Can I Get a Witness?

This is a platform for sharing my sultry/sundry musical fancies, old favorites and new fascinations. Expect heavy helpings of funk, hip hop, soul, and jazz.

[zinastastetester]

BJ the Chicago Kid Archive Dive

Here is possibly the best thing the internet will offer up to me today. It's BJ the Chicago Kid, who is my new obsession, doing an acoustic rendition of the last track off of his upcoming album, “In My Mind.” I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS ALBUM. I've been slacking on him. I've know he is the shit for a long time, but I didn't fucking jump on the train soon enough. 

Here's his tribute to the one and only D. Do everyone a favor and don't watch the video, because that shit is classic womanizing bullshit, but the track is yummy. It starts with a remake of D's tribute to Prince's "She's always in my hair" (live performance because you know how the purple one is about online distribution) which is pure sex every time. Anyways, then BJ's tribute moves into "Send It On" which is such a fucking jam forever. Roman GianArthur's take is also so worthy of a mention. That shit is never going to leave me with dry panties. Never. Then, we're into "Untitled," and well, if we thought my panties were a little moist beforehand, this is a fucking "aguacero" as the Dominicans say. An unforeseen, spontaneous, and forceful downpour from the heavens.  

He also covered Aaliya's "One in a Million" which is classic shmaltzy RnB but better because he brings the gospel. My favorite cover of this one is definitely Tink's tho. That one is on my sex playlist. Just sayin. 

Alright, brief tribute paragraph to K Dot. They worked together on BJ's first album Pineapple Now-Laters which came out on Feb 21st 2k12, so it's almost 4 years old. Damn. That collab predated g.K.M.c, and you can hear it in Kendrick's flow. Baby K. The track is called "His Pain" and it's got lots of god stuff a la Kendrick Lamar and it's really a rather sad listen, but it's worth noting that they collabbed. They did it again last year on "It's True," another sad one but with totally different energy. Don't listen to these. They aren't as worth your time as everything else I've linked, I just couldn't leave Kendrick out of the conversation because you know how I am. And also to set you up for the news broadcast that Kendrick is featured on BJ's upcoming album. I think I read somewhere that shit is due on the 11th of this month. I'll spend all day at home listening to it on repeat if it comes out on the 11th. No lie. 

Alright. Saving the best for last. Anderson Paak is the rising star I'm the most excited for in the whole world right now. Besides HK, obvi. His album “Malibu” came out on Jan 15th and the whole goddamn thing is dope beyond belief. Absolutely excellent. I've listened to it over 50 times already easy. One of those put the whole bitch on repeat and just do your day basking in its glory albums. "The Waters" is track number three, and it's one of the deepest grooves on the whole album. It's got the strongest gospel influence (thanks BJ) and it just does me in!!! Oh yeah, and it's produced by Madlib. So there's that too.

  Ok. Also he worked with Chance, and I'm dead/done now. 

[zinastastetester]

Anderson .Paak <3′s HK too

So everyone knows that I love everything Hiatus Kaiyote, so during my first listen of Anderson .Paak’s brand spanking new TOTALLY FIRE album “Malibu” (really, go listen to it right now it’s amazing), when the track “Without You” opened, I howled bloody murder --- despite my searing sore throat. Decisions were made. I just get so excited, you know? The whole album is gold, but this track is obviously the one I have to talk about first. It opens with a sweet loop from “Molasses,” one of the best on HK’s most recent and excellent album “Choose Your Weapon” (really, go listen to it right now it’s amazing) with new drums probably for manageability (sorry Perrin, your drums will always be number 1 for me, they’re just a little crazy). And when Anderson lays a new melody over top of it, DAMN. Violating expectations does things to our brains. His melody where I’m expecting Nai Palm’s is wonderful. I love his smoky velvet rasp. I love how I’m still not quite sure if he’s a rapper or a singer. It’s the thing I love most about Drake, but Anderson is actually really good. Shots fired. By that I mean that Anderson is packed full of soul, and you all know how I feel about soul. So that puts him more among the ranks of Pharell and Chance the Rapper in his ability to cut through a vocal hook and tear through a rap verse. 

