Mariah Carey – Honey

I am a Mariah Carey fan…..dudes be fronting like they ain’t and that’s cool, but I just had to be honest.

Can I make an appeal to bring THIS Mariah back?! Yes we understand you can sing at an incredibly high pitch, and we love that but you’re better than that. Don’t sell yourself short and do a post-Cash Money deal Busta.

It wasn’t hard to find a cause for the deterioration of Mrs Carey’s music, I’m sad to say the blame must be laid to a large extent at Terius Nash (The Dream’s) door. On Mariah’s last album ‘Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel’ released in 2009 The Dream produced/wrote 13 of the 17 songs. One of the critiques The Dream receives on his own albums is that though they’re good songs, track for track they all sound too similar. For this reason I do not think it wise for him to produce or write the body of any artist’s album.

As easy as it was to see why things took a turn for the worse, you can easily spot why things worked so well previously. E=MC *squared* was released in 2008, the writers on it ranged from Bryan-Michael Cox to Mark Debarge. The hit single ‘Touch My Body’ featured The Dream as a co-writer. In addition the producers included Jermaine Dupri, Scott Storch, DJ Toomp, Danja & Swizz Beatz. Even further back than that on Mariah’s 2005 ‘The Emancipation of Mimi’ the writers included Bobby Womack and Pharell; the producers starred Jermaine Dupri of course, Kanye West and The Neptunes.

I don’t know if Mariah and Dupri fell out or if The Dream is selling beats for cheap but I urge Mariah to go back to the So So Def influenced days. There was even a So So Def remix to this track released way back in 1997. In all honesty I think the remix is awful but Mariah does speak some very wise words in the opening seconds of the song’; she says “If Jermaine likes it…..then I like it”.

Enough chatter, this is a big track from Mrs Carey released in a time where a very strong argument could be put forward to suggest that RnB was better then than it is now. Shak’ out regardless.

L.T.D – Love Ballad

RnB funkers L.T.D blessed the world with this one. This track has been sampled multiple times, most famously by J Dilla for De La Soul’s ‘Much More’. This mid-70’s jam should definitely be in rotation for a summer set, even if you have to sneak it in to a cool down period

Although I’m a 90’s baby, with songs like this we should all make a conscious effort to keep the 70’s alive!

Talib Kweli ft Miguel – Come Here

Talib gifts us with another well considered address to the ladies, whilst Miguel provides a sweet and soulful hook that is reminiscent of the days where he used to do the same with Cali rapper Blu. I would like to see the pair of them collab again, even better throw Talib in as well. If that record ever comes to light remember I called it first. Before I forget, shout out to Sean C & LV for the produckies…mo’ fiyah.

Enjoy!

Omar – The Man (Maddslinky Remix) & Ego Ella May

I saw Omar at the Jazz Cafe only a month ago at gig put on for the release of his new album ‘The Man’. He performed some oldies and some stuff off the new record, all of which evoked bless vibes.

It was nice to see the family present at this show as Omar’s little sister was one of the warm up acts and his brother, Grammy winning producer Scratchy Professor featured twice throughout Omar’s own setlist.

The other warm-up act was Ego Ella May who performed four tracks off her ‘The Tree’ EP. These tracks were presented in very a stripped back way and despite this I was so taken by Miss May’s voice that I bought her EP at the end of the show.
On listening to the EP at home I was delighted to find the tracks were bathed in atmospheric Jazz-Hop sounds, which were additionally scented with Neo-Soul vocals. An EP such as this could serve in the ablutions of the mind. Well worth a listen and even more deserving of a purchase, the likes of which can be done on her Souncloud and band camp page.

http://egoellamay.bandcamp.com

Maddslinksy’s remix of ‘The Man’ is perfect a accompaniment to the blazin’ weather we’ve been enjoying recently – or if you’re like me, and want to shake a leg even when it’s -1 & Hella’ foggy it simply is something to throw on to cut some shapes to.

Omar’s ‘The Man’ album is a great listen and in his years out of music not a single backwards step has been taken. Buy it you’ll see what I mean, it’s available on iTunes, CD & Vinyl.

Around this time last year Omar teamed up with Grime legend Bashy and the pair of them came up with this summer cruiser’.

Skyzoo – All Black Walls

NYC giant Skyzoo rhymes over Jay Z’s ‘Picasso Baby’. Skyzoo’s lyricism is up there with the best of them; personally I’d rather listen to Sky than Jay, but I thank Jay nevertheless for releasing ‘Picasso Baby’ which gave Skyzoo the opportunity to vocal it.