rolling r&b 2019

Ari Lennox in GQ making sure you know she’s listened to more than Badu

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, June 19, 2019 11:45 AM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

i do hear a mixture of influences here, but i checked out the album today and it's still very distracting just how much she sounds like badu. it's funny that she's on dreamville, cause i feel a similar way about jid and kendrick--they have stylistic differences but the vocal similarity exists in a type of uncanny valley for me, where i can hardly notice anything else. my fav track is 'i been,' which uncoincidentally is a track where she switches up her vocal style.

man that polow song sucks. the back half is a complete mess what is he doing.

i dunno; i think you give that to jacquees or lloyd and rewrite the lyrics and you've got something enjoyable. wouldn't argue it's listenable as is.

jacquees doesn't need to do another song like that after already having done "you"

(tbh neither does bando jonez -- his closest thing to a hit so far "sex you" does some of the same things but stays on the right side of the appealingly-sleazy/gross line)

beyond all the mustardwave things the track reminded me of, the song the more chaotic (or messy) back half had me wanting to revisit was zendaya's "replay"

which admittedly is much better executed, altho honestly i'm also pretty ambivalent about "replay" as a song

it sounds like a "cool" jason derulo song

Good call on “Replay”, which I love to bits, without any reservations whatsoever. I also like this!

xp

the best zendaya https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ULO5j7MdSU

cute song but her voice is so nondescript

that's my hangup with her too

This is good:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYcw4CnvmVA

Catching up on these... OMG, that "Wet" song, no thanxx

This track does something cool toward the end:

Willow Smith - PrettyGirlz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYl4McIVvug

anyone check out the new BJ?

liked the first couple of tracks i heard

the whole Erika de Casier album is really lovely, my favourite is "Space"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evVucSOLUIE

'What U Wanna Do?' -> 'Rainy' -> 'Space' is a great run.

Anyway, this album is ideal ILM fodder (and I mean that in a good way).

maybe make a thread for it? i really love it. it's drawing so heavily on 90s r&b but the production feels much more modern with how much space there is and every individual sound is so good

I considered making a thread for it too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1jOvBabKMA

also, zo! put out a new album last week and it's lovely. (it's called fourfront, which is easier to search than his name.) i want to try and catch him at city winery on monday - he's doing a "piano & a microphone" tour with carmen rodgers, whose vocal makes this track extra bubbly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa7iS0261yU

phonte (naturally), stokley, and madison mcferrin are among the other guests

Is this the thread where I can gush about the new Normani single with the rest of the Internet or should I take it to the pop thread

Do it here! I haven't listened to it yet.....

I feel like normani almost deserves a thread of her own at this point

anyway it’s delightful. I’ve sort of thought she would be a star ever since her ad libs of “that’s my girl”, and it’s been pleasing to see her build this oeuvre of confident collaborations over the past year or so before now having this break out moment

i came around on "dancing with a stranger" but honestly didn't really feel any other songs normani was involved in. this song is pretty good and i'll be glad if it finally enables her to properly step out as an artist -- the fact that she had to maneuver her way in thru very strategically selected collaborations honestly struck me as highly unfortunate. as 'confident' as was on those hits they were also ample evidence that her label was, like, the opposite of confident in her potential as a pop solo personality. major props to her if she really gets to go the distance and thank fuck she's proving herself now.

i have to say the excellent video kinda makes the song. i don't think i would find the track nearly as striking without it.

in theory I'm skeptical of the massive pr push behind normani but "waves" is one of my favorite R&B songs of the year and this is also pretty good

I like how unselfconsciously oldschool this is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u8HFDULaq0

my fav track from elle varner's new album, which is indeed good tho not as great as the debut (but tbh what is?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCLsxNiNfZ4

it took a while for me to give the album a shot b/c one of the pre-release singles w/ wale was so dull but fortunately that ended up being among the worst couple of tracks

gave lucky daye's album a spin... strikingly arranged but much of it just drifted from my memory as unassumingly as it came. (perhaps one should 'roll some mo' to appreciate the full impact?)

aside from the radio hit, this track stood out to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCVeK3DyNYM

I really like this (caveat: cover art is Not-quite-SFW):

Justine Skye - Bare With Me (EP)