Ok, and then Rapsody comes into the mix and we’re like HELLOOO. She’s so fierce. She just made this Tiny Desk Concert video with NPR and brought the roof down. I can’t stop watching it. Additionally, she’s the literal only person who got a guest verse on the entire album “To Pimp A Butterfly” (really, go listen to it right--- ok I’ll stop but seriously go listen again!), Kendrick Lamar’s life changing, grammy nominated, masterpiece. So how’s that for a measure of how goddamn important she is? Her delivery is crisp and high impact and it’s no wonder she’s taking the world by force right now. 

All told, the track is about a breakup where Anderson wants his lady back and Rapsody is like, no way bae. It’s one of those times where the sampled material not only sounds really good, but is a thematically appropriate choice. Here, Nai Palm talks about how the song is a piece of processing she did about a breakup (and Perrin chimes in with production commentary). God I love them. And this new Anderson track is such a gem because it’s really good, and it’s the second time I’ve heard HK sampled EVER. First time, coincidentally, was Chance the Rapper. Every time I’ve found their stuff buried in someone else’s, my brain just blows up with the madness of sample culture and the ecstasy of interconnectivity and, well, dopamine. Gotta love it. Enjoy! 

[zinastastetester]

One-time Plug

Hey everybody! I just moved to the Dominican Republic to write grants for an HIV clinic --- on a ONE WAY TICKET!!! I'll be keeping a blog that aims to capture the spirit of life in the DR through examining music (relevant to you, my dears) and culture as well as issues of healthcare accessibility, and battling the stigma around HIV. 

I want you to get a sense of what living in this country and doing this work is like. I want to share the colorful details of night-life in Santo Domingo, the less palatable realities of losing electricity in the evening, the thrill of crafting a razor-sharp proposal, and the joy of watching the programs I have advocated for come to fruition. 

If this sounds like the kind of bandwagon you’d like to hop on, I would so very much appreciate your support via Patreon!!!

Patreon is a platform that allows generous people like you to support creators you love, like me! You pick any amount you want to contribute to me each month and in exchange you get access to awesome Patreon-exclusive content like playlists of Dominican music I love or original songs. You can change or cancel your patronage at any time, and you'll only be charged once a month at the amount you choose to give. I want to stay long enough to make lasting change. I don’t want to participate in temporary activism. Whatever you’re able to contribute will help me to sustain my engagement with this community and bring more of it to you. Thank you so much for being my trusty tumblr followers and I look forward to sharing my experiences with you! 

[zinastastetester]

Ok Lady

Somehow, after a lot of real world magic, I’m sure, internet magic happened and an email landed in my inbox that said something along the lines of “We’re excited to share a special project from one of our Wondaland members Roman GianArthur! The jam lives on!” So, I clicked on the link and BLAMMMMO aurgasms for days. 

This 6-track groove-stack is a collage of fragments from the iconic D’Angelo and Radiohead. It somehow manages to do right by both parties, sounding familiar and new at the same time. Needless to say, it’s been on heavy rotation since day one.

Roman GianArthur made me dust off my Radiohead familiarity, and boy was I pleasantly surprised! The last time I spent any quality time with them was a good 7 years ago. Contextualizing their spacious, chilly, and at times haunting lines with the steamy funk of D ‘n’ crew was exactly the reintroduction I needed to get back into their stuff. I mean, Ok Computer is undeniably excellent. How could I have forgotten? And remember when In Rainbows dropped and everyone was all, “pay what you want? what is happening?? How is this so good?”

At first listen I was a little hesitant. I have never been one for mashups, but just a few measures into the first track, it was clear that this is no mashup. Everything in this cookie jar of jams is re-recorded for our listening pleasure by Roman and crew. I love hearing a new voice revamped D’s famously tight layered vocals. I love the creative spark that runs through this thing like a lightning bolt that fuses the two bodies of work. I’ll admit that I miss the dislocated time warp that is Pino and Questlove. 

Highlights:

ALL:NEED - D’Angelo’s “Lady” and Radiohead’s “All I need”

At the end of the chorus when i forgot that i wasn’t just listening to a radiohead cover because the layered vocals claiming “i can tell they’re lookin at us” comes back around and whipped it real good  

PARANO:D - Raphael Saadiq feat. D’Angelo “You should be here” and Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android”

The in and out of “you should be here”/”i wish you were here” with Radiohead’s lyrics is so well phrased I can’t even. But for me the real gold in this whole collection is in this track. Towards the end when Roman goes for the chorus of you should be here, HE NAILS D’S IDIOSYNCRATIC VOCAL AFFECTATIONS. The way he opens the sound, or clips it, moves it from the front to the back of his mouth and back again (yeah i know that sounds dirty, that’s because it is, because the precision that Roman achieves here gets me hot, ok?!?) It absolutely blows my mind. Every single listen. I need it looped. Please, someone who knows how to do that kind of magic, do it. For me. 

