Bilal 'Airtight's Revenge' Cover & Tracklist With Production Credits Posted Online

Bilal Airtight’s Revenge on Plug Research arrives September 14th.

Tracklist:

01. Cake & Eat It Too – prod by Bilal Oliver & Steve Mckie
02. Restart – prod. by Bilal Oliver & Steve Mckie
03. All Matter – prod. by Bilal Oliver & Steve Mckie
04. Flying – prod. by Bilal Oliver & Nottz
05. Levels – prod. by Bilal Oliver & Shafiq Husayn
06. Little One – prod. by Conley “Tone” Whitfield
07. Move On – prod. by Bilal Oliver & Steve Mckie
08. Robots – prod. by Bilal Oliver
09. The Dollar – prod. by Bilal Oliver & Steve Mckie
10. Who Are You – prod. by Bilal Oliver & Steve Mckie
11. Think It Over – prod. by 88 Keys

(spotted on Y2K)

Jack Splash: Producer, Songwriter, Artist Interview

via Sheena Beaston

SB: So what are you doing down in Miami now?

JS: Um, I’m from LA originally and I moved out here I guess about 4 years ago now and it was only supposed to be a one year thing, like a working vacation type thing. But, I love it. I love the weather. I’m a beach dude, like that’s why I don’t love the snow. I just like the warm, tropical weather. Yeah, like this year’s been a little bit cold, but other than that, I love the weather and I’m a workaholic. And I live right on the beach so I can wake up and go swimming in the ocean, right on the beach.

SB: So you’ve been putting out some mix tapes in anticipation of the full length that’s coming out. Do you have a release date for the full album yet?

JS: Well, I had so many people on it that I had to get all the clearances, you know, all the label politics. But it’s coming out in May, I don’t have the exact date. The main reason I was putting out the free albums, and I call them the free albums because they’re really albums, you know what I mean, but the reason I wanted to do that, the first were more hip-hop based and on the new one I’m not rapping at all, it’s all singing, but I wanted my American people to know kinda where I come from so when the big album comes out or whatever, I didn’t want to come out of left field. I wanted the people to know, here’s my history, and it’s easier to tell those stories through hip-hop, you know what I mean? So, I’m not rapping at all on my real album. Lupe (Fiasco) is on it, and Missy (Elliott) and other people are doing the rapping part.

SB: That’s what I wanted to ask you. How much of the album then is you and your voice as opposed to the guests? Because I know you have a great lineup of people set to appear on the album...

JS: It’s still 90% me, you know? I guess the important thing is that I made the entire album on my own first. Our Plant Life stuff was like demos to me. I mean, to be honest and frank, I was drunk and just having fun and living life and documenting that in songs. So I didn’t really produce it, I wasn’t trippin out on how my vocals sounded, you know it sounded a little fucked up but it was supposed to sound a little fucked up. So I made the entire album on my own first, there was nobody on it. And it wasn’t until I finished and made this little animated movie with Cee-Lo and I was like, you know what, I really want to bring, I mean I know it sounds crazy, I hope this doesn’t come out as a bad quote, but I really wanted to kind of try and do what the Beatles did with Sgt. Pepper where it was all them but they brought in this really beautiful cast of characters to come participate in their little psychedelic world. So that’s really what I did.

Read the full Jack Splash interview here:
Sheena Beaston - The Royal Reign of Sir Jack Splash

Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime Schedule Fat Beats NYC In-Store Today

Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime - 'SomeOthaShip' on Groove Attack in-stores today!

To purchase Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime - 'SomeOthaShip' at iTunes here:
'SomeOthaShip' - iTunes

If you like the physical version visit Amazon here
'SomeOthaShip' - Amazon

Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime's track "fOnk w/ an O" ft. LMNO, Prod. By Dudley Perkins from 'SomeOthaShip' streamed here:
"fOnk w/ an O"

Dates supporting Georgia Anne Muldrow & Declaime - 'SomeOthaShip' here:

February 23rd at Fat Beats, New York – In-Store
6:00pm – 7:00pm

February 23rd at SOBs in New York City
Doors @ 7:30pm
Show @ 9:00pm

February 24th at Liv in Washington D.C.
Doors @ 7:00pm
Show @ 8:00pm

February 25th at The Arts Garage in Philadelphia
Doors @ 8:30pm

Raheem DeVaughn: 'The Love & War MasterPeace' Interview

via Artist Direct

Artist Direct: So did Bootsy Collins end up on Masterpeace?

Raheem DeVaughn: I wish Bootsy was on MasterPeace! The week that I actually flew out there to work with Bootsy, we already had the master. I'm doing stuff on his new album. I'm actually going to start the blueprint for my next album right now though. That's usually how it works. At some point while I'm working on the current album, I usually get inspired to start working on the next one. I've been lining people up that I want to work with on that. He's definitely one of those individuals.

