07-14-2009 Weirdest Robkast Its
been eight years since he last electrified our ears, now back with his
new album soul singer Maxwell graces us with another great soulful
installment. BLACKsummers'night is a musicians dream, laced with full
instrumentation and actual singing, Maxwell delivers his vocals
smoothly as he talks about romance and all its angles. The state of
R&B has changed drastically since his last album, but
BLACKsummers'night reminds us that Maxwell is still a force in the
R&B community and he's surely been missed.
He starts the
album off with the track "Bad Habit", which is a story of being so
addicted to his woman, that she is his bad habit, and the way she makes
him feel, he can't control himself. "Cold" is a song about a chick who
thinks she is too good for him, because she bettered herself and now
feels that she no longer needs his love. "Pretty Wings" the album's
first single, is a beautiful ode to the women of the world, and how a
man should treat his woman. And if you don't do right, you should let
that woman spread her pretty wings. Next is "Help Somebody", this track
is pretty self explanatory, its a good message song with heavy jazz
inspired melody. "Stop The World" is a song about how he feels when he
is with his woman, the world stops for him and slows down to the point
where he feels like he only needs to be with his woman to feel at
peace. Next is "Love You" which happens to be my favorite song, is
about being whatever, feeling whatever, saying whatever, doing
whatever, to be with his girl. "Fistful Of Tears" is a song about a guy
going the extra mile to please his woman, doing the ultimate amount of
things so that she see's the effort he puts into their love. "Playing
Possum" is about a guy wanting his lady to "wake up" and see him for
who he is and what he wants, and what he has to offer. The last track
is "Phoenix Rise", which is all instrumentation, so sit back and engulf
yourself in the melodic sounds that take you home.
Reviews: Relapse
Review of "Funhouse"
10-28-2008 J.Biz It is obvious that Pink's latest album "Funhouse"
available today is a very personal reflection of current events in her
life. The lead track "So What" begs to ask the question, what happened
to my husband? It is an upbeat and fun song as well as the first
single. Once again in "I Don't Believe You" Pink reflects on vows of
being together forever and...>>>click here for more
Review of "The Quilt"
09-04-2008 by J.Biz Gym Class Heroes album "The Quilt" will be out later this month and feature production by Cool and Dre, as well as Patrick Stump. Featured artist include Busta Rhymes, The Dream, Lil Wayne, Hall& Oats, Patty Cash and Estelle. The album shows Gym's versatility as they have created songs of Hip Hop, Rock and Punk. Their best Hip Hop song may be the single "Cookie Jar" with The Dream. It has decent metaphors and is catchy enough to be a hit. Another notable song is Rock inspired "No Place To Run" which is their best attempt at the genre on the album. Who is Travis McCoy talking about on the song "Don't Tell Me It's Over"? I'd love to know. Seems a bit of the old Travis who won MTV's Direct Effect MC Battle resurfaced. I always like a little controversy added to solid ground. Gym Class Heroes has a great variety of songs on the album and decent balance. But they don't do any one thing good. I'd download it if I were you, and that type of person. Jack of all trades, master of none.
Review of "Tha Carter 3"
Out of This World But Not Above It
06-17-2008 Lil Wayne truly is a Martian. Mr.Young Money himself creates an outworldly album in attempt to recreate the hip-hop genre. The album starts off with "3peat"which is a decent freestyle which covers many bases including Viagra and Adam Sandler(Wow). Wayne raps like E.T. on "Phone Home". On maybe the best track on the disc, Wayne dissects and cures an ailing hip-hop artist in which excellent metaphores are used in "Dr. Carter". Another joint I was feeling was "Mrs.Officer" where Weezy desribes infatuation with a female cop and how he just wants to F the police. Definitely not a common rap topic. "A Milli" is a fire track in its own, and Mr.Carter co-stars Jay-Z so that speaks for itself. Other than that I wasn't feeling songs like "Shoot Me Down" with too much rambling, like the final track. "Got Money" is stereotypical Rap trash.
Tha Carter 3 wasn't worth the hype or the wait but it is a very good album. But when you spend a year and a half talking about how great you are, as well as throughout your resulting album, i expected greatness. Bring on "Da Drought 3" mixtape of 2007 to experience Lil Wayne at his peak. 8/10
Review of "Voice of the Young People"
Lil' Mama
05/02/08 J.Biz Zomba Records Lil' Mama- VYP Voice of the Young People
Lining up with a season on MTV’s
Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew in which she played a judge,
Lil’ Mama dropped “VYP Voice of the Young People”. Her career started at 17
years old when she had her smash hit “Lip Gloss”. Nearly a year after the
success of that song can Lil’ Mama prove she is no one hit wonder and put
together a quality album and some quality sales numbers as well?
