The Liberator Magazine | Blog

Rare & Bizarre Vol. 1 [ep/mix]

2010-08-03T00:01:00.003-04:00

The Rare & Bizarre series of projects is a favorite. This is volume 1. Enjoy.
{via Revival Blog}

Rare & Bizarre Vol. 1 (download it)

Heat Haze

(rightclick+download)

Some might recognize this next Placebo track from a J. Dilla tune in which he sampled it:

Humpty Dumpty

(rightclick+download)

Swamp Fever

(rightclick+download)

The Very Best + Malawi

2010-07-28T00:01:00.002-04:00

Big fan of The Very Best around here. Shared their debut right here. Right up there with Blk Jks, Extra Golden and Nneka as what's fresh outta mama Africa these days.

The band has been performing regularly at the annual (volunteer run!) Lake of Stars Festival in Malawi. Some background:

The festival was borne from a desire to raise money for a developing economy, help promote Malawi as a tourist destination and expose Malawian artists to international crowds. Set on the shimmering, palm-fringed shores of Lake Malawi International and African artists gather for a musical, social and cultural exchange unlike anything you will have seen before.

The song "Julia" from their Warm Heart of Africa album was widely popular in 2009. According to group member Johan Karlberg, the opportunity to remix the track with a host of African artists arose that same year at the Malawi festival: “We stayed in a bungalow last year with all these stars, rappers singers etc, they all came through and we did a remix of Julia, which is on a remix album, coming out in England.” The remix features Sway (UK), Tay Grin and Lucius Banda (Malawi), and DJ Mo-Laudi (South Africa). (via AfricaIsACountry)

The band was also recently interviewed by AfriPOP online. You can check that out below.

Julia (remix)

(rightclick+download)

(SOURCE: AfriPOP)

AfriPOP!: So can we hear the story about how you guys met?

Esau: I had a shop in London actually a junk shop, and so one of the guys who’s not here Etiene, was one of my usual customers, so along the line he came to me and asked me what else I was interested in doing, apart from being a shop owner, and I told him I was a drummer. So at the same time the two were looking for an African percussionist. Etiene had a house warming party the same night, and invited me to the party, and I went so that’s where I hooked with Johan there as well. I He said I understand your a drummer, so he invited me to his studio to do some recordings. But I ended up being a singer instead of a drummer.

Johan: Yeah there was no decision you know, straight up, we invited a lot of people, and he turned out to be a singer, and we just work really well. There wasn’t really a decision to make. Every weekend Esau would come in and it was always great and after that we had so many great songs that we were like ok we should make an album.

AfriPOP!: Tell us about your production process?

Jonah: On the first album and the first mixtape it was Radioclit giving Esau instrumental music to write to. Either he’d write it on the spot or take it away and get back to us with stuff he wrote. One week we’d give him one song and we’d record the song the next week. On the new album we started to work a lot more in between ourselves, we don’t live in London anymore so everything is being done on the road. We’re just finishing up a second mixtape actually. At the moment its just everyone bringing all their ideas, so we’re seeing what sticks.

AfriPOP!: This is for Esau, what kind of influence does your experience in Malawi have on your music?

Esau: I grew up as a kid in Malawi, and my father used to buy a lot of tapes, so I grew up in a musical environment. When I was about 9 years old I remember I was so interested in playing drums, I would collect tins and sticks and play around, not knowing that in the future I would actually be a drummer. When I finished high school, I was home, because I didn’t make it to college. I was looking for a job, and some friend came and told me about a local band that I’d be interested in joining. He thought I could sing. That’s where I learned how to play drums; I was with them for 2 years until I moved to London. When I moved to London I spent time to doing some work. Musically, so many things influence me. Nature is the most important thing that influences me, besides my dad who was a music lover. There are music artists that influence me a lot, like Peter Tosh; I grew up listening to him a lot. Bob Marley, Paul Simon, Dolly Parton, I listened to her a lot.

Jonah: (Bursts out laughing) I love when its like that with artists, they will give influences that seemingly has got nothing whatsoever to do with their music. Reggae you can see how that works, but Dolly Parton for me is very far even though its great music.

AfriPOP!: What differences do you see between working as Radioclit and working as The Very Best?

Jonah: Radioclit taught me the foundations because I learned what to do with singers. Working with Esau was easier than working with any artists or rapper that I’ve worked with. Almost every single song we worked on with Esau ended up being a song along the way. We don’t have good songs lying around because we never got to finish it for some reason. I’ve never worked with anyone I’ve connected so easily with musically. I know that when we work 90% percent of the time, after 10 minutes we’ve already got the melody locked down. That ease is probably the most significantly different thing about working on the Very Best and Radioclit.

AfriPOP!: Do you plan on doing collaborations with any local Malawian artists, or African artists in general?

Jonah: We’ve done some work with Malawian artists. Lake of Stars festival is the one festival in Malawi; we’ve played there every year for the last few years. We stayed in a bungalow last year with all these stars, rappers singers etc, they all came through and we did a remix of Julia, which is on a remix album, coming out in England. On the new album, we recorded with some of the biggest artists that are still alive.

AfriPOP!: Names?

Jonah: I’ll just say everyone we could ever dream of working with

AfriPOP!: What was the reception like when you played there?

Esau: The first year it was a bit strange because people didn’t know us, so people were like “Who are those guys?” The last year was pretty good, because people were familiar with us. All the western people coming there they knew us already. As time goes, people get to know us.

Jonah:You know in Malawi, we don’t have a label there, everything works extremely differently, and its only over the last 6 or 4 months that we’ve really taken off. The videos, our songs are being played on the radio. With the press over there, its crazy, the main newspaper is running a front page article on Esau every 2nd month, like where is he this month. This year we were supposed to go back, but with being on tour with Vampire Weekend we can’t. It’s my favorite festival in the whole world. It’s about 5,000 people, on the beach, with a beautiful setting. Super mixed crowd, most of the people have travelled so damn far to get there. Even people from Africa come from South Africa, Nigeria; they have a good travel to get there. Everyone really wants to be there. Super good vibe.

AfriPOP!: Do you guys plan on releasing anything locally?

Jonah: We’re negotiating with a company in Malawi and one in South Africa. You know there’s record labels in South Africa, but in Malawi people bootleg. I’m all for bootlegging, I don’t care. The people in the Malawi Nation the Malawian newspaper have really helped support us. As far as helping us get the videos out and music on the radio. If people want to bootleg the album, I’m glad as long as they hear it.

Esau: In Malawi there’s no real record store, and also pirates know that weakness, when people like your music and they have no way to get it, what else can they do other than bootleg it?

Jonah: Even if it was available, most people live on less than a dollar a day, how could you possibly try to sell an album. I would rather make money doing something else around the world, and give away 10,000 free copies on the release day of an album in Malawi. What’s the point we’re never going to make money there, and we don’t want them to spend the money that they do have on our music. If the Internet was working properly there, which its not, unfortunately, I would be happy to put up a link for people in Malawi, or in Africa, to be able to get it. I don’t really care if people anywhere around the world bootleg our stuff, anytime were there we bring copies of our albums, and burn as many copies as we can and give it away.

AfriPOP!: Not to instigate anything, but Esau would you ever head back and do your own thing?

Esau: It’s just that its quite hard, I was away from Malawi for quite a long time. I tried to make music in Malawi like 10 years ago before I moved to London, which I kind of feel like being older, like it holds good future for me. Maybe in the long run, Malawi is my home, so I can never say that I can’t make music in Malawi. I have a dream about it, when you get tired, you think about doing something else. I would like to settle down, and maybe help out other artists in Malawi. I think about that alot, because in Malawi there are so many artists, but they can’t reach out, there aren’t real studios.

Jonah: Esau just bought a lot of land in Malawi, and I bought a plot next to it. Its in the planning stages, but we’re going to use it to build a studio that we can use while we’re out there, and we can let other artists use it to record, and let them come through and do work. It would be a no cost situation, once its built, so that’s something that we really want to do. It’s still very early though. There are a couple of studios, but they costs so much. Its English people running it for profit, but we would run ours as non-profit.

AfriPOP!: What can we expect from the new mixtape?

Jonah: A few things have leaked already, we’ve had a Yeasayer thing leak, a Florence and the Machine thing, I mean my favorite thing that I’ve done right now is the one with LCD Soundsystem thing. They wouldn’t approve it so we made a sample out of their song. We’re still waiting on their approval. It’s always nice when an artist approves. At the end of the day we’ll put it out, but we’ll send it to him and hope he approves it.

