Lost the only girl in the world that know me best"), then back to bullshit and in and out. It fits his take on the song which is essentially the reality and art and necessity of fronting. Pretending your good when you're so not.

But 'Love Lockdown' is supposed to be a heightened level of intimacy. It sounds like the monotone forlorn depression, interspersed with the racing thoughts one has when watching their relationship slip through their fingers but, the lyrics don't say much or reveal much even to that effect. Obviously rhyming is not Ye's strong suit but the generic vagueness of the lyrics in my opinion reveal that Kanye isn't able to be revealing about the topic. Reading the song lyrics is like reading a teenager's Myspace Blog entry about a breakup. The author has a lot to say, a lot of emotions, but doesn't want to say anything specific because to do so would leave them feeling naked...and because the person the entry is about probably still reads their shit. So they try to use metaphors and flowery language that captures the essence of how they feel while disguising the reality of what they mean. This song must have made Kanye feel very naked because he cloaks the actual meaning in turnarounds and obscure metaphors and of course, the fucking vocoder. Anyone who has heard the original studio version knows he even went as far as to mumble the chorus (I was not amused.)

So, I really do like the song, and I even like the video even though it does the same trick of feeling like something but not saying anything. But, it seems like Yeezy doesn't have enough cognitive dissonance between his person and his persona to go too deep without hurting himself.

So, lemme find out I got you Amy Win'd out...

Ryan Leslie - Addiction

The video for 'Addiction' has dropped and i'm posting this because I love the song and I am intrigued by Ryan Leslie. He's undoubtedly extremely talented. But, he suffers from this genius complex. Meaning he's someone who is so far advanced past his peers his whole life that he can't really relate to them...so he doesn't really learn social norms and comes off like a repulsive asshole from time to time. However, I think in spite of that its flat out egregious how much this guy has been getting ignored by the mainstream. Fabolous too for that matter, he's definitely the main one making up for Leslie's curious lack of charm in this video. In R.Les' video for 'Diamond Girl' he was definitely weird. He's not a great looking guy and even his crooning has a nasal, textbook nerd, tonality attached to it but his old school tight suited exhuberance made it an interesting video. This video on the other hand is more typical as far as rap videos go. I noted the use of darker skinned models and I thought that was a cool and interestingly/sadly a good way to make your video stand out (but wheres Cassie?...being Ma$e hehehe). Leslie is stiff and almost nervous and uncomfortable looking. Maybe i'm reading too much into his posture but he's posing like someone whose trying to look cool and the obviousness of that endears me to him even further. However, Loso brings out the groupie in me in a way Les can only dream about. Yow!

Also, if you want to read something better than this and a writeup about the song check out this post at No Trivia.

There is fiction in the space between...

...the lines on the page, and your memories. Write it down but it doesn't mean, that you're not just tellin' stories." -T.C.


I just heard some of the greatest news today. Tracy Chapman is coming out with an album this November. I absolutely love her. And 'Fast Car' is one of the first songs that made me feel something, and think about how evocative and pretty and complex music and poetry is... even though my mom had to sit me down and explain that it wasn't Gary Coleman singing in the video (I thought little Arnold was too deep).

Look up Marlon. Say Cheese!

Matter of fact, the first time I fell in love was in a fast car scenario and if I hadn't been lucky enough to get dropped off a couple blocks from my house my storyline might have panned out alot like the one in the song. Here's to you Ms. Chapman, I can see why Alice Walker was so sweet on ya. Beautiful soul and songstress. I wanted to close the post with video of the "Making of a Tracy Chapman Song" sketch that aired on In Living Color, however hours of searching have told me the internets are rather unyielding tonight. But, regardless I have to post the classic.



