Rolling R&B Thread 2008

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f14/snouts/ryanlezza.gif

navigate my fist patrick south!

uh n/h

nah but seriously um, i recommend cheri dennis, older heads recommend raheem devaughn, younger heads with iron robotech noize constitutions recommend danity kane, and then there's mariah and janet. which are kinda average pon the whole. and that's about it so far.

oh also j-shep recommends ray jay? (will investigate this in a minute)

the-dream came out mid-dec, so also that

"sexy can i" is garbage

we all read ray jay's magnificent interview of lies right?

ha i like sexy can i

http://blog.rhapsody.com/2008/04/exclusive-ray-j.html

I seen Pac the day before they left. Suge bought Snoop, Pac and Dr. Dre Rolls-Royces. I think they all caravanned.

The day he died, I seen him with Puff. I tried to say what’s up to Puff, but Puff didn’t see me. Then I seen Big and he was like, "What’s up, my n*gg*." I hugged Big and the n*gg* smelled like soap. That’s all I remember. He just smelled fresh like, "Damn, he a big n*gg* but he smell like soap."

yeah "Sexy Can I" is kind of impossible to resist or respect totally, which causes a lot of conflicted feelings.

I like the Badu album, too, though not nearly as much as the other folks on the rolling scented candles thread.

the only person more contemptible than ray j is fucking yung berg. i'm cool with all hook no verse songs as long as the hook is good and this one is not

yeah Yung Berg is despicable, although I can't muster as much hate for him on this as I did for "Sexy Lady." it's funny how after "Sexy Can I" blew up Ray J shot a slightly slicker new video for it, and I was like shit, you upgraded the video but not the guest MC?

i'm cool with all hook no verse songs as long as the hook is good and this one is not

c.f. any good chingy song

maybe yung berg smells like nice xp

hold up

kim kardashian y/n

omfg...listening to official girl. omfg. one of danja's best. this is so fucking amazing. cassie deliversssss

B-b-but the whole thing about the Badu album is that it isn't all scented candles and shit. It's mostly off-kilter funk rips and stuff.

yeah "Sexy Can I" is kind of impossible to resist or respect totally, which causes a lot of conflicted feelings.

This is otm, tho. Ray J is kind of dead to me in the wake of "One Wish", which I hate about as much as I hate "Bossy" and "Beautiful Girls" combined and tripled, but I have a hard time bringing myself to hate "Sexy Can I".

What the hell is rtc even on about upthread?

R&B albums this year (+ dec. 07, excuse my late passes) I like (in rough order of likedness):

E. Badu
Dreamer
Cheri Dennis
Miss Janet if yr nasty
MJB

c.f. any good chingy song

-- J0rdan S., Tuesday, April 15, 2008 3:38 PM (Tuesday, April 15, 2008 3:38 PM) Bookmark Link

lol oxymoron

Until Al mentioned it, I couldn't even remember what Young Berg's hit was.

back to the matter at hand? no? bah.

'one wish' was great! - "I'LL BE! OKAY! IF I! GET ONE!" - not to mention 'beautiful girls'.

gonna have to be more specific about what i'm on about upthread but if you're talking about you comparing cheri's album to cassie then i imagine it was your flagrant incorrectness? most i can work out is it has a vaguely similar rickety thin sweetness about it but as far as icy electro or whatever goes then hell no

i think he means you calling us all dum dums

I didn't say the Cheri album was "icy electro". I even specifically even said it wasn't after J0 asked me if it was, so wtf are you talking about. Most of the Cassie album isn't icy electro anyways, I was comparing them on the basis of the whole rickety thin sweetness thing.

DONT MISCONSTRUE ME BIDDLEEYOTCH!

stick with BOOCH :D

I only call people bootches on sub-boards.

'one wish' was great! - "I'LL BE! OKAY! IF I! GET ONE!"

How to tell if your goat is sick.

I just heard "Ahhh" for the first time. This is nice! Sounds like Aaliyah circa "Try Again"

That song is pretty awful throwaway.