AfriPOP!: Any last words?

Jonah: Coming from three years ago, to hustling like crazy, to taking off and touring the US currently, to the Roots inviting us to play this concert. It’s been overwhelmingly great to be able to do what we want to do, and get a good response. Like today I don’t think people knew us, but its great to see people react, when they get taken a back. That’s better than a thousand people knowing all the words. You could tell they weren’t aware, but they were still moving, in that kind of situation I’m really grateful. (source)

Pharoahe Monch: "Shine" [mp3]

2010-07-19T00:01:00.002-04:00

New single featuring Mela Machinko off Pharoah's upcoming album W.A.R. (We Are Renegades).

Shine

(rightclick+download)

Oddisee: Odd (Seasons) [ep/mix]

2010-07-15T10:59:00.000-04:00

Oddisee is Serta slept on sometimes but he deserves copious attention. His production is consistently smooth and groove. Think of a young producer mentored by the sounds of Radiohead and Dilla and you already kinda know what I'm saying. Grab all four free EPs from his "Seasons" suite below:

Odd Winter (download it)

Odd Spring (download it)

Odd Summer (download it)

Odd Autumn (download it)

The music of Blk Jks: a review (mzabalazo!)

2010-07-06T00:01:00.001-04:00

At the World Cup kickoff concert in Jozi recently, the Blk Jks killed it with their rendition of the popular South African protest song, Mzabalazo.

Mzabalazo

(rightclick+download)

In places like Brooklyn's black community, they've already achieved cult status, but the South African "noise rock" group are still relatively unpopular stateside. Hopefully a quick recap of some of their best tunes can change up that perception. I first saw the group perform around the time their debut EP Mystery dropped. It included the ghostly, ska inspired tune "Lakeside" that grabbed my attention:

Lakeside

(rightclick+download)

In The Guardian's "Post-apartheid art-rock par excellence", Jaimie Hodgson wrote: "Johannesburg's first trendy rock'n'roll export, Blk Jks are the sound of a new South Africa. Indeed you'd be hard pushed to find a better example of the post-apartheid nation's new cultural momentum and boundary-breaking sensibility. [...] "Rock was always seen as a white thing, the music of the enemy," says guitarist Mpumi Mcata. "When we started, we encountered a lot of hostility. Soon, though, people realised that what we were making was far more in tune with what's going on in South Africa now than any of the pop music playing on the radio." [...] Mcata claims it's their dub haze that resonates in the townships, while an art-rock element [...] has excited tastemakers across the globe. "I like bands that sound like the country they are from," says Mcata. "So we just want to leave people with an original feeling of who we are and where we're from."

Summertime (Carlos Ramos remix)

(rightclick+download)

The next year (2009) Blk Jks dropped their After Robots EP, which was indeed clearly in the rock and roll vein. Jaimie Hodgson also wrote some bullshit about the Blk Jks' music "shunning the indigenous urban soundtrack" that is Kwaito. You might agree -- if you only listened to a handful of their songs. Indeed, on "Standby" the group displays the type of pensive sound that could land them into the hearts and minds of hipsters everywhere:

But ultimately, we must pay this white boy from The Guardian no mind here. Any African -- from Brazil to Ghana, from Mississippi to Chicago -- knows that black folks rarely shun their past with the same type of angst so often seen in the West: we build on it. We take James Brown and make hip-hop in celebration of him, nothing less. That Blk Jks were able to seamlessly integrate a track like "Molalatladi" into the After Robots EP testifies:

And with Blk Jks latest EP, Zol! they've situated themselves deeply within the South African musical tradition; proving that they are rock and roll with its most vital ingredient intact: roots. The track "Mzabalazo" above shows this and this title track below illustrates it as well:

Zol!

(rightclick+download)

BLK JKS Are Out to Map the African Brain or Kill the Patient Trying
(SOURCE: Fader Magazine)

It’s a superficial thing, and at this point probably more curse than blessing, but the first thing that hits you about the South African dub metal quartet BLK JKS is their look. There’s a certain afropunk unity to their style that makes them seem like a movement unto themselves, yet even more striking is how strong a presence each member has, pulling away from that center in his own direction. There’s guitarist Mpumi Mcata, reggae star handsome in his ’80s Black Uhuru wears. Tshepang Ramoba, with drummer’s arms and those thick baobab dreads. The bassist, Molefi Makananise, with his professorial air and the ubiquitous kwaito-style sporty (pronounced “spotty”) on his head. And then there’s Linda Buthelezi, the frontman: shirt buttoned all the way up and thick glasses sitting heavily on his babyface. He looks tight-laced and intellectual in a young Dr Frankenstein kind of way, so that even when he’s quiet you can sense a tortured side that’s got to come out—if not in music, then somewhere.

{via Demonica Orozco}

If you can see it, then A&Rs can definitely see it, and perhaps not surprisingly, BLK JKS (pronounced “black jacks”) are something of a hot property lately. The vapors started with a self-titled EP pressed up for their birthday gig at the Apartheid Museum in a Johannesburg theme park called Gold Reef City two years ago. Those five songs floated around the web for a minute, ultimately turning up as a limited edition CD in certain stores in London and New York last June. It’s a heavy collection. “Lakeside” starts the set with a minor-keyed “House of the Rising Sun” intro that leads into grungy dub, Mcata’s rhythm guitar turning over on itself in the mix as Buthelezi moans ominously about paramedics and broken lesions. Just when you give up on deciphering this pseudo-medical diatribe, he breaks into a Zulu jive falsetto and the beat morphs into something like ska, the guitar changing into finely-worked Ernest Ranglin trills. “UmZabalazo” is an echoey mosh pit interpretation of a toyi-toyi, an anti-Apartheid protest chant based on the vocalized sound of AK-47s. If it doesn’t exactly celebrate the possibility of black fascism implicit in those war cries, then it doesn’t blink at the idea either. You can imagine antecedents to their sound if you try—the nya-rock of Cymande, maybe Fishbone if they broke through their surf metal conceits into something deeper, more afrogothic—but you’d more likely extrapolate the existence of an unknown black planet to explain BLK JKS’ origin. That sense of something new has hovered around them since their very first gig—a club rehearsal that turned into a show as on-lookers gathered. The immediate word of mouth about those black dudes that play that weird music underscores how desperately South Africa—or at least its all-white indie rock scene—needed that something.

{via Jason Nocito}

Those expectations, and the look that so effortlessly embodies them, are BLK JKS main problems these days. “We’ve met with most of the majors in SA, they come to us like, ‘Black rock band, sign them and make a lot of money.’ Then they find out we’re crazy,” explains Mcata, sitting in a café in Melville, a suburb of Johannesburg that’s painted a Martian purple by the Jacaranda trees blooming everywhere in the November spring. Mcata is clearly the spokesman and all-around conceptualizer for the Jacks, to such an extent his credits in the liner notes could easily read, “Mpumi Mcata: Rhythm Guitar/Minister of Propaganda.” Buthelezi, the vocalist and main lyricist is actually the least vocal of the four. These two form the original core of the group, having grown up together in a section of East Rand called Spruitview. BLK JKS was formed when Buthelezi and Mcata brought on more experienced musicians Makananise and Ramoba, both from Soweto, to form the rhythm section.

The insanity charge Mcata mentions may not be totally unfounded. The main result of the Jacks’ initial buzz was a chance to start recording at SABC—the country’s biggest and best-equipped studio, housed beneath a corporate tower that dominates, no, intimidates Jo’burg’s skyline. Those sessions became the unedited masters of an LP project titled After Robots (in SA, traffic lights are called robots. Nobody knows why). Nominally a sort of rock opera built around a surreal Mulholland Drive-esque trip through the city, the music is nebulous, sprawling and psychedelic, the narrative often seeming like a pretext for long, winding jams full of that one mind, four directions dynamic. “It’s better when we’re not on the same page,” says Mcata. “On those masters, there’s parts where we play for like 35 minutes of not listening to each other. Like, Molefi’s checking the tone on his bass, and just so that it doesn’t make you physically sick, I’m checking in the same key. Tshepang is doing his thing on the drum, getting everything set up, and basically what you hear is the most beautiful thing.”

