| Quality | | Posted Sunday, September 10, 2006 2:11:44 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | After collaborations with Mos Def (1998's Black Star) and Hi-Tek (2000's Reflection Eternal), underground journeyman Talib Kweli finally emerges fully solo with Quality. As an MC, Kweli is still as incisive as ever--his distinctive, darting flow stabs its way across every song and, as one of hip-hop's better thinkers, he covers a wide range of moods and ideas. As a verbal ass-whupper, Kweli unloads on songs like "Rush," "Shock Body," and "Guerrilla Monsoon Rap" (featuring the Roots' Black Thought and Pharoahe Monch), but he takes things much further than just the lyricist's lounge. "Get By," produced beautifully by Kayne West, is the conscious hustler's anthem, while "Where Do We Go" muses on death as thoughtfully and introspectively as "Joy" (with Mos Def) delves into the wonders of birth. "The Proud" tackles American jingoism in a time of terror, providing a much needed dose of skepticism when patriotic sentimentalism has free reign. Though Kweli's thoughts are coherent throughout, Quality as a whole lacks a certain cohesion--there's no single guiding vision that glues all the pieces together, and the album's production-by-ensemble doesn't help. This is a solid album no question, but especially compared to ambitious contemporaneous concept albums by peers such as Common and the Roots, Quality feels unexpectedly conventional--a strong collection of songs in need of a unifying force. --Oliver Wang... | |
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| | | Best Thang Smokin' | | Posted Friday, September 08, 2006 12:11:34 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Who's smokin'? As the next up from the Grand Hustle team, Young Dro is already cloudin the airwaves with the buzz track "Shoulder Lean" off his forthcoming album Best Thang Smokin. "He's one of the most charismatic guys next to me you will find in the south. The best rapper next to me," says T.I. of his protege.... | |
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| | | Share My World | | Posted Thursday, August 31, 2006 4:11:56 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | The combination of Mary J. Blige with strong material is one of the few guarantees of excitement in today's R&B world. Rather than stuff her lines with showy streams of notes like too many post-Patti LaBelle divas, Blige sings the song. Even when she breaks into melisma, it feels like the direct result of an overflow of emotion and not the bad habit of a vocalist steeped in It's Showtime at the Apollo! Like the 1994 My Life, Share engages in lots of self-affirmation in between its bouts with drama, fate, and the enemies of love--especially when the star takes pen in hand, as on "Keep Your Head." As if to confirm Blige's toughness, the strongest cut here is Babyface's over-it "Not Gon' Cry." --Rickey Wright... | |
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| | | Stankonia | | Posted Tuesday, August 29, 2006 4:11:43 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Imagine if the ghetto got electrified. That's Stankonia, an album of street smarts doused with gasoline and ready to burn. When a thundering electric guitar collides with a relentless drumbeat on the molten "Gasoline Dreams," it dominates mind and body, setting the tone for the album. Dre and Big Boi spin a world of freaks, poets, preachers, and pimps, but most importantly, possibilities. This music messes with your head. --Lizz Mendez Berry ... | |
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| | | Game Theory | | Posted Saturday, August 26, 2006 4:11:39 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Despite their signing to Def Jam, on Game Theory the Roots head in a direction opposite from all the trendy, commercial formulas that the label has pioneered. This is as intensely a "Roots album" as anything they've put out, the rightful sequel to their brilliant, creative Phrenology (unlike their last album, the off-balance Tipping Point. Game Theory is a dark and brooding affair, not just in Black Thought's foreboding lyricism but also in its musical textures. There's a layer of melancholia running beneath nearly every song, whether in the heavy thump of "In the Music" or the frenetic verve of "Here I Come." Track-for-track, this isn't The Roots' most scintillating collection of songs, but listened to from end-to-end, it's actually a remarkable achievement in album-making. Every song builds into the next one, and those willing to experience Game Theory as a 47-minute suite of 13 songs will be richly rewarded by how precisely the whole puzzle fits together. --Oliver Wang... | |
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| | | The Perfect Man | | Posted Wednesday, August 16, 2006 2:12:05 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | This soundtrack contains songs from Curb recording artists Kaci, Kimberley Locke and Plumb, along with cuts from Howie Day, Jadon Lavik, Sarah Overall, Beth Thornley, Grits and Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung.Diane Warren, considered one of the most prolific and successful contemporary songwriters, wrote "I Will Learn to Love Again" for the film and has high expectations for the single. "'I Will Learn to Love Again' is the perfect song for Curb's artist, Kaci. The Perfect Man is a fun, feel good movie and this song is a natural radio hit. I wrote the songs for Coyote Ugly on Curb Records and 'Can't Fight the Moonlight' was a huge hit for me, Kathy Nelson and Mike Curb. It's a winning combination. Kaci is about to make the same history with this song," said Warren.... | |
