Stream/Download SassyBlack iBeBae

If there is anything that artists like SassyBlack knows well, it’s that the best part of Valentine’s Day, whether you are single or taken, is getting to hear all of the new music dedicated to love, feeling the love, giving love, amongst other things. Who best to communicate the feeling of love than the intergalactic SassyBlack?

iBeBae digs into the bag of quiet storm, ambient and jazz to make music that is flirtatious in nature, and no songs will communicate this better than the heart-aching “Flame On” and the subtly horny “I Can’t Wait”, where guest Casey Benjamin’s sax solo perfectly illustrates the yearning within. While hot romance is a constant tackle, the title track is both a track of self-love and an indirect selling from one person to another. As an intro, “iBeBae” is celebratory in how full of love she is, and at the same time very self-loving with or without the one.

But if there is anything that SassyBlack doesn’t want you to do, it is get it all twisted. “Savvy Intellectual Bounce” may be where the pursuit for that connection gives way to a sense of insecurity (as she bemoans “I don’t want to die alone”), but she isn’t too hungry for love where she won’t cut off a philanderer who only wants her simply for that drive (“Dead of Night”, where she eviscerates a self-appointed ‘God’). To love an alpha female is to never use her for personal gain.

Released on Valentine’s Day, iBeBae is a perfect EP for those who are looking for that special someone.

Stream Eboneé A.D’s “Florida water. Honey. Nick-bag of purp”

Whether you listen detail by detail or you listen with a passive ear, Ebonee’s “Florida water. Honey. Nick-bag of purp” is like slowly fading to sleep due to lack of energy, only to enter a fever dream that is meant to be prophetic, filled with messages that is meant to guide you. But where the BBSaidKeepItRawMix takes bits of samples to repeat them till it becomes like a nightmare you can’t seem to immediately wake up from or forget, lostpoetsmix emerges with a poem written by Ebonee herself.

Stream/Download Infinity Knives’ Dear Sudan

Within Infinity Knives’ love letter to Sudan, he grabs a collection of Baltimore singers such as Bobbi Rush and rappers HNNY & ENEM (who appear on three tracks) for an album that 1) inspires as much a sensation of slight dread as it does a sense of hope dripping from every note and 2) runs the gamut from R&B to street rap to opera (“Sway Me, Sway Me Into the Arms of the Lord”) to minimalist classical/folk without feeling the least bit broken at the seams.

OOJ: Stream Melvin Burch’s Smile For the Camera

Disclaimer: for this and future albums that do not fit the description of avant-garde hip hop/R&B/Jazz and what have you, there will be a new tag named OOJ, which stands for Out Of Jurisdiction. This album will be the first example.

Considering the current state of America, it makes a lot more sense than it has any right to that the pop landscape is…depressing. Love songs hardly sound like they are in love or even enjoying being in love. Tragedy seems to hit people at every turn. Nothing truly feels like anyone has any genuine hope, and if they do, the hope is asterisked with a grain of doubt. And all of it is romanticized to high heaven. To be fair, Peoria’s own Melvin Burch knows this feeling all too well.

If his yearly experiment show This is Melvin teaches us anything, it is that Melvin Burch is the king of over thinking his situations and the king of realizing that trying to think about the consequences as a means to avoid them doesn’t always work out in one’s favor. Yet, if Smile For the Camera is any indication, Melvin shows that he is willing more than ever to walk through the hell of life anyway because heaven may be on the other side. That is why Smile for the Camera should be known as 2019’s most important pop album.

Pop songs have a tradition of smiling with the music and frowning with their lyrics, but if Melvin HAS to acknowledge the hardships of life, he isn’t the least bit interested in tricking you that way. “Sorry City”, in itself, is a song about feeling stuck in a town or within an emotionl rut (“25, feeling 52/Everybody’s talking something new”), but rather than complain about where one is at in life, he does it with the emotional indication that he has a plan.

What Burch unknowingly did by placing the angry with the positive is offering a more humanistic vision of a troubled mind trying to abandon the trouble for calmer waters. (“Drop It” in itself is a song about looking to leave behind depression for a chance in the spotlight.) Considered by Burch himself as “rap adjacent”, Burch is willing to oblige (yet not positively) people’s hunger for having a little hip hop in their music with the witty and antagonistic banger “U Say I Be”. The funk-infused “Washed” is an audible version of a heavy sigh, which in itself is relatable in its need to cope with a good life deterred. “To be candid, I think I’m running out of chances,” Melvin smirks. “You could find me imitating Michael Jackson dances.” Thank goodness for small graces, I suppose.

