Chitlin Circuit Double-entendre -filled Soul 2004 (and onward) Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It" is a song of the year

I'll try. Me, Chuck Eddy, Christgau and I think maybe Matos and the late Rickey Wright all voted for the 2007 Motel Lovers comp in the January or February '08 published critics polls (Voice and/or Idolator). That's a nice survey of recent songs in the genre.

Well, right, I have that one. But you're clearly so knowledgeable about the genre (or subgenre or whatever) that I'd love to hear, e.g., what YOU would do if Trikont entrusted you with Motel Lovers (or something akin to it). No biggie if you can't, though. (xhuxk, top ten away too if so inclined).

Oh, thanks. Will do. Mostly off the top of my head I love Ms. Jody's I Never Take a Day Off album from last year, Mel Waiters-Throwback Days from a few years ago, Denise Lasalle-Pay Before You Pump album, and a Barbara Carr best-of on Ecko. I have heard great songs by Sir Charles Jones, OB Buchana, Theotis Ealey, Willie Clayton, and Lee Shot Williams.

I gotta go write a blog post for my local alt-weekly on Mel Waiters and the show coming up on Friday...

Friday night, DC area folks, is Mel Waiters, Clarence Carter, Roy C.,Latimore, and Marvin Sease at the Showplace Arena. They're advetising the show just on WHUR, that plays post-Luther Vandross style quiet storm mellow r'n'b. No media ads, no press releases to mainstream print media as far as I can tell.

I went to the show. There were good and bad aspects to the performances--good=soulful voices and tunes; bad=over-the-top dirty old man thrusting and gyrating and too obvious lyrics. Yea, I know, that should not be a surprise. The bill drew a crowd of several thousand. For those into demographics, I think I was the only white person there under age 50, and one of about 5 white folks. Yes I know many African-Americans and others frequently find themselves in the minority at places. The average age was from around 49 to 70. Lots of women howling for the performers.

Only newsprint coverage of the show--a preview in the Prince George's County Gazzette; blog coverage-mine at the City Paper and a DC tv channel 4 item. No mention in the Washington Post before the show and no review of the show.

So who does the "Southern Soul Party" (I assume that's its name) song where he keeps saying the party is at a golf course (!?), and they're going to play Johnny Taylor and Tyrone Davis songs there and serve cole slaw and chitlins and stuff? I heard that one on 88.7 in Austin this afternoon (community radio, I think), and liked it a lot. No idea if it's current or not, and Google is no help. They also played another song that mentioned Johnny Taylor and Tyrone Davis, this one about a lot of singers who'd "gone home" by dying (tons of soul guys, not all Southern, plus Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, Janis Joplin, Tupac, and Biggie Smalls). I'm not sure whether the show just comes on Wednesday afternoons or what, but it was very cool.

Mel Waiters, who is from and lives in San Antonio, did a tribute to Johnny Taylor and Tyrone Davis in his appearance live last week, and mentioned them as his faves in the interview I did with him. I love and highly recommend his last cd Throwback Days (on Waldoxy, a Malaco subsidiary). Waiters was once a fulltime dj, but now just records a weekly program that's syndicated (online I guess).

Yeah, Mel Waiters' "Smaller The Club" was maybe my very favorite track on that great great great Trikont Motel Lovers comp two years ago, though Google is still inconclusive about whether he has a song called "Southern Soul Party." (Also wondering now whether the radio show I heard may have actually been his syndicated one, and not an Austin-originating thing.)

Mel Waiters, who is from and lives in San Antonio, did a tribute to Johnny Taylor and Tyrone Davis in his appearance live last week, and mentioned them as his faves in the interview I did with him. I love and highly recommend his last cd Throwback Days (on Waldoxy, a Malaco subsidiary). Waiters was once a fulltime dj, but now just records a weekly program that's syndicated (online I guess).

Ha ha, today the same Austin station played a great song called "I Need A Bailout," where the singer asks Obama for money to help him pay his phone and cable bills. Again, no artist back-announced, though.

Here's a list of current southern soul that gets radio play

http://bluescritic.com/southernsoulsinglescharts.htm

Not sure if that one's on it. I think I heard it---either on the Saturday afternoon WPFW show I listen to or between acts at the Southern Soul tour gig I saw last week.