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| | | Last Stand | | Posted Monday, August 14, 2006 2:12:13 AM by BlogJeeves Team | | Boot Camp Clik returns with "The Last Stand," featuring all the original members of Bucktown's mighty army: Black Moon, Buckshot, Smif N Wessun, Sean Price, O.G.C.'s Starang Wondah, Top Dog and Louieville Sluggah, even Rock of Heltah Skeltah. Da Beatminerz are behind the boards as usual, along with stellar production by 9th Wonder, Pete Rock, Large Professor, Ill Mind and Marco Polo - a testament to BCC's relevance on the hip-hop landscape.... | |
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| | | Port of Miami | | Posted Friday, August 11, 2006 2:11:44 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Sometimes, if you put your hand on the rails, you can feel the train coming. It's in the air, on the tip of everyone's tongue. All there is to do is patiently wait. Every once in a while an artist comes along with the force of a natural element and the only thing you can do is get aboard or get out of the way. So, from the good people who brought you the Roc-A-Fella dynasty, the Snowstorm and the College Dropout, we'd like to introduce you to the overnight sensation twelve years in the making: Rick Ross.You can't go into a club, get into a car or walk down the block without hearing the clarion call keyboards of Ross's earthquake of a debut single, "Hustlin'." It's the early front-runner for street anthem of the year. On one song alone, Ross has laid it all out there for you to see and hear. Over keyboards that wouldn't sound out of place scoring the last scene of Scarface Ross posits himself as the Alpha Hustler. The hustler as superhero. But, unbelievably, it's only a taste.On Ross's debut LP, Port Of Miami, you are immediately immersed in a fully fleshed out world. As a member of the Slip-N-Slide (Trick Daddy, Trina) crew Rick Ross is part of a bubbling Miami scene that is sure to be making noise on Atlanta and Houston levels this year. But Ross's Miami is unlike any one you're gonna see on a postcard. Rick Ross's Miami is one where drug deals and dropped bodies happen in the shadows of Art Deco hotels and plush nightclubs. It's the luxury and the tragedy. It's an American Dream and an American Nightmare."I see this album in the tradition of Reasonable Doubt and Ready To Die," says Ross. "It's made to be a classic. It's made to make everyone stop and re-think the whole game."That may sound like a heavy task, but Ross is up to the job. To snatch a phrase from KRS-1, many people know Rick Ross, yet he's known by few. Ross has been waiting his entire life to make Port Of Miami. He's been honing his craft as a behind the scenes man, ghostwriting (our lips our sealed on that one), and generally making himself a staple of the Miami hip-hop scene. But his sound isn't one confined to the bounce and bass that made the city famous."I rep Miami, the 305. But my sound goes beyond the city. You can hear everything from UGK to Jay-Z in my music. It's universal street music. There's no area code on it."In hip-hop, in 2006, you have to be as big as the culture you represent. You have to be more than music, more than mixtapes, more than a fad. You have to be a movement. Rick Ross, in the tradition of Ice Cube and Jay-Z, is a rebel hustler. He's a renegade who gives you an inside look at how it really goes down in America's paradise. He gives a voice to those who have none. This summer, you're going to hear him loud and clear. Hop on board, or get out of the way.... | |
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| | | It's About Time | | Posted Sunday, August 06, 2006 12:11:48 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | Once En Vogue proved that old-fashioned gospel-soul female harmonies could create sparks with modern street beats, every record company went looking for young singers to hook up with new-jack-swing producers. Those efforts bear fruit with SWV, which stands for Sisters with Voices, and the three teenaged singers from New York really do have great pipes, capable of a distinctive sound that can dominate a production rather than the other way around. Cheryl "Coko" Gordon, the trio's lead singer, boasts a great range that allows her to sound tough and sultry in her gritty alto, and romantic and flirty in her trilling soprano. SWV's debut album includes 13 different songs, plus two alternate mixes, and the best tracks are the 10 written and produced by Brian Alexander Morgan, who knows how to create the melodies that all great harmonies must start with. The first single, "Right Here," features a very funky, push-and-pull rhythm track, but the three singers reclaim the song with harmonies that are very percussive themselves but with lots of melody and romantic personality as well. The single, "Weak," is a ballad that allows Gordon to confess her infatuated weakness without ever sounding like a weakling as she hits the beats confidently and purrs in anticipation. --Geoffrey Himes ... | |
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| | | Street Signs | | Posted Thursday, August 03, 2006 10:12:20 PM by BlogJeeves Team | | You generally don't have to listen too hard to hear what's on the mind of Los Angeles music collective Ozomatli. The multi-faceted band is rarely subtle in its politics or its incorporation of countless Latin traditions as well as modern rock, jazz, pop and hip-hop. But on the band's third album, Street Signs, the addition of the Prague Symphony and the distinct influence of Arab and North African music certainly qualify as ambitious curve balls. Announcing its intentions from the get-go, album-opener "Believe" starts with a Rai-style vocal melody before finishing with a gritty rap as Bollywood-style strings provide a sweeping backdrop throughout. Never lingering in one place for long, the band quickly goes from there into some of the catchiest Latin Rock this side of Santana's "Smooth" on such gems as "Love And Hope" and "(Who Discovered) America?" before tearing off in other directions. These fearless hip-hop bambinos truly go their own way, saying what they want, playing what they want. --Tad Hendrickson... | |
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