Like the jams, the conversation in the café tends to drift, meandering through church choirs, the Mars Volta, Boyz II Men, Tortoise, Cameroonian bassist Richard Bona, Jack Dejohnette, Canadian psyche and luminaries mostly unknown outside of SA like Vusi Mahlasela and Busi Mhlongo. Trying to wrap his tongue around the role that influences play in the Jacks’ sound, Makananise gets a little worked up, “We’re listening to all different stuff, but the first time we played together I was like, ‘Yeah! Shit like this exists!’ Yes, but no…it’s something quite hard, to be fair. I never seen that, to be honest…” And then he lapses into silence, defeated by what he is trying to express. He’s more comfortable talking formally about the music, which makes sense, since it is his session bassist-ability to play comfortably in many different styles that holds the schizophrenia together.

In a way, the secret ingredient of BLK JKS’ sound is the long and venerable tradition of township jazz that pervades the musicianship of Makananise and Ramoba. As Makananise says, “In jazz there are suspended chords and stuff that gives you some kind of a discord. If Mpumi’s playing his fears at that moment when I come in, sometimes I have to play what I feel too, but in the process I have to figure out where he is. That’s where the jazz shit comes in.” There’s also metal there, in the sense of Cream, Deep Purple and early-early Sabbath, when metal was not a genre with rules and uniforms but a tendency, a serrated edge occasionally cutting the surface of rhythm and blues like the tailfin of something terrifying just below the surface. Then there are the traditional South African strains the members grew up with, alongside Fela and reggae. Somehow the force of all those elements swinging away at each other lifts the whole thing off the ground like a fish-tailing helicopter.

In an attempt to position the Jacks within this swirl of traditions, Mcata says, “I feel like we are like a growth on the side of not just the South African thing, but the African thing. An abscess. It could either implode, explode or, like, give the continent super powers.” It seems somehow appropriate to this dysfunctional pan-Africanism that even BLK JKS’ shared South African identity comes from different language groups: Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana and Pedi. This polylinguism expands the Jacks’ range rather than limiting it. “When you talk about vernac [vernacular] and how you bring that in it’s always melody first,” says Mcata. “If you have a big melody, putting words to it is a drag. Some languages just fit better phonetically, so we’ll be like, ‘Oh we got a language that does da-dada-da very well.’”

Put four dudes in a room with four different languages, a few words in common and a movie script to shoot, they might come back with a mess of a film or maybe some grand Chomskian thesis that offers a breakthrough understanding about the structure of language itself. After Robots sounds like that at times, and though the South African majors are hardly good guys in this story, they could perhaps be forgiven if they didn’t know what the fuck to do with the four-headed dub monster that walked into their office speaking in tongues, when all they wanted was the local equivalent of Living Colour. The SABC sessions were partly paid for with a Jacks promo spot on national radio, adding further to their aura. But with no label and no money to pay for their completion, the masters languish raw and unmixed under the tower.

The whole experience has left the group less inclined than ever to target their music for any imagined audience. “Now? Fuck it, we’ll play wherever,” says Mcata. “Forget the whole, ‘We’re gonna get the rastas to like our rock.’ If you have a gig, call us. Jazz event, whatever, we become the color of the gig. We don’t have a home.” As a result, their résumé is less a catalog of recordings than a collection of war stories about the weirdest shows imaginable: the old jail in Grahamstown, Youth Day at the Apartheid Museum, a private performance raising money for rural soccer teams held on the land of a wealthy farmer that meant driving five hours out into the veldt and sleeping beneath the heads of the farmer’s hunting trophies. There was the gig for kwaito station YFM with rapper HHP and the one where Ramoba got in a shouting match with the homeless guy standing on a pedestal as some kind of performance art. With each of these gigs, the legend—and the expectations—continued to grow. Even if they were too weird for primetime, “the only black rock band in South Africa” was too good for the press to resist and sooner or later the buzz had to go international. 2007 brought an offer from Diplo’s Mad Decent label, management by ex-FADER editor Knox Robinson, the appearance of a collector’s 10-inch of “Lakeside” in Other Music and Rough Trade, and a booking for SXSW for 2008, roughly in that order.

The Jacks meanwhile, having more or less given up on storming the SABC tower to liberate Robots, started on a series of lo-fi mini-disc recordings called Kilani Sessions after the sunny, eclectic Killarney loft of Makananise’s white girlfriend that serves as the Jacks’ headquarters. The new recordings have, if possible, even less light, more mass, more sucking gravity than After Robots. “Baragawana” brings more of Buthelezi’s medical obsessions, with references to the largest hospital in Africa. In “Vampire Stand-by Power” he employs a metaphor about machines using 40% of the electric current even when they’re off that somehow becomes the story of a pregnant girl and her dysmorphic baby. “Tinstaa” starts with the sound of CD skipping malfunctions, dissolving into acoustic blue-veldt guitarwork before the Sabbath-like bass comes in under the refrain, One by one, they gonna shoot us down. There are moments here that sound like African metal, not a pastiche of influences but a different thing altogether.

Back at the café, after sitting out of the conversation for a good hour, Makananise picks up his thread exactly where he wrestled it into silence, “I think what I was trying to say before, that from the first time we played together, I thought that BLK JKS could be like unexplored territory…some totally different kind of music.” It’s not the vision, so much as the sincerity, the struggle to articulate it, that give you pause. It’s enough to make you wonder what you wish more for the Jacks: that everything clicks into a fully realized visit to the black planet repeatedly glimpsed in the soup of their mind jams, or that they just keep looking forever, standing, so to speak, on the verge of getting it on, mapping their own brains as they go. (source)

Dead Prez: Revolutionary But Gangsta Grillz [ep]

2010-07-01T04:29:00.006-04:00

Revolutionary But Gangsta Grillz (rightclick+download)

Over the years I've heard more than a few people say something along the lines of, "I wish someone with the lyrical integrity of Dead Prez would complement their message with some a them good beats that folk like Jeezy rhyme over." Usually this type of critique comes from any one of the 20/30-something year-old black women I'm close to in my life, who were able to thrive in urban environments similar to mine, and were culturally and socially bonded enough with working- and lower-class black boys and girls like themselves to develop an instinctual understanding of what's fresh (maybe even based on their instinctual physical reaction to those aforementioned beats).

My hood theory is that Dead Prez must have some of these priceless black women in their lives, and these hypothetical black women are helping get and keep Dread Prez on the path of something I guess I'd call relevant creative resistance -- "birthing new realities" as they put it on one of my favorite tracks from the mixtape, "The G In Me." Without these black women's input, I theorize you get something along the lines of Stic.Man's well-intentioned but clumsy, stubborn solo effort, "My Swag Is Up" (in other words, close but no cigar). From my anecdotal experience, an idea as timely as hooking Dead Prez up with T.I.'s DJ and Lil Wayne's infamous mixtape host, DJ Drama, that had the New York Times calling a hip-hop mixtape one of the year's best albums, had to have come from one of these uniquely, diplomatically equipped black women. Plus, there are original tracks on this project, which is always nice. Other highlights include, "Don't Waste It" (over Gucci Mane's Wasted), "Never Turn My Back" (over Sade's Turn My Back On You), "The Movement" (over Fabolous' Make Me Better), and "Malcolm Garvey Huey" (over Lloyd Bank's Beamer, Benz, or Bentley).

Lauryn Hill: Khulami Phase [ep/mix]

2010-06-28T02:50:00.003-04:00

Khulami Phase (download it)

This isn't an official Lauryn Hill release, rather a compilation of a few tracks you've probably never heard before (like, "Take Too Much", "Music", and "The Passion"), a few old tracks (like Santana's "You Like The Way"), rehearsals, live performances, covers (like Stevie's "As"!, and "Blame It On The Sun" performed by The Fugees, also written by Stevie Wonder), and brief interviews. I usually just can't seem to find time for projects like this, but it was Lauryn, so I listened.

And I was not disappointed; I don't think you will be. If you're still asking yourself, "whatever happened to Lauryn Hill?", like this Guardian article below, this album should answer it for you -- if you give it a chance and listen. {thanks Nat}

Whatever happened to Lauryn Hill?
(SOURCE: The Guardian)

[...] Since Unplugged, Hill embarked on a short-lived reunion with the Fugees, beginning with a 2004 open-air concert filmed in Brooklyn for Dave Chappelle's Block Party movie, and yielding one poorly received new single – Take It Easy – before the group dissolved again, in even more acrimonious circumstances than before. "At this point I really think it will take an act of God to change [Lauryn]," Pras told Allhiphop.com in 2007, "because she is that far out there." Friend and former tour-mate Talib Kweli took a more sympathetic line on his track Ms Hill, from 2005 album Right About Now: "The industry was beating her up / Then those demons started eating her up / She need a saviour."