No bailout song on that list, as far as I can see, but apparently "Southern Soul Party" is by somebody named Floyd Taylor; here's a bio of him:

http://www.malaco.com/Catalog/Blues-R-B/Floyd-Taylor/list.php

Also hadn't noticed that you said Mel Waiters' show was syndicated online, which means it's probably not the over-the-air one I heard after all. Which may not be merely a specialty show, seeing how 88.7 was playing more Southern soul on Thursday. Need to do more research on this, obviously...

Also noticed a Betty Padgett song on one of those playlists; here are a couple things about her new album I posted on Rolling Country last week:

Best old-school soul-revival I've heard in a long time is Betty Padgett's Luv N' Haight on Ubiquity -- real good covers of "My Eyes Adored You" (smooth reggae) and "Rockin' Chair," plus "Sugar Daddy" is the catchiest, warmest, most propulsive early (as in mid '70s) disco facsimile in recent memory. Also, the gal can sing. (Apparently this is a comeback, but if I skimmed her bio right and she did indeed record in the '70s, I never heard her.)

― xhuxk, Friday, 13 March 2009

Turns out on subsequent listens that Betty Padgett is maybe a more average B-or-C-level soul voice than I implied in my post yesterday (and her covers of the Frankie Valli and Gwen McRae are less astonishing than I may have implied), but I still like her album, especially her very convincingly disco-bubbly single "Sugar Daddy" (incl. its second version with background party voices), where I'm pretty sure I read in an email press release earlier this week that she's backed by Detroit indie-rock Afrobeat nine-piece Nomo (whose first couple albums sounded funky enough, but whose upcoming one doesn't hold my attention for some reason. Never heard their third. Do like where they're coming from, however.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 15 March 2009

I just heard "Southern Soul Party" on the radio and yep, they said it was by Floyd Taylor, who I'm pretty sure is the late Johnny Taylor's son.

Here's what Daddy B. Nice said about Floyd's most recent Malaco release:

Boy, I was wrong about this one. I never took to "You Still Got It," the first title-cut single from the CD of the same name. It was just a little too vanilla, but since then song after song has pushed its way onto the Stations of the Deep South air waves:
"Southern Soul Party," "I'm Hooked On These Blues," "I Miss My Daddy," "If You Catch Me Sleepin'". . .

That bio you posted says Floyd was raised by his Mom in Chicago and that his dad is/was Johnny Taylor.

I heard a nice (new?) song "Upside Down" from Shirley Brown. Plus I like "I'm Gonna Change," which is the second catchy powerful voiced tune I've heard from O.B. Buchana. It's got a nice little spoken word portion. He also mentions Tyrone Davis and Johnny Taylor in the song plus Jay Blackfoot and Sir Charles Jones and others. I may have to get O.B.'s "Southern Soul Country Boy" album

Mel Waiters radio show is on southernsoulradio.com They just played that Shirley Brown song I mentioned.

http://southernsoulradio.com/#

R.I.P. Eddie Bo. See the separate thread on this New Orleans great.

Miss Jody and Denise Lasalle rule. Jody's coming to Lamonts in Pomonkey May 23rd to do the Miss Jody thang...(that's a dance y'all)

So that Southern Soul show on Austin public station 88.7 actually played Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It" (see thread title), which I'd strangely never heard before, yesterday. Pretty wacky sex song! I liked it, though I've heard better songs on the show. I'm a little torn right now about current/ recent Southern Soul's tendency to go for the easy joke (many of which jokes aren't as funny as they intend to be) or the easy sex shocker (basically none of which seem as shocking as they intend to be.) But when the genre goes for straight blues/soul emotion (at least judging from what's on that show), it frequently seems to veer toward the generic. I dunno, I gotta say I was actually disappointed by the songs the station was playing yesterday; assuming they're playing the genre's hits and best tracks, pickings may be slimmer than I expected. (There was also an update of Levert's "Casanova" with a sort of semi-zydeco rhtyhm, only it was called "Roll With Me" or something like that. Not bad, not great.) Also not convinced that many (any?) of the current artists could hold their own against, you know, Johnny Taylor or Tyrone Davis or Z.Z. Hill (or Millie Jackson), and I get a little tired of those names being dropped so often in songs in an apparent stab to leech off their greatness (reminds me of how country singers are always dropping Hank's and Willie's and Waylon's and Merle's names, which has ranked with the genre's most boring cliches forever.) Still going to try to keep tuning in, though, to see what turns up on the show. And still wonder who did that "I Need a Bailout" song I heard.