I'm looking forward to her new album Fantasy Ride though.

"Awful"? Huh? Boring, maybe.

pretty interesting bit of an interview w/ young berg talking about how he wrote "sexy can i" and is in the studio now w/ tricky and the-dream doing shit for ciara

-----

You mentioned that you wrote “Sexy Lady” and “Sexy Can I,” how long have you been writing R&B records?

It happened when I first started messing with Junior. We used to toy around. I used to try to do R&B, but I never really got confident in myself until T-Pain and The Dream came out. I notice these niggas ain’t doing nothing but rapping with melodies. Once I got the blueprint around it, I just took off with that shit. Then “Sexy Lady” came. Now “The Business,” working with Ciara, my working with Dream and Tricky. It’s gonna be big.

How did you link up with Ciara?

I didn’t really link up with Ciara. Tricky’s an executive producer on her project or whatever. And, ya’ll know Tricky did “Umbrella” and all that stuff. Tricky’s from Chicago, but me and Tricky actually met through my mixer on my records, ’cause he mixes all of The Dream and Tricky’s stuff. My mixer was talking about, “Yo, Berg is crazy,” so we finally linked up and we getting to the money right now.

You used the Auto-Tune on a song off your album. Why?

I’m not gonna front. I’m not Chris Brown. I can’t sing like that. Pain might feel like he’s the best singer, but if he was honest, he’d be like, “I’m not the best singer. I was a rapper and I found this fucking instrument and I can sing good enough to where it doesn’t sound like shit.” But you’re not gonna catch me on “American Idol” next week…

Pain said artists need to ask for his permission to use Auto-Tune, did you ask for it?

What’s crazy about it with the whole permission thing is I had a record called “One Call Away” that I did and put the voice coder on it. This is before everybody started going nutty with it. I went to see T-Pain, ’cause I was on the Scream Tour with him…. And I went on his bus and was like, “I want you to get on this record. I was playing the record and he kinda flipped. He was like, “Damn, dawg! You sound kinda like me on this shit a little bit.” I was like, “I need you to do it.” The record never really worked out, but he was like you got my permission to do anything with that shit.

Ciara's new song "High Price" is shockingly awful (The-Dream wrote it and generally Ciara's singles are amazing.. plus I think Polow produced it.. anyway it's really weird and bad).

maybe it will grow on me

Tricky Stewart produced "High Price." But yeah, it's horrid, or at least that one-minute clip of it that's out there is. I mean, I didn't like "Oh" much the first time, let alone a weirdo semi-retread of it.

really feeling the reggae-ish track from Missy's new artist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR9E5VYagFA

yes, Jazmine Sullivan! Love her, album should be incredible (she's mentioned in the first post)

I went to the Epic Yung Berg preview yesterday (I can't be the only one who subconsciously wants to yid-ify him, calling him Youngberg mentally).

Here are my notes (since we weren't allowed to record anything, all I've got is ugly short-hand):

Berg gives brief intro. Berg believes that he is "Empowering young people to take it to the next level … keep God and all things are possible," etc.

He produced the entire album except for two tracks, and he calls this "new sound" "the Spaceship." It's all auto-tuned with a lot of echo, chime-y synth arpeggios. He's got the system up way too loud, so it sounds like shit. "The Business" is booty-call track with silly metaphor, good radio sound. Lots of compression, no dynamics. More radio than club track. He's partial to the DMX-ish shout "Hey!"

His label didn't understand "what I'm all about." "If I come from Sexy Can I to Sexy Lady, I'm gonna be the sexiest dude alive."

Do Dat There video: Big cold jam, lots of black and white, hey—those are the street drummers in front of the Art Institute! Warm, sustained bass. Sure does like that plinking toy piano. I like the instructions re: wad. Makes it officially dance track. "It was important that this came out with no co-signer. I got no co-signer, no, like Fiddy says he's cool. I'm New Wave."

"One Night" has toy piano again. Sharp bass, but mixed for shit. Supercompressed. Sure likes the posturing, spoken word interludes.