Tracy Chapman- Fast Car

Swagger Like Us

In general, I am typically content with my life and my belongings but the moments where I am frustrated at my situation mostly revolve around my minimalist old school European car and the fact that it doesn't have an AUX jack and truck speakers. And songs like Swagger Like Us only serve to augment my grief because the shit is so absolutely dope. An M.I.A. sample from 'Paper Planes' loops in the background, her vacuous delivery being the perfect match up for this dense futuristic sounding track. I like M.I.A. but she can be annoying and that was my knee jerk reaction to hearing her sample repeated at the top of the song but then the drums race in and the sonic spaces are filled and the tracks are laid for Yeezy, Weezy, Jay-Z and Clifford Harris to ride the beat like a runaway subway train through Swaggerville. Everyone really holds their own on this song, I guess they were inspired by the topic (lol). The only problem is that Jiggaman's flow is more of the homeless guy in the back of the train variety than an actual paying passenger. He thinks he owns the train because he's been living on it for years but he doesn't have anything important to say. He continues to repeat himself and randomly blurts out random sing song things like 'HOO-OOVAAH' and generally annoying everyone. C'mon Jay, Not Again! As I previously mentioned, on Dope Boy Fresh the beat was fuckin terrible so I could excuse your not being inspired by it. But dude, this shit knocks, and this is supposed to be your forte. Matter fact you had the worst flow in the whole fucking song (you have no idea how much that pained me to type). Maybe this isn't the best song ever and maybe Jay wasn't that bad but I'm not gonna lie, when I first heard the news that this track was being put together I went from excited to depressed because I remembered what a let down Dope Boy Fresh had been for me. So upon hearing it I will allow myself to get excited about it in spite of Jay-Z's lazy shit. The following is for all five of you to enjoy!

Swagger Like Us - T.I., Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne

You Know I Won't Leave You But Won't Wait Forever

So I'm just getting into this new track from Wasalu Fiasco and i'm feeling it enough to make me hope for some more good shit. Although I don't know if this is supposed to go on an album or was left off another one. I'm not that kind of music person, that knows that type of shit. Ask someone else. I like that Lupe entered hip hop by unzipping and climbing out the backpack. it gives him the freedom to talk about shit that he obviously doesn't really know about. However, this track is basically about how young minded boys can really stress out a female. What else is new. I'll buy that he's stressed out his old lady, if he's still with her. But then again I'll say he still has the capacity to surprise me. Like that time he allegedly choked a bitch for throwing her drink in his face. Is there something sick about me that made me more interested in him after he did that? I might have to return my purple Domestic Violence Awareness ribbon. Although I won't lie I have been off and on his jock for a minute. Back when I would religiously listen to the FnF podcast on Mondays started it all. So now here's a track with Ye' on production. It's typical Kanye, a chipmunk soul loop and friendly guitar strums. It's good story telling music. But what this reminds me of is that what I really am hoping for is a CSR album. All the girls standing in the line for the bathroom!! I think that would absolutely take me to glory. Pharell, Kanye, and Lupe make an excellent team. Fresh out the backpack, Pharell brings the highlighters, Ye brings the LV trapperkeeper, and Lupe brings a thesaurus. If they work hard enough they all get D's or DD's if they put in that extra credit. Please make it happen boys.

Lupe Fiasco - The Birds and the Bees

You Just A Baby Boy

I have to discuss an issue that randomly concerns me this afternoon. Chris Brown. Who does this guy think he is? If you want me to be perfectly honest I was not really paying attention to anything he was doing until that song 'Poppin' got a remix with Juelz Santana (Ay!) and Lil Wayne a few summers ago. It was too funny not to enjoy, oh what with lines like "I'm about my dough and cheese just call me a slice of pizza (Ay!)/ I'll be your pizza guy/ deliver your pizza pie(Ay!)" There was fun to be had for all. Chris Brown to me represented the crop of popular entertainers that were actually younger than me. More specifically sex symbols that were younger than me. Chris Breezy never really did it for me in my panty area like how he seems to do it for these young girls. In fact, I actually did have one dream about him *smoke and glitter fade in* It involved myself and my then boyfriend (who actually secretly digs CB despite allegedly being from the block or something) and Chris all on an outing to the movies. Breezy ruined the movie by laughing and talking and eating popcorn with his mouth open, and all around being immature. We wondered who invited him - End Scene.
But something about him always piqued my curiosity. He reminded me of one of those kids that was cute but not as popular in high school as you would think he should be. He never dated any of the girls that liked him because he was too busy going down on his mom's friends. That's his back story as far as I'm concerned. So I passed on whatever his first album was called but I did decide to pick up Exclusive. And blimey, it was not half bad. It had a lot of catchy production and it played to his strengths. His voice at best sounds like amateur night at the Apollo. So he largely stayed away from ballads. Even 'With You' the only song on the album that could be mistaken for a ballad is saved by its midtempo beat. 'Take You Down' is the other ballad and I love the throwback to the nasty R&B era of days long past. To me that song captures the intensity and perverted anxiety of your pubescent hormones and your heartbeat during your first time (or at least how you imagine it) and again the fact that its this young bwoy singin it fits and takes you there (or back). And on what I can only assume is Chris Brown's lazy attempt at a stripper love track 'Gimme What You Got', Weezy drops by again to say "let's get high and make love on Venus." Maybe its trite but I like it. I like it when Wayne talks about sex, love , and drugs. These are the topics for which I'll allow he has some authority. In any case my point was that EXclusive was a solid album for what it was however apparently it didn't do so well.