Not that I particularly care about being shocked by sex songs; it's more like, why are they even trying? Reminds me of what Xgau wrote in 1987 about Marvin Sease's ten-minute "Candy Licker" (which I like anyway, though more in its shorter 45 version): "not so much audacious as preposterous." And usually the sex songs aren't even all that preposterous, truth be told.

And to point a spotlight on the elephant in the room: If this kind of music was "anachronistic" 22 years ago (as Xgau said in that Sease review), what does that make it now that 41 years have passed since "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay"? And what does it mean that I still get way more out of this stuff than the vast majority of current r&b, which usually just strikes me as constricted and joyless in comparison? At least Southern Soul still seems written by grownups. (Basically it makes me an anachronism myself -- and not much different all the sticks-in-the-mud who are always saying current country music can't stand up to the country music of decades ago. Still think I'm right, though.)

Speaking of country, from the Rolling Country thread, here's me talking about the new Buckwheat Zydeco album:

Rolling Country 2009 Thread

And here's something about related music played on the Austin station that airs that Southern Soul show:

Rolling Country 2009 Thread

By "vast majority of current r&b" above, I obviously mean "stuff that gets played on contemporary r&b/hip-hop-stype stations and often crosses over to pop stations." Southern Soul being released now would technically be "current r&b" too, I guess, but it doesn't exactly sound modern or up-to-date.
As with current (popular) country, I don't get the idea it now incorporates many production innovations that were developed after the '80s. (Though it's interesting that music that was considered "pop r&b" around when Marvin Sease was hitting with "Candy Licker" seems roped in as part of "old school" now.)

I'll give my interpretation later. I agree with you in part. Gotta run...

Lot to respond to xhuck:

Here goes-

Not that I particularly care about being shocked by sex songs; it's more like, why are they even trying? Reminds me of what Xgau wrote in 1987 about Marvin Sease's ten-minute "Candy Licker" (which I like anyway, though more in its shorter 45 version): "not so much audacious as preposterous." And usually the sex songs aren't even all that preposterous, truth be told.

― xhuxk, Tuesday, April 7, 2009 4:15 PM (Yesterday

I 've been thinking about this as I just saw Marvin Sease on a bill with Mel Waiters, Clarence Carter, Roy C., and Latimore. 3,000 or so in attendance at a small arena and I was one of 5 or so white people there (yes I counted) and I'm guessing 47-year-old me was in the lower range age-wise. Plus there were lots of women there--mostly in their 50s.
And guess what--lots of those women like Sease. I mean, watching him wiggle his tongue between verses of "Candylicker" was just kinda gross to me. Plus he's getting older which for some reason made it even creapier. But sure enough, a number of women headed up the stairs after his set to go line up to get their picture taken with him. There's definately a dirty-old man aspect to the sex talk, especially as many of these performers age and their audience does as well.
I think part of the problem is this music is largely in its own isolated world and runs parallel to contemporary r'n'b rather than intersecting with it fully. It does intersect but how far can you go with the sex lyrics and the borrowed from contemporary r'n'b onstage grinding and thrusting moves? Musically, there are some modern keyboard touches and some of the upbeat songs sound a bit more contemporary. Maybe that's what this audience wants, and as long as these guys are playing arenas (which is something Sharon Jones, Bettye Lavette, and even Rafael Saadiq are not doing) they're gonna stick with what they think works.
I'd love to see the folks who discuss the ethics of the Tyler Perry movies weigh on these folks. I'm also thinking about stuff Nelson George wrote years ago about how African-American music changed from being a multi-generational thing to a more stratified by age and gender thing. On the other hand, some might argue that these sex lyrics are actually just part of a long history of both blues lyrics and raunchy comedian patter. But since I just heard a recent Mel Waiters song that focussed on economic problems in the lyrics in a semi-clever way, I'm not ready to dismiss this stuff.

Also not convinced that many (any?) of the current artists could hold their own against, you know, Johnny Taylor or Tyrone Davis or Z.Z. Hill (or Millie Jackson), and I get a little tired of those names being dropped so often in songs in an apparent stab to leech off their greatness

Yea, but I'm gonna give 'em a chance as I hear enough good cuts from OB Buchana, Floyd Taylor, Mel Waiters, Miss Jody and others to keep me interested.