The closer “Hyperdrive” closes on the note that the whole album has been trying to hint at: leave the bull behind and go towards his dreams for a better life. But before he can do this, he claims to “need fuel”. Whether fuel be money, constant love, or constant motivation is moot.

If there is any lyric in the whole album that best describes this album, it would be “Washed”‘s fateful question: “too many lights are in the sky/is there one still left in me?” Burch probably could guess how many people in and out of the music industry are looking for the answer to this very question as we speak. The beautiful thing about Smile for the Camera is that you at least know that he will not give up trying to find it. So, why should you?

Stream/Download EZRAKH’s PHI REX

Happy new year to all of you!

Being that the year had ended, there are plenty of artists who are making sure that you do not end the year without something to blast into the new year. One of those artists is future R&B showman EZRAKH. Trust when one says that EZRAKH doesn’t waste any time starting the party, where guitars and funky synths all coexist on the seductive burner “Extraterrestrial”.

PHI REX is another project is which you would be a massive fool to try and categorize this lo-fi collection of free bangers (which was released on the same day four years ago as PRESENT). Whether the grooves are approached with a smooth acoustic strut and post-trap skitters (“Felicity”) or hip-house bouncers (“Look (Ay)”) or even reggae bops (“Beating Heart”), EZRAKH wasn’t wasting time to try and soundtrack your party or your shuffle into the new year.

 

Stream/Download Bobby Earth’s Cloudy McSunshine

If there is anything you should know about Bobby Earth, it is that he has so much soul in his performance that you get the feeling that when you meet him in real life, there might be a crazy warmth to him. Progression is his last solo mixtape, and he manages to mix modern melodies with an almost young, nearly teenage energy. Now, that Bobby Earth has been around the block and back with his, he approaches Cloudy McSunshine in a way that flexes his muscle when it comes to tackling anything he wants.

Cloudy McSunshine takes the cassette tape approach as Side A is filled with slow anthems that bridge in between romantic and dreamy, while side B is a little more on the upbeat side. “Cloudy’s Theme” refers to his album, but it may as well be the storm needed to accompany the slightly futuristic take on quiet storm. A song or two hops out of the quiet storm sound like “Galactic Booty”, a future funk track reminiscent of Kevin Michael at his horniest. But it is all a part of that ode-to-lady feel of the album. Bobby Earth even takes trapsoul to its logical conclusion as a babymaking anthem.

Side B begins with “Blue Collar Poppin'” taking the almost exasperated direction with an anthem about suffering through work. “Up From Here” tackles dancehall, “Spring Mix” is almost folky and tribal yet upbeat. and a remixed “Gnarly” balances an atmosphere of a party atmosphere and a relaxed on-the-couch moment. Whatever you may be feeling for, Bobby Earth has jams for almost any occasion.

Stream/Download Georgia Anne Muldrow’s Overload

The worst mistake you could ever make is shying away from Overload or assuming that Georgia is selling out because the title track is over a trap beat. You see, Georgia Anne Muldrow has been slugging it out for years, even with the assistance of her husband and sometimes collaborator Declaime. Georgia has been showing so much love to black music that her dipping into Trap would not only be unsurprising, but what is surprising is the way she grabs the drums to make a slow jam about the amount of love one feels for her partner. It is a red herring that lets you know that even in a time of popularity, she knows how to twist it and place within the genre some soul and feeling.

Really, if this album has one concept, it is attempt to appreciate the love that is still around (relationships, family, fans) in the era where it seems like love is eroding in the Tr*mp era. She still messes around with the music of her people (“I.O.T.A.”) for those curious and she still seeks to spread love for her people. It is that this time around, she uses it to speak her mind about how the world has completely lose their marbles nowadays (“Williehook (skit)”, “Vital Transformation”). Say she’s wrong, tho?

What is amazing is how well she is able to bridge the sounds of today with the heart, the sheen of R&B within the 90s. It sounds classic without sounding dated. Not to mention thaat she takes a few left turns from ragtimey jazz (These Are the Things I Really Like About You” featuring Declaime) to a little rock music (“Williehook”, also). And as she tries her hand at hazy R&B slow jams, she uses it to bring back the romantic, almost completely sensual vibes in had reserved not for drugs, but for the high of connecting with someone that you love.