So now, whenever Chris gets a moment to tear himself away from Rihanna's asshole (I'm not hatin, I'm just sayin'), he has been popping up on confusing collabo's and making techno like tracks that I guess are supposed to give him more 'crossover ' appeal (in my opinion heavy metal needs more crossover help than pop r&b these days, but whatev's). On Exclusive's re-release theres the song 'Forever' that has been getting airplay inexplicably. I mean I am not opposed to the disco/club music revival that has been going on lately but I only like it when it's done in a way that is...oh i don't know, sonically appealing? For instance, Ne-Yo's 'Closer' in my opinion hits the right pace, Ne-Yo has always been into these kind of beat patterns and his zesty persona melds with this white nightclub beat in a way I can get into. However in my opinion Rihanna's 'Disturbia' is pretty terrible. Maybe it isn't if you're some kind of glowstick kid and automatically like this kind of music but to me it doesn't hit the mark. I'm not really mad at Rihanna for this though, just because she has been fortunate enough to be a weird artist that can do weird things with her weird voice and get away with it. Chris' 'Forever' however, just seems forced...and a lot like an ad for Doublemint Gum, I mean, did he get a check for that line, cause it didn't even make sense, its just thrown in there. Now he is on some songs with artist Dre and one of them is called 'Hologram' and its pretty bad. The "boom boom chika boom boom" line is repeated over a boring crunchy synth while Dre and Chris talk about God knows what. Basically I am trying to say I don't want to see Chris Brown anywhere he's not supposed to be. Singing while Lil Wayne raps - sure why not (they basically the same age, mentally). Talkin about toasting gangstas with Nas - I don't think so (although I think Nas bodied himself on that track without Chris' help, smh). Nickelodeon Choice Awards- certainly. Anymore of this techno garbage - No more for me please. I'm sorry your last album didn't do so well, but thats because 'Wall to Wall' was a stupid song and you put it out as your lead single. That was the first mistake. There's good shit on that album that no one really got to hear. So instead of jumping on an 'A Milli' freestyle or trying to surf this disco/techno wave you should be doing something that sounds good. And unfortunately, Rihanna doesn't count, kiddo.

'Cause I Like MONEY, Bitch!

Let me take a moment out to discuss our friend, Jay Z. There are a few schools of thought when it comes to Hov and the first of which, or the one that I hear most frequently is that he is the undeniable messiah of rap and if he puts out some shit that you may feel is trash, its because you are "too simple minded to appreciate the complexit you're just a fuckin hater, HI HATER, STOP HATIN ON HOV!!" *gnarling noises, foaming at the mouth* Then there is the side that is still sour about the Great Nas - Jay Rap War of 2001 that persisted throughout the first half of the millennium according to Wikipedia (does it not tickle you that this type of shit is in something that calls itself an encyclopedia? Love it!) They feel that Nas was the undisputed victor because 'ether' is now a common colloquialism while 'super ugly' hasn't quite caught on as well, or whatever jackass rationale they have to decide that. I have my own opinions about which blows were the heaviest, and when I develop the courage to address things analytically and thoughtfully I will provide a post on it, but I think we can all agree on who came out on top financially, Sir Camel of Brooklyn doth reign supreme (sorry I been watchin Elizabeth I on HBO again and that shit is superugly, yow!).

In any case, it goes without saying that Jay-Z has been the People's Champion of hip hop for quite sometime now, and barring the way Kingdom Come put a lot of his fans to sleep there are still tons of people that still want to hear from Mr. Carter, myself included. So when that Shade 45 interview hit the net, and the news that the Blueprint 3 was on its way came out I was excited, but apprehensive, and I found some of my apprehensions were justified when I heard Dope Boy Fresh (Jockin Jay-Z).