Of course -- Like I said, I've been trying to give them a chance, too (that's why I'm listening to that radio show, and posting on this thread; will probably try to see some live shows, too.) And you're obviously right about the silly raunch lyrics being an extension of several-decades-old blues and comedy tradition. Just out curiosity, though, what are the best full single-artist albums you've heard in the genre over the past four or five years? Especially curious about Floyd Taylor and Mel Waiters albums. (Also, do any of those singers have best-ofs worth seeking out, that you may have heard?)

(There was also an update of Levert's "Casanova" with a sort of semi-zydeco rhtyhm, only it was called "Roll With Me" or something like that. Not bad, not great.)

it's a zydeco take-off on rebirth brass band's version of casanova, which is great:

x-post--was just getting to your positive interest in this stuff.

If this kind of music was "anachronistic" 22 years ago (as Xgau said in that Sease review), what does that make it now that 41 years have passed since "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay"? And what does it mean that I still get way more out of this stuff than the vast majority of current r&b, which usually just strikes me as constricted and joyless in comparison? At least Southern Soul still seems written by grownups.

At the show I was at I heard an Otis Redding cover I think and a Prince one. That's the musical spectrum this genre and its audience appreciate. Kinda like country in that way. I happen to like some current pop-r'n'b and this stuff, and while I can hear differences, I don't agree with you on the "constricted and joyless" description but I don't have a well-supported argument in mind right now that I think could have an effect on your thinking. I'll just agree to disagree. Also "still seems written by grownups"--I'm not clear on my history but how old were soul music greats from the 60s and the songwriting teams in that era? Were they all 'grownups'? I do not think so. I think Peter Guralnick might have touched on this in one of his books.

x-post

Houston and Louisiana zydeco acts have been subtly and sometimes blatantly incorporating contemporary r'n'b, New Orleans brass,chitlin circuit soul and hiphop rhythms for years now. I wish there was more of it. The aging roots-rock zydeco crowd in DC prefers the traditional stuff (meaning incorporating the kind of r'n'b that was popular when Clifton Chenier was young) though, and that seems to dictate to tours the East Coast.

how old were soul music greats from the 60s and the songwriting teams in that era? Were they all 'grownups'?

No, but I meant for my emphasis to be on the "seems to" - -By which I mean, historically, lots of soul music and r&b (and disco) seemed to deal with adult lives-- in the way, say, much country music still does, but I don't get the idea that much commercial r&b does anymore; sex lyrics, especially, just seem to get more juvenile and stupid as time goes on. For instance, who would be the commercial r&b equivalent of Womack and Womack, or Ashford and Simpson? I doubt there is one. Then again, I could be totally off base about this, and I don't doubt I'm missing a lot. (And I know there are exceptions -- R. Kelly obviously has great moments every now and then. And self-conscious retro artistes like Badu and Saadiq and D'Angelo and Sharon Jones probably deal with adult lives all the time, I'm sure, but that stuff has always pretty much left me cold, for some reason. My favorite commercial r&b songs of the decade, for what it's worth: Koffee Brown's "Weekend Thing" and Kandi's "Don't Think I'm Not," both from the decade's very beginning, and both with a perfectly respectable but not great album attached.)

i don't think badu can be called retro, not these days

Good point -- but she can definitely be called a "self-conscious artiste." Either way, I'm not a fan (and in my mind, at least, she seems far outside of the realm of "commercial r&b." Just like a sometimes-sort-of-retro self-conscious artiste like Springsteen, who leaves me just as cold these days, falls outside the realm of "commercial rock." Which yeah, I know, is an arbitrary distinction. But he's sure a long way off from, say, Puddle of Mudd.) (Not sure where Ne-Yo, who I like a lot, fits into this.)

I love Ms. Jody's I Never Take a Day Off album from last year, Mel Waiters-Throwback Days from a few years ago, Denise Lasalle-Pay Before You Pump album, and a Barbara Carr best-of on Ecko. I have heard great songs by Sir Charles Jones, OB Buchana, Theotis Ealey, Willie Clayton, and Lee Shot Williams.

Here are some of my faves i mentioned upthread.

just seem to get more juvenile and stupid as time goes on.

I normally am not too picky about lyrics. It's music not poetry. But yea, some of this stuff bugs me too.