Her record label, Columbia, claims to have spent millions on sessions for her unfinished, unreleased second solo album, which supposedly features collaborations with soul legend Ronald Isley and similarly troubled and AWOL neo-soul auteur D'Angelo. In this vacuum, New York label Think Differently has released an unofficial compilation of highlights from her decade of inactivity, Khulami Phase, currently available via Amazon.

The gem among these scraps is Lose Myself, cut for the soundtrack to 2007 kids' cartoon Surf's Up. It boasts a synth-pop fizz with autobiographical lyrics Hill wrote in the shower, describing her anguish these past years as a trial she's having to endure to discover true peace and self-love. It's a powerfully moving track, both bleak and hopeful, suggesting the serenity Hill has been searching for is finally within her reach. But Lose Myself was released three years ago, and still Hill's sophomore album has yet to materialise. And those rumours about Rock the Bells were, sadly, unsubstantiated.

"How did this thing that I love so much so easily and so quickly turn into something I loathe and hate?" she asked rhetorically, in one lucid moment during her 2001 Unplugged performance [...] (source)

Bilal: "Free" [mp3]

2010-06-27T07:50:00.001-04:00

Nice new track from Bilal off of his upcoming album, Airtight's Revenge (set for release on September 14).

Free

(rightclick+download)

Kanye West returns: "Power" f. Dwele [mp3]

2010-06-23T13:29:00.006-04:00

Ego is a helluva drug. Kanye back from a overdose like leprechaun, though. Second time's a charm? Over a triumphant S1 co-production (Strange Fruit Project, Erykah Badu, Ghostface) that appropriately samples King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man", and with an assist from Dwele, he raps,

"The system broke and the school’s closed/ The prison’s open/ We ain’t got nothing to lose motherfucker we rollin’/ Motherfucker we rollin’ with some light skin girls and some Kelly Rowlands/ In this white man world, we the ones chosen/ So goodnight cruel world, I’ll see you in the morning/ I’ll see you in the morning,/ This is way too much, I need a moment/ No one man should have all that power/ The clock is ticking I just count the hours/ Stop tripping, I’m tripping off the power/ Until then, fuck that, the world’s ours"

But don't think he's turning his back on the power of his ego any time soon. He continues,

"I embody every characteristic of the egotistic/ He knows, he’s so, fucking gifted/ I just needed time alone with my own thoughts/ Got treasures in my mind but couldn’t open up my own vault/ My child-like creativity, purity and honesty is honestly being crowded by these grown thoughts/ Reality is catching up with me/ Taking my inner-child, I’m fighting for custody/ With these responsibilities that they entrust in me/ As I look down at my dying man that they crushed to piece

"Cold powers/ Austin Powers/ Lost in translation with a whole fucking nation/ They say I was the abomination of Obama’s nation/ Well that’s a really bad way to start the conversation/ At the end of the day, Goddamnit I’m killing this shit/ I know damn well y’all feeling this shit/ ... How ‘Ye doing? I’m survivin’/ I was drinking earlier, now I’m driving"

Perhaps he'll cultivate a healthier one this time around though. The song concludes,

"Now this would be a beautiful death/ (Dwele: I’m jumping out the window, I’m letting everything go/ Letting everything go)/ Now this would be a beautiful death/ (I’m jumping out the window, I’m letting everything go)/ Now this would be a beautiful death/ (Jumping out the window, letting everything go/ Letting everything go)/ You got the power to let power go?"

Antics aside, musically Kanye has solidified his position in the imagination and memories of at least two generations of young, colored Americans with at least three albums in or near the classic category. Fresh off his winter of discontent, he brings musings (and hopefully lessons to pass on) on power, and power trippin.

Power

(rightclick+download)

The Roots: "Dear God 2.0" x "The Fire" [vid/mp3]

2010-06-18T07:54:00.006-04:00

A few tracks from the new upcoming album (How I Got Over) were recently liberated. In case you forgot about him in your who's-the-best conversations, Black Thought puts in his bid for president on "The Fire" and "Dear God 2.0". Enjoy.

Dear God 2.0

(rightclick+download)

+ The song that inspired the song:

The Fire

(rightclick+download)

Doin It Again f. John Legend

(rightclick+download)

How I Got Over

(rightclick+download)

Breezy LoveJoy [mp3 | ep/mix]

2010-04-06T17:42:00.000-04:00

Breezy LoveJoy is name that lends itself to immediate judgement. Either you're intrigued by it or turned off. The music of, though, will make you forget about that dilemma. Breezy's young, but this s*** is undeniably fresh, creative, and fun.

Featuring on "Follow Through" (music video below), Breezy adds all the flavor for the track. You instantly get a sense for his style and talent when you hear the wailing hook. The track is off The Classic EP by Afro Classics (comprised of Scarub from the group Living Legends and Very from the group Us Pros).

Follow Through

(rightclick+download)

So far he's released two free mixtapes, Sh%t I Can't Clear and Coldtapes (covers of Coldplay classics).

Being from L.A. he has a wealth of styles to mingle with and on Sh%t I Can't Clear it shows. Whether it's him rappin over west coast boom bap on "Sing My Song":

Sing My Song

(rightclick+download)

...singing sensual R&B hooks on "Slowdown":

Slowdown

(rightclick+download)

...or bouncing on commercial drum kits on the self-aware titled "Sumthin For The Radio":

Sumthin For The Radio

(rightclick+download)

Sh%t I Can't Clear (download it)

Coldtapes (download it)

Blk Sonshine [mp3]

2010-03-29T15:32:00.001-04:00

Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star, and Masauko Chipembere and Neo Muyanga are Blk Sonshine, an African duo whose uplifting music is unapologetically rooted in Hip-Hop, Jazz, Folk and undoubtedly African Soul. Their latest release Good Life is probably one of the best African Folk/Soul albums you'll find today.

Good Life sits in good company with albums from talented African groups like The Very Best and Extra Golden, but with a more spiritual, and less obviously "African" sound, despite both artists in the group being from the continent. Anyone who listens to a lot of African folk knows what I mean; more testament to the straight up vocal dynamism of Blk Sonshine than an offense toward other African music. These dudes have raw talent and focused, mature direction. Anyone looking for fresh African sounds they can listen to with their family should know about Blk Sonshine.

"Gliding" will have you feeling like you can taste clouds, but "Nkosi" is the best track on the album in my opinion. It's the chorus that gets you, but they even bring their emcee skills to the table with Masauko rapping, "I searched through the city on the way to the self/ got lost in the madness tryna be someone else/ like the rest of these brothas, lettin them books collect dust on the shelf/ forfeit my spiritual for material wealth/ I needed a path/ I took a bath in bass/ Let earth rhythms take my spirit to a higher place"

Nkosi

(rightclick+download)

And on the title-track "Good Life", while the lyrics are always solid with Blk Sonshine, the chorus again is where the bulk of the magic lies: "It all depends on what you wanna call a good life."

Good Life

(rightclick+download)

Badu: "Window Seat" [vid] + "Umm Hmm" [mp3]

2010-03-28T17:08:00.009-04:00

Badu's new album New Amerykah 2 approaches. This new video for "Window Seat" has had Twitter on fire: Badu exhibits some serious personal bravery baring it all guerrilla style, as she wraps her vulnerable, anti-groupthink message of personal growth and liberation in Matt & Kim and Kennedy assassination symbolism. "Umm Hmm" is another pre-release track off the upcoming album. Enjoy.

Umm Hmm

(rightclick+download)

Rare & Bizarre Vol. 3 [ep/mix]

2010-03-26T13:39:00.002-04:00

I like rare grooves. The Rare & Bizarre series of projects is a favorite. This is volume 3. Enjoy. {via Revival Blog}

Rare & Bizarre Vol. 3 (download it)

This rare find by Wet Willie you might recognize from Jigga man's "It's Like That" produced by the legendary Kid Capri:

The Beggar's Song (skit)

(rightclick+download)

And even the yungins should recognize this Menahan Street Band song yet again from Jay's "Roc Boys":

Make The Road By Walking

(rightclick+download)

But the beauty of Rare & Bizarre is that it'll introduce you to folks you had no idea existed. For me, one of those folks was Riz Ortolani:

Il Ricordo di Serena

(rightclick+download)

Ceewhy [mp3 | ep/mix]

2010-03-26T13:00:00.004-04:00

Ceewhy is a good homie from the Twin Cities -- northside Minneapolis to be exact, a part of town, unfortunately, in the mainstream news more often for the murder rate than the college attendance rate (and without the monumental African cultural legacies in places like New York, Chicago and Atlanta that from my experience often help many more trapped black folk rise above the madness). While he was at Clark Atlanta though (the United Negro College Fund really do help some folk) he built considerable buzz, including being featured nationally on BET a few times. Also known as Cyance, he was becoming an underground king in ATL, but moved back up north with a brown skin lady from Brooklyn and got married.