I love this nappy headed ho.

I went to the Amy Winehouse concert on Saturday at the Electric Factory in Philly. If you were there I was one of the tall pretty broads in the front blocking your view. Anyways, as expected she blew our minds with her voice, and satisfied any and everyone who showed up to see a spectacle, teetering drunkenly about the stage, not a note off key.

One opener. Three words. Patrick. Muthafuckin'. Wolf.


This glamonster poured out all over the stage in a homoerotic farm boy outfit, fueled by heroin love, and urging the audience to 'join in togetherness' as we gazed uncomfortably at his crotch area (I could write a whole blog about what was going on in his shorts. The term 'sticky situation' comes to mind.) I have never heard of this fag in my life, but that shit was fantastic. Caterwauling, histrionics, glitter everywhere, i'm officially amped. Then he whispers goodbye to everyone and flutters offstage in a trail of sparkles.



Then, lights dim, instruments tune up, and out trots a pony on spindly legs in denim cutoffs and a wifebeater, tatted up, and drowning in piles and piles of weave. Absolutely magical. She killed it, nervous at first but then she got into it, after some liquor was in her, where it all went, i've no idea. She has to be 48 lbs soaking wet, and with that ridiculous ass hair on. I'm glad I got to see her because at the rate she's going homegirl won't be here for me to love and mock for much longer. Yet and still, I love her ghetto ass.

Swing, swing

Nostalgia. When I was growing up it always sounded like a strange word for such a vague emotion, like it was better suited for a brand of coffee or a drug company. Needless to say kids are dumb. But that rambling leads me to this hopefully more coherent one about what I find to be one of the most effective nostalgia inducing genre of music aside from Saturday morning cartoon theme songs: New Jack Swing. What’s that you say? Well, it’s basically the urban music that was churned out in the early nineties. It was that period of time when hip hop and R&B started to become more commercial and music became darker and more sexualized, or should I say “freaky”, since every artist during that period had that in the title of one of their songs or at least the chorus. Artists still do that today from time to time but back then, it wasn’t just “freaky” it was “freeaaakaaayyy” I think the difference is evident. There was a fun, almost haunting, almost poppy edginess to the sound of it that I can recall left me feeling uncomfortable, frightened and excited all at once. No wonder it fit so well into the ‘superhero’ films of my childhood. Lest we forget, there’s no Ninja Turtles, Ghostbusters, Batman without New Jack. Basically this is all coming from a specific place, some random circumstances have been reintroducing this music into my life and the way it seems so familiar yet dated is something that makes it enough of an oddity to be my momentary obsession. So while I was looking for some more information on this topic that apparently only I and this Seth Price guy care about, I came across this article. I decided to share. Yay.

Edit: Here's a link to a comprehensive New Jack Swing site for all the fans that are interested.
Link

Journalistic Approach to New Jack Swing

Seth Price, 2002

Adapted from an article published in Sound Collector Audio Review, 2003

It’s clear that the wound is still fresh, for, if it were otherwise, the ghouls would have arrived long ago, as they did with Northern Soul, Miami Bass, and “electro.” What a time you chose to be born!

The short-lived musical genre known as New Jack Swing is just old enough to be vaguely embarrassing. It hasn’t attained classic status, and may never do so. Why is it that some styles pass directly into legend, while others remain trapped in an awkward limbo?

It’s important to stress that, like most conservative pop, New Jack Swing depended heavily on producer svengalis. When we talk about the eighties, the specter of production control looms over all hit music, dance music, electronic music, beat music. A good example is the Pointer Sisters’ 1983 album Break Out, in which different working units are responsible for each track, and the achievement is that the product is coherent at all, let alone a classic record.

New Jack Swing emerged in the latter half of the decade, its incipient arrival signaled by Bobby Brown’s 1986 split from New Edition, the hit group created by Maurice Starr and Michael Jonzun. The genre reached a high point around 1990 with the international success of Bell Biv Devoe’s single “Poison.” By 1991 it was probably dead of overexposure, as signaled by the release of the film New Jack City, co-scripted by journalist Barry Michael Cooper, a producer of early electro pop under the name “Micronawts”, whom some say coined the term “New Jack Swing” in an article for The Village Voice. The same year saw the release of the Wreckx-n-Effects hit “New Jack Swing,” another possible source of the term. In any case, it seems clear that 1991’s mainstream press frenzy was symptomatic of the genre’s quick slide into irrelevance.