Long story short, Georgia Anne Muldrow’s album is released in a time where people question where the love is in life. A lot of negativity just spreads its way like poison in an ocean. If there is any justice ,Georgia would be give na chance to spread her antidote at least once.

Stream/Download Clarence Clarity’s Think: PEACE

To understand one of music’s most popular tricksters/illusionists Clarence Clarity is to understand that he is a futurist, an artist that truly uses technology, the internet, visions of the future, and a little bit of absurdity for extra flavor  to his advantage. He is also what would happen if synthpop and alternative R&B each had their own Cheshire Cat. No Wow was a meticulously crafted album that sounds like what would happen if you add doses of acid into whatever concoction crafted NSYNC’s album in factories. If you have heard any of Clarence Clarity’s song, then the last thing you should expect is for him to take it easy on the human imagination. Anyone who “misses when music was an experience” would be surprised ten times over.

Now, most people would wait till the album comes from them to hear singles. In this case, Clarence Clarity’s one offs (that were going to be on an album named Deluxe Pain, which is now a playlist of b-sides and rarities from that era) are rooms of sorts where chrome-plated cacophony float in the atmosphere, and will destroy, if it cannot awe. Those tracks are willfully bent, twisted, misplaced, melted all into an experience you should know better than to doubt Clarity for creating.

In the midst of the songs are tracks revolving around heartbreak and slight insecurities. Almost like a Xanga page put into a pop song, “Vapid Feels Aren’t Vapid” finds Clarity fading into despair before eventually snapping back into a synthpoppy groove that trips up anyone with a set idea of what pop music would sound like. But the lyrics all speak of the inability to really survive the same way without the one you once loved. That same uncertainty shows up on “Tru(e) Love”. Before all of this is “Adam and the Evil” which can be taken two ways: one of many references to Adam and Eve, and the long lineage revolving patriarchy at its damaging, where Clarity self-examines himself as an individual that doesn’t stray far from the family tree.

“Next Best Thing” is a whole other grand beast entirely. The song is revolved around the need to overcompensate. The need to be the best at what he does, as if the need to be first colors his whole entire will to live. This and plenty other situations can make you look at the music delivered in HD format as either a stylistic level up or a distraction from such heavy subjects. Either way, you can never say Clarence Clarity has lost his ability to surprise.

Stream/Download SassyBlack’s The Best of…

For some people, three years (four, if you count her Others compilation) would be a little too soon to drop a greatest hits album. After all, her official EP, Cute Chicks came out at the very beginning of 2015. But between that time and now, our favorite intergalactic workaholic has pout in a lot of work from meditative R&b to beat exercises surrounding her biggest musical influences (respectively, three albums and nine EPs and beat tapes). For her birthday, SassyBlack decided to condense it into 14 songs of her personal choice.

Stream/Download Jay Cue’s Ego/Trip

After already releasing two EPs that showcased Jay Cue’s singing abilities and his rapping abilities (Brazen and Tudda respectively) with a string of loosies in his wake, Jay Cue returns once again to give us double releases named Ego and Trip. The best description is this: it’s Jay Cue’s bLack on bLonde.

Ego is Jay Cue’s hip hop side A. The lessons taught within Ego is simple: get off your ass and work for your right to flex while you are living, And while you are doing it, be wary of those trying to affect your hustle. Over chill beats, some of which lean directly into alt-trap territory (such as the Cloud-assisted “All Work All Play”), Jay Cue celebrates being considered an OG in the game (the title track “OG”), dismisses lazy people who want his hustle in a near minute (“In and Out”) and takes a bit of time to bless his most trustworthy company, while spitting in the direction of those looking to use him (“So Slick”). In just underneath 20 minutes, Ego is Jay Cue’s audio smile with some money within his pocket.

On the other hand, Trip is Jay Cue’s foray into lo-fi psychedelic soul. Less Zack Villere, more Sly Stone or modern Bootsy in places. Maybe even a bit of Jon Bap. On this side, Jay Cue tackles the confrontations after the gloat, from love to living on borrowed time, especially as a black male. For example, “Lamb or a Wolf” finds him questioning over acoustic guitar where in the world he stands, and reckons himself amongst the latter field. For those who are used to one side of Jay Cue can get one side, but those who enjoy Jay Cue at his most multidimensional can get the new album as a whole PLUS bonus tracks.

All else that can be said is you can hear both versions below.