NO SURPR:SES - D’Angelo’s “Greatdayanmorning/booty” and Radiohead’s “No Surprises”

Well, Janelle Monae, obviously, and also the beat from D’s track that feels like it’s coming through a screen door at you, and actually when the track folds in half and we get the full D reprieve, just hazy and warm and delicious.  

H:GH&DRY - D’Angelo’s “Send it On” and Radiohead’s “High and Dry”

Alright. This track is a knockout. Twitter (which I just joined this week @PennyZina if you’re into that sort of thing) is still going nuts about it. and so am I. This track has so many things going for it. First of all, who doesn’t love a little tail-end of album 6/8 (looking at you “Untitled”). The delicate interpolation of lyrics in the first chorus is seamless and breathtaking.

SEND:TON - D’Angelo’s “Send it On” (that chorus is too good to not use twice) and Radiohead’s “Big Ideas” 

Roman reinterpreting D’s main vocal line on top of the Radiohead bass and the ever swirling bed of T-Yorke’s vocal runs is a dizzying delight. The shift of focus between artists in this track is deft. The Radiohead runs swooping upward constitute a sweet send off. I’m not ready for this thing to be over, every time it ends.  

Do yourselves a favor, and go to there. And then stay. 

[zinastastetester]

Hello Again!

It’s been a minute since my last post. Ok, half a year is longer than a minute, but stuff happens, right? Since my last post, D’Angelo made a comeback, Hiatus Kaiyote released their highly acclaimed sophomore album Choose Your Weapon which I’ve been squirming in my pants just thinking about for over a year, K Dot dropped his EPIC, soul laden masterpiece To Pimp a Butterfly which I still haven’t stopped listening to (has anyone?), and, well, I got to see Erykah Badu in concert. It’s been a damn good couple of months when it comes to music.  I offer you today, ladies and gents and anything between, another sample chain that brings me great waves of dopamine. Today’s revelation started with the track “Baby Blue” off of Action Bronson’s new album Mr. Wonderful. The album is decent, Action is an asshole and I’ll never love him, and Chance the Rapper throws down a killer verse on this track. I recognized the name from my general hip hop head internet trawling, but I’d never really been captured by him until that verse. 

So, today, I took a listen through Chance’s 2013 album Acid Rap (long overdue holy wow) which is rich with soulful melodic backdrops and vocal layers on top of which Chance drops a diverse and honest set of verses. I got to “Everybody’s Something” and I was like, hold up! That’s Dilla! Sho ‘nuff, it samples Slum Village’s “Fall in Love,” which, in turn, borrows its driving melodic line from a 1968 track “Diana in the Autumn Wind” by Gap Mangione, whom none of us have ever heard of unless we are big into Italian jazz pianists from Rochester. Who can say? 

I love this game. I always feel like I’ve won when I play. I love to imagine Chance kicking it to Dilla and being like, “Wait, go back! I can totally use that!” And then, even more exciting, is the idea of Dilla kicking it to fucking Gap Mangione, whoever the fuck that is, and being like, “Wait, go back! I can totally use that!” Winning. And good ol’ Gap made his way into a dope hip hop album from ‘13 and who could have known? 

And then, because the universe is sometimes exceedingly kind, and Who Sampled is actually every hip hop head’s wet dream, I discovered that our old friend FlyLo has in fact lent this track his own supreme spacious haunting spin. Get an earful of it here. 

p.s. Gap Mangione has a bro named Chuck, who you will probably recognize from this lovely recording that I can’t for the life of me remember where I found but for real the bass is hella funky in here (nvm, I remember where I found it), and this even better picture  

[zinastastetester]

IT IS FINALLY HAPPENING

D'ANGELO IS RELEASING THE ALBUM

THAT IS ALL

(prereleased track Sugah Daddy HOP ON IT) 

[zinastastetester]

Lindisfarne

A Capella endeavors are so daring. They are bold and solo and fierce. Nobody else has the job of metering out rhythm. Nobody else has the singular duty to remind us where middle C is. It's all on you. It's a demonstration of autonomy that isn't necessary when singing with a backing panel of instrumentalists. 