Let’s start
with the latest single off of VYP, “Shawty Get Loose” featuring Chris Brown.
When the beat first drops you can tell it is going to be a fun song. And that
it is, a moderate to fast tempoed, pop type of Rap/ R&B. Smooth vocals from
Chris and snappy rap from Mama go well together. And wouldn’t they make such a
cute couple. Maybe her song “Truly in Love” was dedicated to Mr. Brown. I
digress. Another song that shines is “G-Slide” featuring… some other guy.
Doesn’t matter, because after Lil’ Wayne and Jewels Santana ripped that nursery
rhyme beat with “Good Side/ Bad Side” they stole that song from her. So now the
song is just average.
Lil’ Mama makes the LP mature with
“Life” where she talks about being a foster child and having a crack head
mother. Next verse is about being pregnant at 16. Glad to see she is rapping
with a little more substance. But I wonder if she can relate to at least
the first verse. Good song, but it would have been great with Mary J. Blige. I
like the last song too, “Pick It Up” it spews a little bit more of Lil’ Mama’s
talent. She does all the verses and the hooks and rides the beat like a
seasoned vet. It’s a classic club type of song about having jewels and bragging
about being the most attractive girl under the roof. The song coulda benefited
from better drum arrangement and bass but it was balanced.
Lil’ Mama’s “VYP Voice of the Young
People” is a well balanced album with decent content and little colabos. And
for those of you who called her a female version of Bow Wow are wrong. She
shows a lot of heart and covers topics that a 18 year old girl in America
goes through. Although I’m sure she hasn’t gone through it all yet, I’m glad
she has foresight of what can and may come. From college to love and a pinch of
fun VYP stands true.7.5/10
Review Of "Let's Get Physical"
Elephant Man
04/16/08 Elephant Man- "Let's Get Physical" VP Records/ Bad Boy Records Elephant Man a.k.a. The Energy God has dropped a brand new album. His name stems from his childhood in the Seaview Gardens area of Kingston, Jamaica as he had Dumbo ears so kids called him "Dumbo Elephant". The former D.J. of Scare Dem Crew brings the energy again in his latest installment. His last album Good To Go from Atlantic Records had such hits like "Pon di River, Pon di Bank". The shining track on Let's Get Physical seems to be "Throw Your Hands Up" featuring Rihanna. The Richard "Richie D" Martin and Willie Daniels produced jam is the right mix of reggae and R&B to keep bodies moving on the dance floor and in their cars. The synthesized vocals of Chris Brown on "Feel The Steam" are a welcoming sound, but that sound has been beat to death by T-Pain. "Dem Nah Ready" is truest to the Elephant Man sound.
Overall the album has a bit too much of the sub par recent trend of hip hop and R&B injected into it. "Five O" featuring Diddy and Wyclef is average at best and definitely not worthy of being the first single. The remix is alright featuring Wyclef, Swizz Beatz, Assassin, Yung Joc and Diddy but that Bad Boy staple isnt too effective in this case. It has much more Hip Hop influence than Reggae, as only Assassin lends vocals from the carribean inspired music. With guest on the LP including Busta Rhymes, Shaggy, DeMarco, Mario Winans, Kat DeLuna, and Jha-Jha the help doesn't pull its weight on this album. Much more Elephant would have been welcomed, but the music industry is rough at the moment and any help is better than none at all. Rating: 7/10
Flo Rida -Mail on Sunday In stores now.
The highly anticipated Flo Rida album "Mail On Sunday" of Atlantic
Records did not live up to the hype of the 2 singles; "Elevator" and
"Low". The album was chop full of good beats and ALOT of other well
know artis such as, Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Baby aka Birdman, Sean
Kingston, T-Pain, Will I Am and many more.The album is similar to most
other rap albums. He speaks about drugs, coming from the getto and
women. While listening to the album i heard a song "Ms. Hangover" that
cought my attention where he said " Heyyy parking lot pimpin, yeah
that's the way I approached her Hips went up and down like a roller
coaster Miss - got her attention, tapped her on the shoulder " which in
my opinion was one of the best lines in the album. All in all it was a
decent first effort for the new artist but at least we know he can pull
together some on the best artist out and put them together on one album. [Dot]Fuzz