Artist Direct: What's the story behind "I Don't Care?"

Raheem DeVaughn: That record is actually the only song on the album that I didn't write or co-write on. I'm big on self-expression, so I've written or arranged 99.9 percent of what I've released throughout my career. I'm always making sure the track is right. However, "I Don't Care" was a record that was done already. It's one of three in my career like that. Sometimes, as an artist you have to know how to humble yourself and step outside of yourself. You say, "Alright, there's something I'm looking for and I might not be able to create it." I put out so much energy in the stuff that I know that I can do. This is a tempo record, but it doesn't feel like it's not me, per se. The message isn't crazy, and I didn't second-think it. Ne-Yo wrote this record. As a fan of his, this was a great opportunity to try a different lane. I feel like I definitely made the record mine.

Artist Direct: If you were to compare this record to a movie, what would you compare it to?

Raheem DeVaughn: I'd compare it to Purple Rain! I think this is my breakout album. I think that it's definitely going to put people in channel with my star power. It's definitely an album that's centered around my life. We get into the war stuff. For example, there's "Soldier Story." I've got personal friends that went to the war and lost limbs. I've got friends in the services in Haiti right now that are giving it to me play by play—not the CNN play-by-play, but the real deal. There's a lot of heavy stuff going on in the world. I feel like this album is actually a fusion of Prince's Sign of the Times and Marvin Gaye's I Want You. I think I really captured both sides of the theme with The Love & War MasterPeace. It's very edgy. It's some of my best work, but at the same time, it's some of my most raw and emotional work.

Artist Direct: Any tracks that stand out to you off the top of your head?

Raheem DeVaughn: I have one record called "Nobody Wins a War," which features Jill Scott, myself of course, Anthony Hamilton, Dwele, Chrisette Michele, Citizen Cope, Chico DeBarge, Ledesi, Bilal and my home girl Shelby from Black Gypsy—she's been working with Prince since he did the Superbowl. There's a gang of people on this one joint. It's ironic that I was able to get with all of these folks. It's the first record of its kind for soul artists.

Artist Direct: Is soul coming back?

Raheem DeVaughn: I feel like soul never left! Definitely the attention is back on it with Maxwell's comeback and now Sade coming out. It re-confirms that if you make something with substance, you can come back out and have a following.

Read the full interview here:
Artist Direct - Raheem DeVaughn Interview

Robert Glasper: Jazz Man & Hip Hop Collaborator 'Double Booked' Album Review

As reviewed by Chase Hoffberger at the Austin Chronicle

Robert Glasper - Double Booked (Blue Note) released August 25, 2009.

Jazz traditionalists will wish they could have gotten more of Robert Glasper's Trio on the Houston native's most recent Double Booked, but anyone familiar with the 30-year-old pianist knows there's no sense in confinement. As a longtime collaborator of Mos Def, J Dilla, Q Tip, and the Roots, Glasper's musical tendencies lie as close to hip-hop as they do to traditional jazz, a fact made most evident on the tease of De La Soul's "Stakes Is High" midway through Thelonious Monk's "Think of One." Split into two parts – first half with the Trio, second with his Experiment, which features Casey Benjamin on both saxophone and vocoder – Booked is just as much about Glasper's unique vision (the Bilal-featured "All Matter" - music below) as it is his tangled piano phrasings ("No Worries"). Approach it with an "Open Mind."

Order Robert Glasper - Double Booked here:
Robert Glasper - Double Booked





Robert Glasper Improv-ing On The Keys To 'Gettin' Up' w/Q-Tip @ London's Roundhouse For Gilles Peterson's 10 Year Worldwide Anniversary Tour in 2009.



Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson of the Roots discusses Robert Glasper's influence.

Plug Research Twenty Ten At The Echoplex L.A. Highlights

(video courtesy of Takeover Radio & lainegrace19)

J*DaVey: Los Angeles Duo In Amsterdam

J*DaVey - 'New Designer Drug' on Warner Brothers coming in 2010.

Maxwell Explains His Departure And Come Back

via CNN

CNN: While you were away, it was easy to think you were gone because of something troublesome.

Maxwell: When there's no information, people create whatever they want.

CNN: You're very mysterious.

Maxwell: Am I?

CNN: People don't know a whole lot about your life, except for what you write in lyrics.

Maxwell: I feel like there's a healthy separation, and I think that it really helps me to have something to say and to not make a spectacle of my day-to-day.
I'm not big on reality shows, when they know what toothbrush you use and what soap; all those things that are commonplace now in terms of how people sort of see celebrities. I feel like I'm real old-school that way. I love mystique.
I love people like Harrison Ford. He'll make his movies, and then he'll go do his thing, and I think people just leave him to himself. I've seen celebrities -- and I'm talking about big-time people -- literally get off a plane, grab their own luggage, rent a car and drive themselves home.
I love the fact that I don't always have to be "on" for my friends. And then when it's time to get on stage, it's that other person that kind of comes into the formation. I like those two distinctive worlds.