This is a voice. This man's voice. It does things to me. Moses Sumney. His slow steady vibrato that gains momentum at the end of the longer notes. All the hummed ones. The bass, volume low enough that we miss almost all the vocal texture and are left with just the tone. The soaring, searing, haunting highs. The percussive bass notes like plucked instruments. The appearance of harmonies in thirds and then the violation of that partnership. This whole track is layers of him. Layers and layers of different vocal percussion, harmony and melody. It's all him. him alone. There are no other instruments. You guys. I have feelings about this. 

I love his melodies more than most things. The jazzy arpeggios informing his vocal riffs give me thrills and chills. I don't know of any other singers with this kind of improvisational melodic core. UNF. 

It's a James Blake cover, which I guess I knew somewhere, but hadn't come to terms with until now. The original is mechanized, warped and perfectly plucky. Both versions remind me of Bon Iver's "Flume."

"Lindisfarne" is such a perfect crispy fall day song. It gives me deep feels. Gut feels. I can't wait for Moses to put more stuff out there. I cannot get enough. Even his limited released material is tasty enough that I pretty much put it all on repeat and listen to him for days at a time. It feels so good. 

[zinastastetester]

All Stars

What is Chris Dave? 

What is Robert Glasper?

What, in the name of everything holy, is Pino?

José it is such a treat to see you consumed by the groove these musicians back you with. 

What I would give to have been there. 

[zinastastetester]

Production

This is the stuff that makes me ache for Ableton . A buddy of mine suggested I listen to Soulection for a change of pace (I've been painfully and irreversibly stuck on Drake for like 8 days now please don't judge me, I might post about him later oh god I hate myself) and I'm having feelings about it. Their self proclaimed mission is to compile "the finest selection of progressive music from around the world to bring visibility to the future sound." Whatever that means. I'm into it. 

The stuff is soulful electronic synth heavy delight. This track is the first on the Stussy and Soulection compilation album to grip me by the throat. It's by Esta, called "Luna." It's got that delicious lounge jazz guitar and all the ambient buzz and fuzz of the chillest track. The drums supply that lilting back and forth that really does it for me (a la Quest, I know, we have talked about this a lot). It's dark and smooth and an all around earful of sultry evenings. The production quality is aces and it makes me want things. Both the sultry evening, and Ableton. Enjoy! 

[zinastastetester]

My Cuba Fixation

While doing research for the Mixtape Madness post, I discovered a very important piece of information. Gilles Peterson, our great, encyclopaedic, collector of treasure, traveled to Cuba in 2009 and issued a grand "show me what you got." For our listening pleasure, he compiled the resulting sundry island riches.  

This, ladies and gents, is our man sometime during the completion of this project. 

These tracks are mostly done by a group titled Havana Cultura Band, which Gilles brought together. There are tracks on the album by other artists who worked with Gilles in studio independent of the master group. The tracks cover a wide range of current Cuban talent and boy are they all sorts of tasty. 

My first favorite on the album is "La Mulata Abusadora." How could you not? It is one of the sexiest things I have heard in aaaages. This song is completely infused with a sultry island haze. It is layered with quintessential elements of latin music with the addition of distorted guitar and other oddities. Whatever the instrument that opens the track is, it lends the entire arrangement a soft and subdued feel. For me it invokes fantastical tropical evenings full of colorful drinks and characters alike getting down in some perfect grungy bar. The female MC is late. She is late not in the Kanye sense, but in the Quest sense. Just enough to throw your sense of where the beat is supposed to be when the snare disappears for long enough. I can't get enough of it. The violin is dulcet and nostalgic. The male singer does a fantastic job of holding the background vocals with ideal outbursts of classically latin freestyle rhymes. This song is gold. 

Another favorite is "Check La Rima" for obvious reasons. Tribe anybody? (original track, my post about the album) This song is a treat. It pushes all the buttons of catching the reference and holds its own as fantastic track. The horns are sharp and bright and a perfect callback to the famous hook from the original. The vocal rephrasing comes as a surprise. It is sweet and soft and a little funny to me. The male MC is fierce and prideful. This thing is drenched in afro-latin rhythms and I diiiiggg ittttt. The female MC, oh you guys. I love female MCs. She is great. There is very little in the world more sexy than a chick MC who takes her time. The piano solo in the middle is jazzy and perfectly synced with the drums. Some thought went into that relationship. It is just so fun with all the hand drums and the kit and maracas and whatever else might be going on in the rhythm section. Winner. 