He's since sent over these recent mixtape projects that I'm sharing. The Sickness consists entirely of industry production and Dreams Are Bulletproof has a good amount of it too, but Ceewhy is an emcee that appreciates the art, style and history of lyricism so his range and ability to adapt are both key elements of his technique that he wants the listener to appreciate.

Like the picture above, you'll find that dude is an honest container with glimpses of ghetto life, Malcolm X, and Star Wars inside. I know not everyone appreciates such contradictory elements in the same box. If you're willing to listen though, Ceewhy is the type of dude to engage you and attempt common understanding. If not, he'd probably just say, "f#$% you den" and keep it movin. He knows his heart is good, that there are serious duties in life we must not ignore, and also that life is to be enjoyed -- his music reflects this all.

Cruise Control

(rightclick+download)

I'm highlighting the best tracks with original production (from Twin Cities folk like Rahki, DaRyan, and Will Ways). If the selection below intrigues you, links to the free mixtapes follow.

In These Streets

(rightclick+download)

On "Get It In" Ceewhy raps, "Tryna get it in/ Young boys they just tryna live/ ain't hurtin nobody/ straight hustle positive/ wanna be a role model, show em how to live/ I'm talkin workin stiffs, I'm talkin corporate niggas/ I'm talking white collar blue collar my niggas/ And if don't nobody else feel ya, I feel ya/ What we say is real, what we live is much realer/ I see the world on your shoulders, just don't let it kill ya". He continues, "Shout to single fathers, men who handle business/ shout to married men, who marry good women/ take care of they kids, keep the bills paid/ love they wife to death, cause that's a real thing/ they say a man's life is measured from the ground up/ I say a man's life is measured from the amount of love/ you give and receive, we take and we leave/ but what is left after I'm gone is the best of me":

Get It In

(rightclick+download)

The Sickness: Designer Drugs & Disease Meets Panic (download it)

Dreams Are Bulletproof (download it)

Te'amir: "Yekermo Sew remix" [mp3]

2010-03-24T18:55:00.009-04:00

Francesca sent over this remixed Mulatu Astatke track (off the New York-Addis-London album) from a young artist she's worked with from Los Angeles named Te'Amir. Full name Te'Amir Yohannes Sweeney, he was recently invited to the Red Bull Music Academy gathering in Barcelona, Spain and has worked with a few familiar names including Vikter Duplaix, Black Eyed Peas, Aloe Blacc, and U-N-I. This remix is apart of the Timeless project put together by Mochilla.

Yekermo Sew remix

(rightclick+download)

Yekermo Sew

(rightclick+download)

Reflection Eternal: "Strangers" f. Bun B. [vid/mp3]

2010-03-23T14:26:00.006-04:00

Kweli and Hi-Tek heat. The new Reflection Eternal album Revolutions Per Minute is coming. This track features Bun B from the legendary UGK.

Strangers (Paranoid)

(rightclick+download)

J. Period: Best of the Isley Brothers [ep/mix]

2010-03-22T14:07:00.007-04:00

Creator of "Q-Tip: The Abstract" and "The Messengers: Bob Marley, Fela Kuti and Bob Dylan" mixtape projects, here's a lesser known J. Period piece from 2006 paying tribute to The Isley Brothers and their masterful body of work, featuring Aaliyah, Mobb Deep, C.L. Smooth, Mos Def, Nas, Slum Village, Bone, Easy-E, Big Daddy Kane and a few classic Isley tracks.

Best of the Isley Brothers (download it)

Good Morning remix f. Nas

(rightclick+download)

Faithful f. Papoose

(rightclick+download)

Beauty In The Dark f. Mos Def

(rightclick+download)

Who You Know Like Hov? f. Jay-Z

(rightclick+download)

There I Go Again f. Mobb Deep

(rightclick+download)

Blu: Her Favorite Colo(u)r [ep/mix]

2010-03-20T21:50:00.001-04:00

Liberator favorite Blu dropped this mixtape back in February. Unlike the average "tape" these days, this is actually worth the time it takes to download and add to your collection -- this project is just so smooth. A small selection of the best from the project are below.

Her Favorite Colo(u)r (download it)

On "Amnesia" Blu is in familiar form over a ridiculous, mellow, jazzy Billie Holiday-sample anchored track. This track right here is why you love the brutha. Pretty much everything you'd expect if you've listened to and loved his and Exile's classic debut Below The Heavens.

Amnesia

(rightclick+download)

"Wind(terlude)" is a visual, cinematic groove. Far as "interludes" go this is champion sound. Blu raps, "Must have been some karma from the second verse of "UpAllNite"/ One minute loving life now all we do is fuss and fight/ You fucking right I'm fucking pissed, I'm fucking right/ You fucking his right? You fucking right?/ Next thing you know she gone, that's how you know she wrong, months/ ago she wouldn't sleep alone/ Now she don't even speak on phones, to me it means that shes in peace/ but uhh... to each his own/ Treat her like meat and bones, kisses and reads her poems/ Looking to clean her loans, why you clinging on?/ Used to think that home is where heartbeat is, it's never where the art-ist is/ So she teases, teaches the old dog new tricks, Kathie Lee & Regis/ Co-sign a new whip, happy just to be with/ Classy as a drink, ink pen-speration, been a minute since I kicked some new shit/ Pink lips to patience?"

Wind(terlude)

(rightclick+download)

On "Vanity" Blu raps, "Prioritizin life in case I do not live long/ And finally find some time to sit down and pen a song/ Might as well try and tell you how I feel when I feel/ Not just when it's time to pay some bills/ Life is real/ You can miss it everyday/ Tryna get a lil pay/ Fill a page with some change tryna feel a little change/ On my mind I be thinkin bout the rain but/ Sunshine shines everyday... Hangin on dreams to be happy/ whether lavish or lean/ I seen enough to make a boy die nappy/ Now a man on the search for the God that I am/ But actually I rather be me/ Is it?/ Vanity?"

Vanity

(rightclick+download)

Theophilus London: This Charming Mixtape [epmix]

2010-03-17T13:15:00.002-04:00

On the verge of a new mixtape release from Theophilus ("I Want You Mixtape"), I thought those who ain't familiar yet should get so. Give this brotha time to grow into even newer life experiences and lessons and I doubt he'll disappoint; his talent is raw and promising. Engage him while he's open to keep him open. His first official project "This Charming Mixtape" is available free, or you can find a curated selection below:

This Charming Mixtape (download it | mirror)

Not on this mixtape, but a preview of what's to come on "I Want You Mixtape", the unhurried, jazzy "Life Of A Lover" features Jessee Boykins III (another buzzin, young, raw talent) finds the London sound on a new level.

Life Of A Lover f. Jesse Boykins III

(rightclick+download)

A drippin slow bass beat with a haunting hook, "I wanna know/ I wanna know/ I wanna know/ So show me who you are", Aquamilitia is probably the best track on this mixtape.

Aquamilitia

(rightclick+download)

Speaking of Bill Withers. Wait for the one minute mark on Theophilus' version of "Ain't No Sunshine" and you'll be rewarded:

Ain't No Sunshine

(rightclick+download)

THAT Homeboy Sandman [mp3 | video | ep/mix]

2010-03-11T13:34:00.004-05:00

After some quiet observation of this brutha from the sidelines (tryna see through the media hype clouds that inevitably surround so much these days), I gotta give him his props. So far, Sandman's shown that his passion is intense, his intent right and honest, his ego humbled and joyous, and his dedication to creative storytelling something serious. I'm sharing a few of his best tracks to date below. In each of them he challenges the listener... to listen; each track presents its own unique challenge though.

"Angels With Dirty Faces" is contemplative, somber, inspirational -- an understated chant-like lyrical flow, mourning our homeless bruthas and sistas, hiding in the hypnotizing flow of the track. On the chorus Sandman wails, "I'm a form of life/ forms of life are friend to me/ not unlike infinity/ so all souls alike./ Air raids on polite/ lightening bolts of energy/ I've composed a elegy/ for those that froze tonight/ my bros that froze tonight."