Xhuxk,

You're a metal fan also. Do those lyrics ever bug you? Do you want them to sound like they're written by grownups? Just askin'

Excellent question. And it would probably take me several thousand words -- full of examples, counter-examples, exceptions, and hedges -- to adequatly answer it. But basically I'd say that I'm not nearly as much a metal fan as I used to be (partly because the words usually aren't audible anymore, and the songs tend to be barely distinguishable as songs), and lots of people (especially Stairway To Hell readers) would say I was never a true metal fan in the first place. And even if I was, I don't know how huge a fan I've ever been of metal lyrics -- definitely never had much use for sex songs by Motley Crue or Limp Bizkit or whoever (which, right, are as dumb and juvenile as anything in r&b.)

But one thing I'd say is that, if lyrics come out funny or heartfelt or whatever (in metal or r&b or anywhere else), I'll excuse a lot of juvenile crap. And obviously sometimes being juvenile will help make the words more entertaining. There are creative and clever ways to do everything. And I'm not hearing much cleverness in r&b these days, though the fact of the matter is that the cleverness might be hidden somewhere, and I just can't get past the sound of contemporary r&b, which as I said tends to hit me as cold, detached, humorless. (Guess you could add "soulless", if that means anything.)

And it's probably worth mentioning that I miss truly bubblegum-sounding r&b at least as much as truly grownup-sounding r&b. I heard "I Love Your Smile" by Shanice on the radio the other day -- early '90s, I think, and not a song that sounded particularly outstanding then -- and I wondered why no r&b I've heard lately can get that kind of sweetness and warmth across. (Not even "Lip Gloss" or "Chicken Noodle Soup" or "Cupid Shuffle" -- not in that way, anyway. And those songs are more hip-hop anyway.)

Played Keri Hilson's album a few times this week; don't like it hardly at all. "Knock You Down" lifts the album to life when Ne-Yo comes in (and then when Keri sings along with him -- at least that what I assume is happening -- at which time she manages to cut closer to the emotional bone than at any time she's singing by herself.) "Alienated" has a wee little bit of Patrice Rushen's "Forget Me Nots" buried in its melody toward the beginning, but the feeling doesn't stick around, and the song dulls out. Pretty sure "Make Love" annoyed me the most.

Checked out a couple Jazmine Sullivan songs on line the other day too (because I've been told her songs are smarter than the run of 20somethings-kicking-it-at-the-club crap out there), and in both cases I thought her blatant retro vocal mannerisms were just that: mannered. In "Need U Bad," which is basically reggae soul, I actually liked the "ooh ooh" backup (which seemed to directly reference some early '70s soul hit I can't place) more than Jazmine's lead. Did think she has a rich, powerful voice, though; maybe she just needs better material, or better songwriters. So there's potential there, at least. But it's like alt-country -- If you're gonna try so hard to sound like classic r&b, you're almost guaranteed to fall short. (The '80s and '90s r&b I love most usually wasn't explicitly retro.)

Probably repeating myself here, but one thing about lots of old r&b and metal and otherwise hits (about sex and otherwise) I love is that, if they didn't sound written by grownups, they were often funny.. By which I mean goofy and fun, not "clever lyricism that only seems clever if somebody puts it on paper, and I probably won't get even then but maybe I'll pretend to." And I know, if the words bug me, I should just tune them out and concentrate on the "great music" instead. Except it's usually not that great. (And I also know all of this is a gross generalization, and just proves my ignorance. But it's still what my heart feels...)

And, to un-derail this thread at least at least a little, when I say I "can't get past the sound of contemporary r&b," I don't think I mean up-to-date studio production touches (current Southern Soul could almost certainly get away with using more of those, to sound less anachronistic) as much as I mean the vocal sound. At some historical point I can't pinpoint, r&b singers inexplicably seemed to start veering toward two extremes -- either melismatic bombast or icy restraint -- and skipping the comfy middle ground which had worked perfectly well for soul/r&b/disco singers for decades. (Probably the roots of newer singing styles I dislike were in certain classic old soul singers I was never a major fan of in the first place, but I'll just get in trouble if I start naming names.)

Also get the idea that, as r&b artists and fans inevitably started giving more direct emphasis to "great beats" in the wake of late-period hip-hop, they tended to de-emphasize hooks. Or at least the kind of hooks that hook me. (One of my big problems with metal these days, btw, is also that it's just not catchy enough anymore. And whenever I make that claim, people like Phil Freeman tell me it just makes me sound like an old fogey, since metal fans stopped caring about catchy songs years ago. Maybe something similar happened in r&b?)