The last one I want to highlight is "Chica Cubana." It starts out with two men singing in harmony, a trumpet with a mute a la NoLa jazz feel and hand drums with plenty of chatter in the background. It sounds so loose and personal like it's being recorded at a casual get together. Then then the larger vocal chorus comes in for "vengan dos, vengan tres.." and then the distorted guitar. The male vocalist gets going on that higher freestyle characteristic of this latin music. Everyone joins. It goes back and forth between raw human and hand drum elements and a full band with excellent pacing. We get tasty bass lines in here and piano and more horns and the energy in this stuff is so danceable I'm grooving uncontrollably in my seat over here. 

This album is worthy of your undivided attention from one end to the other and magically serves as perfect background music at the same time. Really a remarkable feat, as music that is worth really listening to is rarely passable as peripheral filler stuff. I just love the feel it. There is enough going on to fascinate me and a solid groove to bob along to while focusing on other things. I am so glad to have encountered it. What a valuable find! 

[zinastastetester]

Go Hard

YOOOO

TOO CAFFEINATED TO NOT POST RIGHT NOW

MY SOUNDTRACK

"BACKSEAT FREESTYLE" - KENDRICK FUCKING LAMAR (more on this later)

"THANK YOU FOR TALKIN TO ME AFRICA" - SLY

"GET MuNNY" - ERYKAH

"VIVRANT THING" - TIP

"XxPLOSIVE" THE GOOD DOCTOR

"LINGUS" - SNARKY PUPPY

"GO HARD" - DIVAGEEK

LISTEN AND MELT AND PACK EXTRA UNDERWEAR 

[zinastastetester]

Absenteeism

Hello all,

I have not posted for a while because I am in the middle of being destroyed by an album. You may have heard of it. It is called "Good Kid m.A.A.d City" and it's by a little special someone named Kendrick Lamar. He was only nominated for, like, seven GRAMMYs last year. 

I 

Literally

Cannot

Stop

Listening

To 

This

Album

I'm almost ready to post about it. What I will say now is that I have been listening through the layers, first the melodic hooks because they are the easiest to digest, then the tricks and treats in the production of the vocal tracks because that's how I am, then the rhythms buried in the verses and then, only only then can I listen to the meaning of the words to follow the story. This album is masterfully produced, and beautiful, and thoughtful, and honest, and deeply painfully sad. Be warned. 

[zinastastetester]

Mixtape Madness

This week, LA producer and vocalist, Seven Davis Jr dropped a mixtape packed to the brim with goodies. This collection came into my awareness courtesy of a post by Gilles Peterson.

Brief aside: Gilles is special. He is a world renown music nerd. He is a producer, a compiler, owner of a record label (Bronswood), a talent hunter and tastemaker extraordinaire. He releases these albums called "Bronswood Bubblers" of which there are ten. He describes them as providing "a platform for unsung heroes and emerging talent from the Worldwide underground," and to be honest, some of the most interesting new music I have found in the last year is from these collections, e.g. Electric Wire Hustle, Flako and praise be to everything holy, Hiatus Kaiyote.  

Back to the mixtape. Many are names I haven't heard, including an incredibly difficult to track down Chris Clark with this oddity, "O. blige." His soundcloud only has two tracks and there is basically no information about him online. All we have is that he is from Denver, Co and his shit rocks. This track has me by the throat. It is frenetic, full of tightly layered vocal effects, and is all over the place tonally. I find myself losing track of what key we're operating in, but magically that doesn't put me off. It sounds wild and foreign and a little reckless, but somehow familiar. Then, the unmistakable "dadadadada" at 0.37 and I put it together. This track incorporates elements of Snoop's "The Next Episode." Relistening to the intro of O. blige confirmed my suspicion, that too is sampled and distorted from the Snoop track. What an unusual recontextualization! What a treat it is to be catching the references! Regardless of the Snoop influence, this track stands alone as an outlandish chunk of fresh craft. Also a reminder that there is loads of talent buried out there.