Angels With Dirty Faces

(rightclick+download)

"Everyday Love" is dreamy, vulnerable, poetic -- a lazy, hazy daydream flow speaking to love over a airy beat that'll make ya eyelids-heavy, gently. Sandman raps, "Soon as I ain't scheming on to get into your pants/ that'll be the one that wouldn't last/ guess I'm just a amateur on matters of romance/ matters of the heart/ wish that I could finish but I don't know where to start/ wanna stop speeding but I don't know where to park/ see you in my dreams/ gotta find out where you are/ but it's hard/ I am always where you are... n't/ at/ they say that's the way it goes/ least that's what I'm told/ searchin every cranny every nook/ but they say you neva find it when you look/ find it once it's easy bein 'lone."

Everyday Love

(rightclick+download)

"Mambo Tail Tale" is comedy on funky, jazzy digi-wax -- storytelling at it's playful best over a unforgettable B-Boy Mambo track. Sandman flows, "Now/ I don't really know how the Mambo go/ I don't know if you Mambo fast if you Mambo slow if you Mambo both/ Shorty look fine tho I was tryna kick it like tae kwando/ so I said hell yea I could Mambo miss I am very head honcho-ish/ Now of course jus talkin shit how she gon call my bluff/ this DJ playin all that sambo stuff he ain't gon play no Mambo cuts/ At that point the shit jus got bugged shorty threw her fingers up snapped them once/ I don't know where dudes jus rolled up one had a trombone the other had drums!" He continues, "Broke from out my b-boy stance I extended my hand and she grabbed it/ And we started movin side to side jus kinda synchronized like we had planned it/ Then I started puttin it down I started spinnin her 'round like real rapid/ Then I threw her up in the sky they thought I threw her too high but then I caught her in stride/ When she had landed/ It was fantastic."

Mambo Tail Tale

(rightclick+download)

Sandman ain't for everyone, but he is for listeners. If you take time to accept that challenge, you'll be rewarded.

Free mixtape with a handful of decent tracks (his two albums -- Actual Factual Pterodactyl and Nourishment (Second Helpings) -- on iTunes are much better though):
There Is No Spoon (rightclick+download)

Meanwhile, Sandman's videos always tend to illustrate the brutha's lighter side:

New Erykah Badu [mp3/video]

2010-03-03T13:01:00.003-05:00

Erykah's leaked these in recent weeks (but, in this strange age, low-tech is my new high-tech and slow-burn is replacing the superficial need to be on the bleeding edge -- intimate, honest connection over hype and marketing). In recent interviews Badu has compared the upcoming album, New Amerykah Part II: Return of the Ankh, to her first project -- Baduizm. Tellin you, somethin's in the air.

Jump Up In The Air

(rightclick+download)

Window Seat

(rightclick+download)

New Corinne Bailey Rae [mp3/video]

2010-03-03T12:23:00.006-05:00

A leak and a iTunes bonus track from Corinne's new album, The Sea, out now.

I'd Do It All Again

(rightclick+download)

It Be's That Way Sometimes

(rightclick+download)

New Janelle Monae [mp3]

2010-03-03T12:21:00.010-05:00

A few leaked tracks from Monae's upcoming album. Her first project, Metropolis I: The Chase EP, is out now. "2012" is a bonus tracks just for yawl from the vaults that I think you'll appreciate, off a project she was featured on with a group called Jaspects (The Polkadotted Stripe LP).

Cold War

(rightclick+download)

Tightrope

(rightclick+download)

2012 (Jaspects)

(rightclick+download)

Mos Def: The Ecstatic [review/mp3]

2010-02-26T15:37:00.014-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

Mos Def's most recent album The Ecstatic is a classic album. Meaning: it will be just as good, and probably better, with more and more time sprinkled on it, and long after Mos is gone. It was released on June 9, 2009. I was moved to write this review in February 2010, to share. Therefore this review is more than mere marketing and promotion. Call it outreach if you must.

The Ecstatic is what you call a born again experience. Mos is older than he was on his first classic album, Black On Both Sides. More importantly though, he's wiser. It shows. In-between this classic and his first one, Mos played around in more experimental Hip-Hop (The New Danger and True Magic albums), acting, and messing around with sexy Brooklyn women. Here he's returned to focus, with countless insights regarding being in tune with one's purpose and one's peace in life -- everlasting inner peace, independent of worldly definitions of success. Mos is heard in vulnerable but powerful form, testifying on the ever important how and why in conversations about finding and manifesting love in a chaotic modernity, and on the infinite beauty of the simple.

Between beautifully crafted pieces like: the wailing, "Life In Marvelous Times"; the minimalistic retro-jazzy, "Priority"; the haunting, "No Hay Nada Mas" versed entirely en espanol; the warm foreign-film nostalgic fuzziness of "The Tournament"; and the joyful pure innocence of "Roses"; there are three songs that summarize the primary trajectory of the album for this listener -- "Auditorium", "History" and Casa Bey. Respectively, they illuminate three of the greatest human acts in my opinion; bearing witness, declaration and testimony -- all of which Mos has done an excellent job manifesting with this project.

On "Auditorium", featuring Slick Rick, Mos bears witness on the current shared somber reality of globalized life for so many of us in these times, demonstrating that he continues to recognize the importance of being in harmony with the instinct and the emotion of the communities he is rooted in. He raps: "The way I feel sometimes it's too hard to sit still/ Things are so passionate, times are so real/ Sometimes I try an chill mellow down blowin' smoke/ Smile on my face but it's really no joke/ You feel it in the streets, the people breathe without hope/ They goin' through the motion, they dimmin' down, they focus/ The focus gettin' clear and the light turn sharp/ And the eyes go teary, the mind grow weary". He continues: "I speak it so clearly, sometimes ya don't hear me/ I push it past the bass, no nations gotta feel me/ I feel it in my bones, black, I'm so wide awake/ That I hardly ever sleep, my flows forever deep/ And it's volumes of scriptures when I breath on a beat."

On "History", featuring Talib Kweli, Mos declares the comeback, and the futility of trying to defeat a feisty radical young man turned clearer seeing man, born again and ready to live faithfully as an "ecstatic". He raps: "And don't call it a come back in particular/ Even if it blend into ephemera or/ Fade into peripheral transition of the minister's original/ We're broadcast clear without diminishing/ Black Star stove top burning soul/ temperatures, administers: Alkalines, aminos and minerals; its sensuous/ Served over Dilla time signatures/ it's miracle material, remember it's right now foreverness."

On "Casa Bey" Mos testifies to ultimate truths and his humble encounters with them. Here Mos has found deep purpose, and understanding, and peace. In that lies a tremendous power; fear (of failure, of lack of recognition) is overcome by a testimony on the knowing of his self. No question, Mos know the blues of Babylon rat race. But here he testifies that he knows what his ultimate purpose is and has accepted it (thus, peace) -- anything more in life is simply God's grace (thus, beauty). He has tapped into a harmony with time and space and found joy in the vastness of it all by choosing to be an ecstatic about the gifts around and inside of him. The cipher has come full circle. He raps: "Magnetic, the flows are athletic/ Dimensions are perfected but the static and kinetic is power/ Past pressure and mass beyond measure/ You can place son where ever he Bed-Stuy forever"... "Stanzas and anthems based on expansion/ A vantage point of the past, present and after/ Rapture, master of ceremony, a master craft/ Of the masterminds who craft masters"... "And it's constant, my mother an artwork/ And God is the author, from Flaco to Archer/ We right on target, a ready steady responsive/ A black light white in the darkness, y'all just/ Are fantastic rawness, good morning, yes"... He continues: "Don't stop the rock/ You don't, don't stop the rock/ You hear the people say, Don't stop"... "You can't stop my go/ I've been born to be where I am/ A bright light from a distant star/ Miracles and answered prayers".

Casa Bey

(rightclick+download)

Candice Anitra: "Objectify" [video/mp3]

2010-02-22T15:02:00.000-05:00

Jus a beautiful, sexy song and video that needed to be shared. Candice Anitra's debut album, Bark Then Bite, is available in March.

Objectify

(rightclick+download)

Keziah Jones: "Long Distance Love" [video/mp3]

2010-02-22T15:00:00.001-05:00

We feature a beautiful interview with Keziah in the current issue of The Liberator (#24). A beautiful captured conversation with Nneka -- who's featured on this track and in this video -- is in the lab. The track comes from Keziah's recent album Nigerian Wood. Enjoy.

Long Distance Love

(rightclick+download)

Nneka: "Focus" [video/mp3]

2010-02-20T03:39:00.003-05:00

If you haven't already started your collection, get a copy of Nneka's recently released album Concrete Jungle. Whatever you gotta do, get that. This track right heeere, this that get you over and through music... that chant down babylon ballad.