"This is the track I'm most proud of." Called "Outer Space." Phase shifting, more auto-tune. He stops the track to tell us he really sang it. It's apparent—his voice is really thin. Should have doubled it. Falls back on "Hey!", more tinkly piano. Bridge is tight. Nice spacey sound. Makes me want to get him to listen to Charles Earland.

"Manager" has more chime washes, better hook than "One Night," lots of string sweeps. Weird pimp metaphor—doesn't want to be boyfriend, just take 20% of proceeds (wonder if he knows that managers usually get 10). "They don't coordinate your do with your shoes/like I do." Way too long on bridge.

That's pretty much it, we were only there pretty briefly. For some reason, he came up to me an initiated a complicated dap-tap. He has a lot of lotion on his hands.

J Hud's first single Spotlight is pretty good, I was expecting something a bit more fun and uptempo but she sounds amazing... I think this could be a hit for her.

Robin Thicke's new single Magic is FIIIIIIREEEEEEE... continuing in the same Leon Ware/ I Want You -era Marvin sound as "Gots 2 Be Down".

so.. usher's album... kinda boring...

OMG...OTM Re: Robin Thicke

LOVING the orchestration on the Thicke tune!

lloyd & lil wayne- girls around the world (this song is SO FUCKING HOT... on some throwback early 90s shit)

-- The Brainwasher, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 9:41 PM (Tuesday, April 1, 2008 9:41 PM) Bookmark Link

Brainwasher bein on top of shit so I don't have to can finally get around to listening to it in two months

-- The Reverend, Tuesday, April 1, 2008 9:42 PM (Tuesday, April 1, 2008 9:42 PM) Bookmark Link

Well whaddayaknow, two months later, that Lloyd track is fiya. Agree about the 90s-ness.

imo lloyd is only okay on the son. it's made on the sample and wayne's verse

song*

That Jazmine Sullivan "I Need You Bad" track is nice---kinda Lauryn Hill over Sly & Robbie...

I've always felt Usher and his RAW emotion in his overly melodramatic tracks but I don't think he's relevant anymore. Not caring about J-Hud, great voice but SO? Erykah has some fun stuff on that album but its debatable in the cold light of day, I'm actually really feeling Cassie's 'Official Girl' and 'Thirsty' (http://youtube.com/watch?v=SWctgqdKRQU&feature=related)thats been 'leaked' from her upcoming album which is throwing off some good signals of being a real good thing, amazing production and beats but I don't think it'll be a major hit outside of the clubs tho, her voice is too weak, but hey look at Rihanna and in fact Ciara...Cheri Dennis? Hmm, definite possibilities, 'Remind You' is hype I actually think Cassie's is quite icy electro.
That Jazmine Sullivan "I Need You Bad" track is nice---kinda Lauryn Hill over Sly & Robbie... REALLY?!

That Lloyd track is hot but Lil Wayne...I thought only hipsters liked him? Forget Tyra B and Ciara trying to bite Aaliyah, not interested. Tiffany Evans is cool...actually exactly because of fools like Ray J and similar I'm really not impressed with R&B at the moment, more interested in whats new with dub. Wake me up when shit gets good again....or recommend something better!

Usher dancing with some gals on Saturday Night Live was kinda, uh interesting, though "Love in the Club" seems kinda formulaic in a not so good way

That Lloyd track is hot but Lil Wayne...I thought only hipsters liked him?

wayne is the most popular rapper in the country right now and it's not even close

unda surveillance- on deck
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgTYsd_hMns

this is another pretty good rap&b track from some miami no-names. seems like nothing really exceptional-- in fact took like 5-6 times of hearing this on the radio for it to really catch on-- but its really breezy and just feels right right about now.

this is old, but she's not famous yet and it bothers me.

Keri Hilson's first single FINALLY!!

http://concreteloop.com/2008/05/cl-exclusive-keri-hilson-energy

I really dig the song/vocal, but I'm not to keen on the production, which (at least at low volume) sounds very Stargate (in this case that's not a compliment)