The second track that I would like to bring to your attention is called "You Got it All" by Choklate, another name I haven't heard before. It starts out sounding vaguely punky, then we get the rhodes and a fragment of jazz scatting. I don't understand how people dream up these sorts of soundscapes. Her words are percussive and full of internal rhymes and I love it. As usual, I appreciate the tasteful sprinkling of harmonies for effect and unison for texture. Her voice is delicious and this track is a freaky delight. 

I have been thinking about making a mixtape and maybe this run in was just what I needed to make myself make it happen! 

[zinastastetester]

Grandma's Hands

The best thing to come to me from facebook this week is without a doubt this delicious reworking of "Grandma's Hands" by Gregory Porter in league with Ben L'Oncle Soul. This is mana from the heavens, y'all. I was just jamming it with a friend yesterday! What a good one. The original is by Bill Withers, released on the album "Just as I Am" in 1971. Talk about good bones. If you don't know who Bill Withers is, please turn to chapter "Ain't No Sunshine" and get thee learnéd. 

These versions are not so different from each other. Gregory and Ben didn't take Bill's original and run in a totally different direction, they simply did it justice. I particularly appreciate the rhodes work in here. Also the male background singers! They serve as a pleasant change of scenery, and role reversal.  

It's so interesting how different these voices are! Gegory's is so much more focused and Ben's is so much softer and wider, way scratchier. Lord do I love his accent though. I adore the improvisational bit a titch after 2.45 where they play with each other's lines. Wonderful presences, the both of them. 

[zinastastetester]

Sample Chains

The seed: "Mystic Brew" by Ronnie Foster, 1972

The first sampling: "Electric Relaxation" by Tribe, 1993 - very important, excellent groove, delicious feel

The next sampling worthy of note: "Mystic Bounce" courtesy of Madlib, 2003 - solid beat, as usual with Madlib, I badly need to spend more time with him, I get the feel that there's a lot there worth pursuing

The most recent appearance of this sample: "Forbidden Fruit (feat. Kendrick Lamar)" by J. Cole, 2013. The Mystic Brew jazz sample is such an effective ambience generator. It drives the sensation for all of these tracks. I haven't spent any time with J. Cole, but I'm starting to fall in love with Kendrick and I adore the texture of his voice in this track (and most others). 

Finding sample chains is one of my greatest pleasures. Relevantly, when I google image searched the terms "mystic brew madlib" just now, I saw a picture of José James. My curiosity was piqued and I went to the website. It was whosampled.com (a terrific site for a music nerd) and it told me that José's song "Code" one of my favorites samples "Gumdrop" by Flying Lotus. The track in turn samples "Poem Painter" by John Klemmer. Learn something new every day. And by Jove does this kind of discovery cause a dopamine flood! 

[zinastastetester]

Play Highlights

You guys. It's been a while since I shared with you something simple and perfect. I offer you today highlights off the album "Play" by Electro Deluxe. They are a jazz/funk/hip hop group hailing from France. Many tracks on this album are collaborations, which is always fun. Of critical importance is the fact that Ben L'Oncle Soul can be found more than once on this album. I have been absolutely smitten with Ben for a good while now. His voice is so yummy. His accent is so yummy. I basically can't cope. He has quite a collection of delightful songs of his own, see "L'Ombre D'Un Homme," and I adore him. His main shortcoming, in my humble opinion, is his failure to hold back. He doesn't tease, he doesn't leave you wondering, or aching, or wanting the way the greats do. One of the reasons I love this album "Play" so much is because Ben shows some character development in that sense. Anyways, we'll get to his appearance on the track list later. 

The first song on this album to rock me is "Black and Bitter," sung by some white fool (James Copley) who refers to himself as "white chocolate." I cannot take that stuff seriously! Regardless, this song is a winner. It's upbeat as I'll get out, it's funky, it's tight. It's playful. There are tasty drum fills. You can just see them all in the studio together playing it, feeling it, and trying not to laugh. I mean, there's a part where he says, "come on, country boy" and someone breaks out a harmonica. So jubilant. 

The second is "Mousse." This is a grade A, high class jam right here. It's got all the finesse of something produced in a studio with an unpredicted helping of raw jamdom. There is no arguing that this is a jazz track. It's an instrumental one, which often indicates a departure from verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure and this track is a departure indeed. It's got the whole melodic motif thing followed by solos that jazz often does, but it never loses me. The solos stay well within my tonal limitations and meet the need for improvisation. It's an all around tasty track. 