More of the complete interview here:
CNN - Singer Maxwell finds his way back

Erykah Badu NYC Listening Session Album Preview

Album preview/review courtesy of Vibe

The ambiance at Manhattan's legendary Chung King Studios Wednesday night (Dec. 9) was vintage Erykah Badu: black floor pillows, scented candles, dark lighting that induced a trippy, laidback mood. It was an intriguing setting for the 38-year-old Dallas, Texas native who was in a light-hearted and at times candid mood during a listening session for her upcoming release New Amerykah, Part II (Return of the Ankh), due out Feb. 23, 2010.

As the album title suggests, Badu has taken inspiration from her classic 1997 debut Baduizm, a time when the head-wrapped, incense-waving vocalist was first critically hailed as the queen of neo soul, the burgeoning jazz-influenced, stripped-to-the-bone R&B genre that included D'Angelo, Maxwell and Jill Scott among its star headliners. But while subsequent projects found the singer distancing herself from what she saw as the musical constraints of neo soul (From the funked-out jam session vibe of 2000's Mama's Gun to 2008's politically-charged avant garde New Amerykah, Pt. 1: 4th World War), the occasionally organic live feel of New Amerykah Part II finds Badu giving an introspective nod to her past.

"I feel how I felt when I released Baduizm," said the always-eccentric performer, wearing a Flashdance-era gray sweatshirt, yellow jogging pants, blue leggings and silver slippers. Over a mix of live piano, jazz guitars, dusty soul samples, driving acoustic bass, live drums, and J-Dilla-esque hip-hop sound-clashes, Badu delivers an album that offers the emotional highs, lows and maddening complexities of being involved in a romantic relationship. The project, which features contributions from The Roots drummer ?uestlove, producers Madlib and Sa-Ra, keyboardist James Poyser, 9th Wonder and late influential hip hop producer J Dilla, may be as musically accessible as Erykah Badu can get.

"This is my therapy,' she continues of the album's more personal tone. "New Amerykah Pt. 1 [had a more] digital feel. This time I wanted to have more live instruments. I like how my voice sounds when I'm singing with a piano. I'm glad I don't have to use Auto-Tune. My voice is my gift." Badu then muses, "But if I had to use [Auto-Tune], I would."

Highlights on New Amerykah, Part II (Return of the Ankh) include:

"20 Feet Tall" (prod. by 9th Wonder)
Features Badu's stark vocals over a floating keyboard riff that can be described as a jazzier nod to Radiohead's "Everything in it's Right Place" (2000).

"Window Seat" (prod. by Erykah Badu & James Poyser)
"I need your attention...I need you to miss me," she pleads to a lover on the throwback soul groove that's driven by a live jazz bassline (a theme throughout New Amerykah Pt. II) that could have been plucked straight off Baduizm.

"Get Money" (prod. by Erykah Badu, James Poyser, Karriem Riggins & Thundercat)
Samples the Notorious B.I.G.-led Junior Mafia classic "Get Money." A playful Badu takes on the role of a female player who is all about the green, delivering real talk lines like, "I look like a model...I want your money."

"Fall In Love" (prod. by Karriem Riggins)
A heartfelt, mid tempo slow jam that uses a chilling J Dilla-blessed Eddie Kendricks sample. Has single potential.

"Incense" (prod. by Madlib)
Breathtaking instrumental that sounds like it was produced under water. Yes, that's a harp you are hearing. "It felt like a hug," Badu says of the stunning track.

"Out My Mind Just in Time (Part 1) (Undercover Over-Lover)
(prod. by James Poyser)
Out My Mind Just in Time (Part 2)"
(prod. by Georgia Anne Muldrow)
Badu calls this her second three-song suite ("You'll have to wait to hear [Part 3] when the album comes out," she says), much in the same conceptual vein featured on Mama's Gun. "Part 1" finds Badu accompanied by a stirring torch song piano pleading, "I'll lie for you, cry for you...yes I'm a fool for you..." "Part 2" is the sound of madness following heartbreak. Over a disjointed jazz-tinged groove Badu gives a haunting, schizophrenic performance.