Focus

(rightclick+download)

Alexis Nicole: "Reminisce" [interview/mp3]

2010-02-20T03:30:00.003-05:00

{liberatormagazine.com exclusive feature}

The following interview was conducted by Sheena Steward, who joined our team with her Open Mic submission back in September '09. We are very intentional about staying connected to our communities and holding the door open for aspiring writers to sharpen their skills. Sheena is doing that and doing it exceptionally well. She would like to write features for the magazine; never being published before, we challenged her to take a step in that direction by locating an up-and-coming artist who inspires her interest and putting together her first music feature. This is it. Show love; constructive feedback encouraged.

Alexis Nicole
interview by Sheena Steward

Her current single won't skyrocket to the top of the Billboard charts, her video won't own the top spot on BET's 106 and Park Countdown, and it won't break any Soundscan records.

Reminisce

(rightclick+download)

Instead, vocalist Alexis Nicole will measure her success by what listeners take away from her music. She prides herself on being an excellent storyteller. She wants her neo-soul influenced lyrics to jump off the beat into the soul.

Liberator Magazine: What stage of the music cycle do you feel you’re at?

Alexis Nicole: I feel I’m at the beginning. I have experience from my first album as well as writing, recording, and producing, but I still have a long way to go.

LM: I believe that music evokes emotions. What do you want your audience to take away from your music?

AN: I write from a woman’s perspective about life and love. I’m hoping it hits home with my listeners in a sentimental way. I also have songs that will make you want to relax and unwind.

LM: We as women are constantly evolving as a result of our experiences; therefore, it’s safe to say we have different perspectives. So what’s your personal perspective on life and love?

AN: I believe that love exists, but it might not happen at the time or how way we want it. I sing about the type of relationship I’m waiting for. As far as life my motto is dream hard, love hard, hard work, hard play.

LM: What events have taken place in your life that you feel are the most influential on your music and why?

AN: My relationships have had the most influence. I experienced a wide range of emotions which I express to others in my music. I write songs that showcase experience others have dealt with but don’t know how to put it in words.

LM: Exactly how does your music make the listener unwind? Will they “kick off their shoes” like Xscape or curl up on the couch with a glass of wine?

AN: My album has songs that will make you do both. Listeners will experience a wide range of emotions.

LM: If I’m making a playlist on my iPod, what other artists would “vibe” well with your sound?

AN: Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott, Algebra, Erykah Badu, and Eric Roberson

LM: What expectations do you have for your second album?

AN: I want people to remember me for the work I put in on this project. I want the listeners to be able to relate to me. My goal is to use this project as a stepping stone for further success.

LM: Five years from now when people say the name Alexis Nicole, what adjectives do you want to follow?

AN: Cool, genuine, talented, down to earth, funny, and beautiful music.

Eagle Nebula: "Spaceship Earth" [mp3]

2010-02-19T12:20:00.000-05:00

Eagle Nebula (Live From Planet Earth alum) passed on this funky boom-bap track recently. I've been wanting to share this for a while and the day has finally come. The album Cosmic Headphones is available for purchase from Brooklyn to Japan.

Spaceship Earth

(rightclick+download)

Joell Ortiz: "Call Me" f. Novel [video/mp3]

2010-02-18T11:02:00.001-05:00

Joell Ortiz is often slept on, often put in all kindsa boxes. This track should break em for ya. Deeply honest and eloquent soulful story telling in 2010, evoking warm nostalgia for a story you may or may not even relate to in actuality; that's called good testimony, yessir.

Call Me

(rightclick+download)

Dwele: Suite For Ma Dukes Dilla tribute [video/mp3]

2010-02-14T13:40:00.003-05:00

A live performance by Dwele of "Angel" off the Suite For Ma Dukes EP released by Stones Throw. The performance was a part of the concert series Timeless produced by LA-based Mochilla.

Angel (live)

(rightclick+download)

Damian Marley & Nas [mp3]

2010-02-14T13:39:00.006-05:00

Big expectations indeed. I can feel it in the air. "Strong Will Continue" is a fiery, deeply rooted call and reminder fa inner strength; the first version below feature Damian closing the track out, second version feature Nas closing it out wit a second verse. Dese leaks most likely gon be merged, but who know? Either way this is pure fire. Peep lyrics below. Lastly, as bonus, check out "As We Enter".

I love when trains run ontime.

Strong Will Continue (Damian Marley f. Nas)

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Strong Will Continue (Nas f. Damian Marley)

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As We Enter

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Artist: Nas & Damian Marley
Album: Distant Relatives
Song: Strong Will Continue
(source)

[Nas]
All I do is stay focused
Looking straight forward at the world and beyond
I feel people pulling me down
I feel some pulling me up
I can't get stuck
I just keep moving forward
I got places to go man
Let's go

[Damian Marley]
When the armageddon's dark and dread
A lot of weak hearted weep and moan
Only the strong will continue
Do you have it in you?
Come, we've got a journey to go
And when the battle get sour and dread
A lot of weak hearted wither and moan
Only the strong will continue
I know you have it in you
I know you have it in you

[Damian Marley]
Hey, the victory's found in truth
Like innocence found in youth
Self defeat is your own dispute
And man, you put yourself in your own shoes
Either you're winning or losing
Don't you get it confused
Play a star and you know your own movie
Playing of the role you choose, so
Stand up and fight if you know that you're right
And know you will never fail
Tipping the scale and the wind shall prevail
And the boat shall forever sail
Hey, there ain't no stopping or cruising
Even when you're battered and bruised
Hold gun all the sprinklers on Mt. Olympus
My gat tougher than Zeus

[Damian Marley (Nas)]
When the armageddon's dark and dread
(I get up and make it happen)
A lot of weak hearted wither and moan
(I get up and we get it cracking)
Only the strong will continue
Do you have it in you?
Come, we've got a journey to go
And when the battle get sour and dread
(I get up and I get it going)
A lot of weak hearted wither and moan
(We get up and we keep it flowing)
Only the strong will continue (yeah)
I know you have it in you (yeah, yeah)
I know you have it in you

[Nas]
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
New York to Cali, for the money, power, respect
It's a journey, some'll get left behind
Cause in life, you cannot press rewind
Get it right, you only have one first chance
To make one first impression that lasts a lifetime
Reputation supercedes itself
Do you believe in Hell? Babylon greed for wealth
Do you deceive yourself and let your ego swell?
And disregard those who most need your help
Thick skin, the dark won't take my soul
Survive spiritual wars, see my welts
And the evil's felt, but the faith is stronger
I saw grown men fall when I was a youngster
But I clench my fists, ready to go against whoever
Tie my Timbs and rise in the end

[Damian Marley (Nas)]
When the armageddon's dark and dread
(I get up and make it happen)
A lot of weak hearted weep and moan
(I get up and we get it cracking)
Only the strong will continue
Do you have it in you?
Come, we've got a journey to go
And when the battle get sour and tread
(I get up and I get it going)
A lot of weak hearted wither and moan
(We get up and we keep it flowing)
Only the strong will continue (yeah)
I know you have it in you (yeah, yeah)
I know you have it in you

[Damian Marley]
No man live forever, but never say never
Every good he want better, must be a go getter
And always be clever in every endeavor
Now drastic time call for drastic measure
Your girl try to pleasure from your neighbors, things sever
The land and the treasure, work for whatever
Jah said don't be a beggar, the Alpha Omega
Will bless every soul no matter which name you prefer
The immortal stepper, believe in every skin no matter which color they are
We never let we don't know here which kind of weather
You're destined to rise like the Son of Rebecca
Don't stop for a second
Everyone reckon, it sure would be good to be there
Whether Zion or Mecca
When the gates are finally closed
And the saints go marching in

[Damian Marley (Nas)]
When the armageddon's dark and dread
(I get up and make it happen)
A lot of weak hearted weep and moan
(I get up and we get it cracking)
Only the strong will continue
Do you have it in you?
Come, we've got a journey to go
And when the battle get sour and dread
(I get up and I get it going)
A lot of weak hearted wither and moan
(We get up and we keep it flowing)
Only the strong will continue (only the strong will continue)
I know you have it in you
I know you have it in you

[Nas]
As the weak shall fall to the sideline, I get my kid
I protect mine with a TEC-9
Haters want me to side with them
Gangsters want me to ride with them
Ladies want me to make brides of them
I'm on the low and I'm creeping
I'm in the zone every evening
I'm in the zone every evening
Walk through the valley of death, I'm still breahing
For a bit of life, the American dream
Thief in the night like I never been seen
Coming through in the zone every evening
In the zone every evening
Only strong will survive

Reflection Eternal: The ReUnion Mixtape [ep/mix]

2010-02-10T13:46:00.001-05:00

A short history of Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek's time together as Reflection Eternal (and collaborations in between the lines), including a few beautiful new tracks from the upcoming album.