It remands me of those Amerie EPs that I loved last year.

new Summer Walker jam (video/song NSFW) - album coming in October:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w98GE4kHJzM

Her vocals aren't really my style, but there is good stuff on this album:

Melii - Phases

https://is2-ssl.mzstatic.com/image/thumb/Music113/v4/0b/e3/53/0be3537d-b30f-de3d-41ae-8bbb9a5e5235/00602577602252.rgb.jpg/1200x630bb.jpg

Summer Walker's new album, Over It, dropped today: https://www.okayplayer.com/music/summer-walker-over-it-album.html

(Last Day of Summer has apparently been retconned into a "mixtape" or "project"... Summer is referring to Over It as her "debut album.")

Album is good but on first listen I miss the unique sound of Last Day of Summer

i am waiting for the day Brandy finally drops an album and demolishes the world, till then I've got this one that came out today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qwARoDzAI8
and this one from 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rAdz4m4rsA

only one listen in so far, but i like summer walker's album. tho the sound of her previous album project was striking and beguiling at its best, i think this release's songs are more consistently strong and i don't bemoan her aesthetic progression either. unsurprisingly given her inroads at radio w/ "girls need love" much of it sounds like it *could* work well in that medium but also cut through the noise and stand out with no trouble -- a good sweet spot to occupy.

here's a standout among those tracks that i don't expect to make it to radio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebckRRogyx0

tho his contribution on the track doesn't necessarily *detract* exactly, it is a little disappointing to see bryson tiller tacked onto a new version of "playing games", a single that had come out in advance of the album. the song had already been doing just fine breaking on its own -- with radio exposure still very minimal, it's already spent several weeks on the hot 100, so the numbers it was pulling were no slouch. i guess to slightly mask the commercial imperatives tiller's inclusion is answering to, his version has been labeled "extended version" rather than "remix", as the updated "girls need love" was -- but it's an amusing misnomer, as it has the exact same runtime as the original.

re the convo on the Pitchfork thread about Afropop in the US, here are some recent examples of the impact “Fall”s relative chart success is having on US R&B (and on Davido and producer Kiddominant’s US careers):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb05OXz7-Ko
Chris Brown ft. Davido (and produced by Kiddominant) • Lower Body
(significantly, the opening track of his new, long-ass album)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGSd8T9YdHc
Fabolous ft. Jeremih & Davido • Choosy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VrL2McJ_bA
Bas ft. Ari Lennox & Kiddominant • Amnesia

and Afro B, who’s currently enjoying a “Fall”-size US R&B hit with “Drogba (Joanna)” has a new single out with Slim Jxmmi, “Fine Wine & Hennesy”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anaOjLzmhPA

This track by London resident Arlo Parks is definitely a finalist for my song of the year. I love the minimalist instrumentation, the Chris Squire-meets-Bernie Edwards bassline, the gorgeous harmonies in the pre-chorus, and lyrics that reference Gerard Way (!) and a "Party/Bacardi" rhyme (for which I'll always have time). If you like this, check out her tracks "George" and "Super Sad Generation", which are also freakin' rad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYRGfdq0so4

i like to imagine rtc somewhere in the uk throwing up every time this comes on the radio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_DDqg1A8lw

Victoria Monét - Ass Like That

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMGkrWD5fNg

Mahalia - What You Did (feat. Ella Mai)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azA0RJMUK0E

i was very ready to like that but something about so prominently sampling an already heavily sample-based production can strike me as odd enough to derail my enjoyment of the whole track. idk, i guess i liked "fergalicious" but it may have helped that at the time i was too young/ignorant to know of its precursors

Are you saying it samples an intermediary track that sampled “I’m Going Down” (and not just the original song)?

that's what i thought, but apparently not. i'm looking at its credits via tidal now, and norman whitfield (composer of "i'm going down") is naturally listed as a composer. not listed however are the writers of the track i assumed it was actually sampling, "oh boy" by cam'ron (those writers are cam'ron, juelz santana, and the producer just blaze).

i would maintain, tho, that the way certain vocals are sampled/looped and beats are constructed is so similar in parts to "oh boy" that i'm almost certain that evoking an association to the latter track was intended

I agree that Cam’ron’s deployment of the sample is pretty iconic