(Rihanna is probably an exception to a lot of things I've complained about, as much as Ne-Yo is. And I don't doubt there are other obvious exceptions I'm just not thinking of. As much as I appreciate them both, though, I can't say that either Ne-Yo -- whose music often reaches me as sort of vague wafty beauty more than discrete songs -- or Rihanna have come up with a single track that ranks anywhere near my all-time r&b favorites. Maybe I'm just cranky, is all.)

how do you feel about r kelly

Mentioned Kelly several posts up; when he's good, he's probably the biggest '00s exception to all of this, especially as a vocalist. And he's obviously got some insanely great moments that rank with any soul ever -- "When A Woman's Fed Up" is probably my favorite, but also "Ignition," "Fiesta," "Step In The Name Of Love," etc. But he's horrible a lot, too (and the horribleness usually isn't as entertaining as it is in "Trapped In The Closet," which is great in its own way), and I always have trouble making it through his albums. Should probably spend more time with them, though usually I get the idea that The R in R&B Collection: Volume 1 might be all I'll ever really need. Though then again, it's not like all the great soul singers of the '60s/'70s/'80s all made consistently great albums, either. And Kelly knows how to reference classic sounds without being all nutritiously "retro" about it, and iciness and constraint are not part of his language. Wish there were more artists half as good as him. (Of more outwardly "retro" acts, I liked Ryan Shaw's debut album a couple years ago, btw. Though even with him, you get the idea there's play-acting going on -- a kid dressing up in vintage styles -- so there's an inherent emotional distance from the material.)

Well actually, "he's obviously got some insanely great moments that rank with any soul ever" is probably hyperbole -- I just listened to a random Johnny Bristol LP from 1975 that I bought for $1 a couple weeks ago, and it had two or three songs I liked as much as anything I've ever heard by R. Kelly. ("Morgantown, North Carolina" -- how's that for Chiltin Circuit?) And I don't know that anybody would call Bristol an absolute top-tier soul singer, and I have a feeling this probably wasn't even his best album ("Hang On In There Baby," his biggest hit, came a year earlier.) So I guess what I meant to say is the R. Kelly's best songs at least hold their own against soul's greatest; unlike almost any other r&b from this decade, it's not entirely ridiculous to speak of them in the same paragraph.

So do Malaco and Ecko send promos to Billboard contributors? I get the impression that Southern soul/chitlin circuit labels only send promos and press releases to radio stations and club djs

Uh, I've sure never received a single promo from either of those labels (when I was at Billboard or anywhere else.) Maybe the r&b columnists get them, though; I'm not sure.

Sorry to change the subject, but this fan of Jazmine Sullivan and Miss Jody has nothing further to add to the discussion other than that I heard Mary J. Blige on the radio at lunch today and she did not sound "constricted", "joyless" or "juvenile."

Yeah, Blige probably another obvious exception (but somebody I've never really got into, probably to my utter shame. I like "Not Gon' Cry" a lot. But mostly, I never got the idea she's much fun. And she could afford to be a lot catchier -- all Gladys, no Pips, in other words, and I like Gladys a lot more.)

(That is, I'd never for a second doubt her God-given talent or good taste or ability to communicate emotion, but those variables in and of themselves have never been enough to make me like somebody.)

Okay, I am (hopefully) done being crabby. And ready to get back to the actual topic of this thread.

Sounds like 88.7 KAZI-FM Austin rightly turns to more party music on Friday nights, and they just played this amazing track, sort of a partially semi-rapped old-school thing over a groove stretched out go-go-style but with a repeated funk vamp riffing on the Drifters' "On Broadway" rather than go-go-sounding; a guy in a gruff bluesy voice chanting variations on "I must keep on rockin' the wine will keep poppin' til the police come knockin'" or whatever; eventually other voices enter the party, and a harmonizing soul woman, and the groove keeps on keepin' on in an obsessively propulsive way. I'm not even sure how I'd classify the thing; it didn't quite seem like any r&b subgenre I've ever heard before. As usual, they didn't follow the song with the singer's name or the song title. Maybe I'll call the station later on to find out what it was, but if anybody has a clue, by all means let me know.

Here is the station's current "playlist," but the webpage says the DJs aren't required to stick to it, and can play whatever they want:

http://kazifm.org/playlist.html