The sound could be described as an admixture of hip hop—at the time roughly produced, which wasn’t surprising, considering that albums were being turned out by nineteen year olds on cheap bedroom sampler kits—and the kind of music on which labels like Motown always depended, popular soul that relied on producers to midwife the product. It was an obvious match, and it still seems surprising that major labels took so long to catch on. In fact, the entire New Jack Swing venture can be seen as a producer’s grab for market share, a way to assimilate an obstreperous but commercially successful youngster into the secure, decades-old structures of popular black music. This sort of music at the time depended on being received as sexy, smooth, Adult. Lacking was anything “edgy,” which was a defining critical term in the 1990s, across media. Adult Urban Contemporary producers decided that, in the interests of survival, they’d better incorporate hip-hop rhythms, samples, and production techniques. If this indeed was some kind of strategy, today’s charts demonstrate its success. Motown itself, through streetwise marketing and production, found new life in the 1990s with prime New Jack Swing acts like Another Bad Creation and Boyz II Men, the latter of which is, according to the RIAA, the most lucrative R&B group in history.

The New Jack style proved tremendously popular, spanning disparate genres and forms. Its influence could be seen in movies like House Party, rap groups like Heavy D or Nice & Smooth, catch-up albums by established stars like Michael Jackson, and fashions such as towering high-top fades, single-suspender overalls, and baseball caps dangling fresh price tags. The style stretched as far as Japan, where artists like Zoo and LL Brother carried the torch. “If you take a band that’s good, you bust it up and sell three times as many records.” This was Devo’s critique of what they saw as rampant in rock ’n’ roll, and New Jack Swing honed the strategy, with popular artists going on to become producers rather than simply solo acts. New Edition gave Michael Bivins experience that he’d use to groom ABC and Boyz II Men: the family seed must be perpetuated. The formula was copied back into hip hop by artists like Dr. Dre and EPMD.

But what is it that makes this music “New Jack Swing”, as opposed to something else, say, “up-tempo R&B”? Distinctions are hard to make, as it’s a style with an as-yet unwritten history. Bell Biv DeVoe suggests a general definition in a liner-note credo describing their own music: “mentally hip hop, smoothed out on the R&B tip with a pop feel appeal to it.” It’s important to note that this definition presents hip-hop as the heart of the sound. After all, one of the premises of New Jack Swing was its “edge”: New Edition was a saccharine boy band, and Bobby Brown, in leaving, wanted to assert a more mature image. It was a strategy adopted by many other performers, including Janet Jackson, not to mention the remaining members of New Edition. The style was most clearly expressed in the particular sound crafted by producers like Teddy Riley, who is acknowledged as master and originator. While Riley’s breakthrough was Keith Sweat’s 1987 LP Make It Last Forever, he really hit his stride a year later with the trio Guy, one of the most influential bands of the period, and he went on to remix or produce literally hundreds of tracks.

For a supposedly street-wise mode, however, the music itself is fairly tame. This is due partly to fat record contracts, which demanded high production values, which meant increasingly professional electronic studios and a clean, airless sound that made no attempt to conceal its digital origin. As with electrofunk, the goal was the crispest highs and the heaviest bass. While in some music’s samples are chinks in the armor through which grit, poor recording, and vinyl-crackle enter, here they were employed as rhythmic punctuation rather than as loops, and were in any case often generated in the studio rather than appropriated. Tracks were actually composed, often by producers with extensive musical training, and synth sounds came straight out of the box, with little of the knob-twiddling that House and Techno brought to electronic music. It was a voracious, synthetic mode, seeking to fold in hard beats and cuts, breathy vocals, chimes and bells, swelling strings, sexual innuendo and declarations of love. Rapping was kept to a minimum, sometimes contained in bridges and breaks, and overshadowed by harmonizing, crooning, wooing. The term “swing” referred to the rhythm, which often employed a combination of straight 8ths, 16^th note shuffles, and 16th-note swing patterns (in Europe, the music was sometimes known as Swingbeat, and this name survives in the Netherlands, which is a stronghold of New Jack Swing fandom, inexplicably).