The ReUnion Mixtape (zshare download)

J*Davey: Boudoir Synema [ep/mix]

2010-02-10T13:26:00.000-05:00

Boudoir Synema: The Great Mistapes (bandcamp download)

BBC Radio 1: Essential Mixes (All of them!) [mp3]

2010-02-02T20:09:00.001-05:00

Essaywhuman?!!!??! Yes, this is true.

BBC Radio 1: Essential Mixes (download them)

Dolphin: Mono vs Stereo [ep/mix]

2010-02-01T02:34:00.002-05:00

Funky electronica. No one is f*ckin with D'Angelo. Or Steve Spacek either for that matter. But as far as young folk in the apprenticeship tradition Dolphin is puttin in some serious work, sincerely. I'll be sharing much more of his work in the coming weeks. After reaching out to him, he dropped a whole bag of good 'ish for me to share. My favorites on this Mono vs Stereo project are "Fresh Flowers" and "Deserve You". Very right.

Mono vs Stereo (download it)

Le Da Soul: 20 yrs of De La Soul remixed [ep/mix]

2010-02-01T02:13:00.000-05:00

Some of the hardest working folks in the underground "pay respects to the kings" over funky remixes of De La classics presented by mixtape masters Mick Boogie & Terry Urban. Features by Tanya Morgan, Homeboy Sandman, Phife Dawg, Talib Kweli, Asheru, Camp Lo, Tabi Bonney, Big Pooh, etc.

Le Da Soul: 20 Years of De La Soul (download it)

Graph Nobel: Something 2 Die 4 [ep/mix]

2010-02-01T02:01:00.000-05:00

Graph's raspy vocal tones are simply beautiful.

Something 2 Die 4 (download it)

The ARE: Manipulated Marauders [ep/mix]

2010-01-20T17:51:00.000-05:00

A sweet sounding blend of A Tribe Called Quest remixes featuring production by The ARE. Definitely not your average remix project. It's no easy task to make ATCQ sound better than it already is.

Manipulated Marauders (download it)

Adult Swim/Beaterator: ATL RMX [ep/mix]

2010-01-20T17:50:00.000-05:00

It's ultimately a promo for a new Timbaland-inspired video game (Beaterator), but this free project features talented electronic production-folk like Flying Lotus, El-P, Hudson Mohawke, and Starkey remixing tracks from some of Atlanta's most popular hip-hop heroes (Cee-Lo, Lil Jon, Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane, Gorilla Zoe, B.O.B.). Whether you're ATL faithful already or a fan of imaginative electronic production, this project will both strengthen and diversify your bonds; exposing you to some legends in the broader hip-hop and electronic culture and pleasing you with some extremely well executed combinations. Don't look here for righteous lyrics or spiritual grooves though, this is straight ear candy. It's fresh hearing what someone like El-P -- who did a classic electro-jazz joint like Sunrise Over Brooklyn -- can do with some Young Jeezy lyrics.

ATL RMX (download it)

Nneka: "The Madness, Onye-Ala" [ep/mix]

2009-12-24T17:07:00.001-05:00

Nneka is some kind of wonderful. For those of you who have been hearing her singles around the web but have yet to purchase her album, and for those who have no idea who she is, J.Period has helped compile some remixes in this new free mixtape featuring verses from Nas, Talib Kweli, Jay Electronica, M1 (dead prez), and Outkast. This is your chance to hear some of the best of Nneka for free. Don't sleep.

If you're already a fan who owns her albums, there's nothing too new here but most of the songs have been tweaked or blended with hip-hop classics with rap verses over them; and the new arrangements make a big enough difference for it to be well worth the free addition to your collection.

The Madness, Onye-Ala (download it)

Michael Jackson: Thriller Demos [ep/mix]

2009-12-20T20:02:00.003-05:00

Imagine being in the studio when Mike was laying down rough vocals with colleagues over rough drafts of songs that would eventually end up on his classic Thriller album. Having trouble? Download this. Some will sound like completely new interpretations to you, others will hauntingly sound familiarly unfamiliar. These are all such beautiful tracks; the history and the aesthetics. You'll enjoy getting to know Mike's work in a whole new way.

Thriller Demos (download it)

J.Dilla + Jay-Z: Dilla vs Jigga [ep/mix]

2009-12-20T20:01:00.003-05:00

I almost slept on this because I was tired of Jay-Z mashups. Do not make that mistake. Hearing Jay fit seamlessly over classic Dilla tracks is an experience worth taking time out for. This is a worthwhile addition to your music collection.

Dilla vs Jigga (download it)

Daru: Spirit Drumz Chapter One [ep/mix + review]

2009-12-20T19:30:00.001-05:00

Staying true to his roots of spirituality and musical standpoint, Daru Jones introduces Spirit Drumz: Chapter One to us. A New York transplant hailing from Pittsburgh, Daru knew early that music was something he was going to incorporate into is lifestyle. With thanks to his weapon of choice in percussion, and his own production company, Rusic Music, he heads forward on a path of enlightenment as he embraces a born-again appreciation for a genre he calls Soul-Hop.

"Stand Part Two" introduces the album with a choir of chants and hand clapping. The imagery of walking down the aisle of church and being greeted with smiles comes to mind. The production isn’t overbearing, but also not strong enough to make a significant impact, which makes the track somewhat forgettable with the spliced beats and the sporadic yells. A highlight, "Spread Love Part Two" is an uplifting track with similarities of an Arrested Development-esque song. Harmonies of the love are yelled with the percussion leading the way. Daru’s production is showcased as the varied situations occurring mesh together cohesively. "Hold On (Somebody) Part Two" is smooth and vintage. Daru classic Al Green and transports it into the future, adding the edgy soundings of hip-hop by way of a synthesized vocal.

Spirit Drumz: Chapter One has done what Daru wanted since in the music business -- start a new movement. Elements of gospel, soul and hip-hop are blended well and nether one overpowers the other. While most of his tracks touch base with a higher being as subject matter, he'll be fresh as long as he can continue to artfully navigate the boundaries of traditional gospel and not become it. Overall, Daru's genre-breaking creation has a tremendous upside and is a treat to experience. Add this one to your collection.

Spirit Drumz: Chapter One (download it)

Soon You'll Luv Me (ep.1) [ep/mix]

2009-12-07T23:37:00.002-05:00

Emcee and producer David Martin is a music dude. One part of the indie/hip-hop/rock band Sela, Martin is currently in the midst of his self-produced solo project. A musician, and he definitely knows how to make beats. His new EP is more of a mixtape, mixed with self-made and borrowed hits. But don't be fooled: this is just a taste. He's got plenty up his sleeve. "Gots No Luv" and "Show Ur Luv" are definitely indicative of whats to come. Stay tuned and download Soon You'll Luv Me.

Soon You'll Luv Me (download it)

Gots No Luv

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Show Ur Luv

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Jackson 5 + Stevie Wonder: "Buttercup" [mp3]

2009-11-30T00:41:00.002-05:00

"Buttercup" is a gem of a collaboration between the Jackson 5 and Stevie Wonder, who penned this song. I have no idea why this wasn't released until now. It's quite lovely.

Buttercup

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Res: Black.Girls.Rock! [ep/mix]

2009-11-30T00:32:00.001-05:00

Eight years after dropping How I Do, (I know you all remember the dopeness that is Ice King, They Say Vision and Golden Boys, right?) Philly rocker Res is back with a new album. And it's free.99. Do yourself a favor and download Black.Girls.Rock! You won't be disappointed.

Black.Girls.Rock! (download it)

Here's a great sample track:

On My Way

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J.Dilla + MJ: "Player Has Butterflies" [mp3]

2009-11-30T00:29:00.000-05:00

"Player Has Butterflies" is a teaser track from Share My Bed, a J Dilla/Michael Jackson mashup currently being cooked up by J. Rocc of the Beat Junkies crew. I cannot wait for the full project to be released. Can. Not. Wait. It does make you wistful for what could have been though. Can you imagine the results if Dilla had produced an album with the Gloved One?

Player Has Butterflies

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Lupe Fiasco: Enemy Of The State [ep/mix]

2009-11-28T19:47:00.002-05:00

Enemy Of The State (download it)