And, enter Ben, stage left. "Where is the Love," is a solid song. We get vocals and percussion vying for front and center in the mix and I love it. Everything else feels farther away, keys (piano and rhodes aaaaand hammond?!?) and horns and bass. Ben sounds like he's smiling the whole time. His delivery is so good. I love when he hums. I mostly just have a whopping celebrity crush. I'll tone it down. He is so goddamn cute. Ok. I love his vocal ad libs too. This is probably the poppiest track on here, and the album benefits from it for sure. It's easy to follow and easy to love. 

As far as recently discovered neo soul jams go, "Sorry" is one of the most precious to me. The constant presence of the horns, subdued and simultaneously sharp, supplying fills, harmonies, and melodic direction. The rhodes and the hammond. The bass spinning out tasty line after line. The drums laying it down, somehow exotic and intentionally favoring the "four-and" over the "four." The vocalist, NYR, someone I have never heard of anywhere else delivers. His movement from chest voice to falsetto is smooth and happens often, supplying a wider range of textures than a standard vocalist would. He's got a really good feel for where the groove is and how to stay in the pocket. I love the rhythmic surprises in the vocals. In the first verse, "well I hope you'll understand" with that strong iambic business going on. Recurring, that particular pattern. It is just so fun, this track! All of these tracks! Enjoy! 

[zinastastetester]

Compared to What

Firstly, I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for writing the same kind of post back to back, but -- it happened again. I unknowingly stumbled upon the original of a beloved track I had assumed was the only version.  

A couple nights ago, through the magic of KMHD, I learned that my favorite John Legend/Roots collaboration "Compared to What" is a cover of a Roberta Flack recording from 1969. A friend of mine was scooting through radio stations looking for something worthwhile to absorb through our ear holes and a fragment of Flack's version came on, "Slaughterhouse is killin' hogs / Twisted children killin' frogs" and he skipped to the next one. I pulled my usual jump-out-of-chair routine and demanded he skip back. 

The song was written by Gene McDaniels and was first recorded by Flack before people took off covering it. This recording has a lot of the old jazz feel. Plenty of reverb, you can really hear the room. The bass is cookin and the drums got that good shuffle business going. The horns fulfill their duty of delivering bright as can be punctuations. The piano seems to exist only to flesh out the soundscape, except for its little solo which is solid but uninspiring. Flack has brilliant moments of old school soul aesthetics and a nontrivial number of merely adequate lines. It is, however, undeniably a solid piece that people have reworked and reworked and reworked -- over 270 times says wikipedia (that's also the number of bones in the human body at birth, which then reduces to 206 as things fuse etc). I'm starting to think that Flack is probably pretty important. One of the most delectable tracks on "Voodoo" is a Flack cover. Basically what I'm trying to say is I want to understand everything that is important to D'Angelo, the end. 

In the version I first knew and loved, John Legend and The Roots throw down. Here they are! 

Look at these fools. From left to right we have John Legend, Owen Biddle, James Poyser (kind of a legend maybe one day I'll get to him on here), Quest, Captain Kirk and Black Thought. I adore them. 

Ok. Waaaaaaaay more important than what they look like is this track. This thing's very fibers are made of finesse. Everything that is happening here is so perfectly calculated and precisely executed. Goddamn. Defining the term "tight" for us yet again. John has got that thing where he just opens his mouth and everything that happens next is gold. Acting as a divine conduit of groove. Good heavens. Black Thought showing up the way he always does. Smart and textured and engaged. Quest holding it down on the kit. Captain Kirk fillin it in with that funky guitar. Mark Kelley coooookin on the bass and the whole rest of the crew building. Unf. I love this track. It holds back well. It teases. It is playful. And also damn, they know how to let it rip too. These people, making it real. 

Worthy of note is the fact that John and The Roots collaborated on far more than one song. They generated an entire album called "Wake up!" which was released in September of 2010. It is primarily a collection of 60's and 70's soul songs concerning political awareness. I knew this, and managed not to realize that "Compared to What" was not an original. I'll be sure to spend my allotted time in the dunce cap. 

It's a beautiful cover. They really made their own thing with the bones of Flack's recording, something many artists fail to accomplish in their reworks of older material. It is an admirable feat. We can hear how their melodic choices were guided by the original track and how they choose to depart. I am glad to have learned of the seed song. Always growing.