"Jump In The Air And Stay There" ft. Lil Wayne
One of 10 versions of a leaked track that will feature 10 MC's (the cut will not be featured on New Amerykah Pt. II). While the hard-charging beat is somewhat aggressive, the message of keeping an optimistic attitude in life is bolstered by the much-rumored (and lively) performance of Lil' Wayne. "There are a few surprise MC's that you will hear," Badu says. "I don't want to give it away just yet."

other tracks include:
Agitation (prod. by Shafiq Husayn)
Don’t Be Long (prod. by Ta’Raach)
Love (prod. by Dilla)
Umm Hmm (prod. by Madlib)

Related:
Erykah Badu 'New Amerykah Part 2: Return of Ankh' Set For Feb. 23, 2010

Sade 'Soldier of Love'

Erykah Badu 'New Amerykah Part 2: Return of Ankh' Set For Feb. 23, 2010

Erykah Badu - 'New Amerykah Part 2: Return of the Ankh' on Motown/Universal is tentatively set for a February 23, 2010 release date.

Potential tracks on the album include:

Speech
Love Me
Emotions
Don't Be Long
YPOM
Hot Slow Jam
Jump Up in the Air And Stay There
Loretta Brown
Dirty Dirty

Shafiq Husayn Of SA-RA Creative Partners Exposes His History Stamp On L.A. Hip Hop

via the L.A. Weekly

The cover of En’ A-Free-Ka, the solo album from Sa-Ra Creative Partners’ Shafiq Husayn, shows the producer and MC studiously perched on a slender, dark-green stool, clutching an ancient-looking brown spear. Around him, an eclectic selection of antiques and artifacts clutters the scene, while a hazy, late-afternoon beam of light defines him as the focal subject. He’s sitting inside Africa by the Yard, a store in L.A.’s Leimert Park district. It’s an artsy area, he explains, a former cultivating ground for the progressive-thinking early-’90s hip-hop movement Project Blowed, and home to Good Life Café, where artists like Freestyle Fellowship and Abstract Rude would congregate.

He found his calling in hip-hop after attending Uncle Jamm’s Army parties in the early ’80s. “Uncle Jamm’s Army was the West Coast Zulu Nation as far as throwing jams and playing that electro and funk music,” he explains in his low-register growl of a voice. “They started to rent out the L.A. Sports Arena, where the Clippers were playing at one point — that gives you an idea of how influential they were in L.A.

“I met Ice there,” he continues, casually referring to Ice-T, then a budding rapper hosting parties at clubs like Radiotron, where a prefame Madonna could also be found on the bill. “Ice would come to the jams they held at Crenshaw High School in 1984,” he recalls.

Read the full article here:
L.A. Weekly - Shafiq Husayn, Sa-Ra Creative Partners and the Sound of Leimert Park Hip-Hop

Musiq Soulchild Making Plans For New 2010 Album

and Singersroom adds a little more info.

According to Atlantic Records, the Grammy Award-nominated singer has been working with noted producer Jack Knight, with plans for a release sometime next year.

"I'm extremely excited about the things that I'm coming up with for this next project. I'm sure everybody out there is going to enjoy it," says Musiq Soulchild.

Melanie Fiona: L.A. Times Interview

L.A. Times: You have a very interesting background, with strong West Indian roots. How did your heritage inspire your music?

Melanie Fiona: I love my background. It’s fantastic. My family is from Guyana and they immigrated to Canada. I’m the only one who was born in Canada. I have the best of both worlds. Toronto is just great; I love everything it has to offer. That influence was in the house. My mom would sing and play music in the house when she was doing laundry or washing clothes. She just loved music and singing. My dad would come home from work and gig out in the basement. That gave me a good foundation. I couldn’t sleep without it, growing up. It naturally encouraged me to follow through with my talent.

L.A. Times: You opened for Kanye West. Did he give you any advice on your live performance?

Melanie Fiona: The best advice was watching him every night. He really puts his passion and his story into his shows. Him telling me, “when you’re onstage, that’s your moment. That’s how you win them over.” I love to perform live, it’s my favorite part of what I do. He loved what I was doing. When someone in the industry that you admire loves it, that’s the best feeling. The music I have is international, but it’s unknown. I get thrown onstage to open for Kanye, and I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” My focus was to entertain [the audience], connect with them. I was overwhelmed. They were loving and appreciating what I’m doing. People appreciate good music. That was an amazing first touring performance for me.

Read the full interview here:
Los Angeles Times - Melanie Fiona: A soul singer and her 'consistent variation'

Res 'Black.Girls.Rock!' Album Available For Download

It's been a while since we've heard from the solo artist Res. Sure, she's been moonlighting as a full time member of neo-hip hop soul trio Idle Warship with Talib Kweli and Graph Nobel. But going back to Res's 2001 debut record 'How I Do' showed so much promise, but was effected by music business volatility and she was unceremoniously dropped from her label which dubbed the record as failure with selling 244,000 units.

Through Res's wisdom of knowing we are in a new age of the music business, she is offering her new album 'Black.Girls.Rock!' for a FREE download off of her website The 1 RES and it comes with a very nice DigiBooklet, too.

Download here:
Res - 'Black.Girls.Rock!'