What are we to make of this movement? It may be that it’s deeply reactionary, but there’s something interesting about the low regard in which it’s now held. You can trace a cyclical pattern: every ten years or so, up rises a dumb, catchy mode that will eventually come to sound like death. “Jungle” or “Drum & Bass” could see its turn come up, for example, although those forms never reached critical levels of popularity, at least in North America. Ultimately, these comparisons are fun but absurd: you might juxtapose white acts like Sudden Impact or New Kids on the Block with the Brothers Gibb, or even with Steely Dan, whose notoriously antiseptic sound has affinities with that of New Jack Swing. If we take a genre that’s even closer to us in time, like Grunge, it’s clear that New Jack Swing’s current shit status doesn’t come simply from the passage of time. Grunge, while quickly co-opted, grew out of an apparently independent community, whereas New Jack Swing was, from the start, large-format, cash-making, eyes-on-the-charts. Giving such control to the technicians yields a sound overly indebted to then-fashionable production tools, whether it was digital reverb in the early eighties, or the auto-tuner today. What is off putting is the pathos of the obsolete product. It made a sacrifice so that we could move on with a clear conscience. Pop cannibalized any useful parts, and ditched the corpse. It seems that music arising from a community dies with some dignity, whereas producers like Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis have long since moved on to the next sound; surely they haven’t shed a tear for New Jack Swing.

"Aside from Sammy you're my best black Jew"

Although I fear becoming a cliche so soon in my foray into this shit I feel the need to express how much I'm digging this Amy Winehouse broad. One journalist described her as "a dark beauty with a slightly equine face" another described her as a "street version of Joss Stone." I can't help but feel that the second doesn't know what the fuck she's talking about, but then again I don't know that much about what Joss Stone besides that she's getting her swirl on with Raphael Saadiq and has a red afro, perhaps an homage to Chakha or Ronald McDonald. In any case can I pause to tip my hat to that first guy? He said she looks like a horse... a pretty horse. I love it.
Well I'm aware she's already creating quite a buzz for herself so if she needs introduction go to the wikipedia page and sample some of the tracks I've lovingly made available or peep the video that's been playing all over apparently (my location only provides basic cable, not cocaine cable). Like so many others I was minding my business and listening to More Fish a la Ghostface when I hear this track 'You Know I'm No Good'. This singer had a distinct voice, that matched Ghost's style while he rambled on over the beat in typical exotic ass Toney fashion, that reminded me of Cherchez LaGhost. So I decided to look her up and *cough* located her latest album back when it wasn't available in the US. Yes its a send up of 60's R&B but the style in which she's singing isn't where her appeal lies. She can sing over samples of 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' or 'Made U Look'. Obviously an added bonus to this girl for me is that she's a hip hop chick and digs Nas (her song Me and Mr. Jones is about trying to get to a Nas concert).
What I'm hoping is the appeal about her to everyone is that she's got an honesty to her that makes her refreshing. When you have plastic soulless debutante Beyonce to represent the state of R&B you jump on any alternative that's less polished and captures the broke down beauty of that kind of music. I think that the tide is trying to move away from cookie cutter (wishful thinking?) with their almost unexpected embracing of ghetto ass Jennifer Hudson (who I also love).
I'm not usually a modern R&B chick just because its generally all too pretty and pop-ish, all of which is fine and definitely has its place, but I just can't relate to it. Amy I can relate to, because she's fucking crazy. All of her songs are basically about the same damn guy and she has a general sense of being rambunctious to scandalous to brash and collapsing that makes me think she hangs out with a lot of black people (Side: Yes, I am that ignorant...yet probably accurate.) In any case the girl goes through it and she lets you hear it and see it. I don't know that much about her public persona besides that she beats bitches up and stay drankin but when she talks about her music theres a sincerity that's simple but refreshing. I don't know how much longevity she has... shes one of those people who I'm trying to see in concert soon because there's a distinct possibility that her body will be found in a hotel bathroom somewhere one of these days... and she also has the limitation that shes young and most of her subject matter is about her affair with a married? man, but as a flavor of the moment she speaks directly to the vulgar sinner woman in me and I like it.

Bonus: Know You Now (Live from the Astoria)

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