Tag: De La Soul

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of the Ann Arbor, MI-born, Los Angeles, CA-based soul singer/songwriter Mayer Hawthorne, arguably one of the most unheralded vocalists and singer/songwriters of the past decade; and Jake One, a Seattle, WA-born and based, Grammy nominated producer and artist, who was best known as part of the G-Unit, production team The Money Management Group, for collaborating with Brother Ali, Young Buck, De La Soul, M.O.P., Freeway, M.F. Doom, Atmosphere‘s Slug, Keak da Sneak and others, and for contributing tracks to the soundtracks of major motion pictures such as Get Rich or Die Tryin,’ The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Gone Baby Gone, the electro funk act Tuxedo can trace its origins to around 2006 when Hawthorne and Jake One began exchanging mixtapes, which revealed that they had a mutual appreciation and love of classic funk and soul.  The duo quickly worked on and released three singles while both were working on separate solo projects — and those singles wound up on the duo’s 2015 self-titled debut, an effort, which I think was one of that year’s best party records.

Now, it’s been some time since I’ve last written about them — and that shouldn’t be surprising, as Hawthrone released his fourth, full-length effort Man About Town last year and opened for Hall and Oates during the duo’s U.S. tour and Jake One released the #prayerhandsemoji mixtape; but speaking for myself, I’m always in the need of some funk in my life and thankfully, the duo have returned with a three song EP, titled Fux with the Tux.. “Fux with the Tux,” the EP’s title track and opening track pairs Hawthrone’s vocals with a late 70s and early 80s synth funk production featuring squiggly arpeggio synth blasts, propulsive drum programming, a wobbling and tumbling low bass line, a chant-worthy and anthemic hook and a brief braggadocio-filled guest spot from Snoop Dogg. And while sounding as though it drew a some influence from Heatwave‘s “The Groove Line” – 12″ Disco Version,  Cherelle‘s “Saturday Love” feat. Alexander O’Neal and others. “Special” clearly continues on a similar vein as it’s incredibly dance floor friendly, while being a sultry come on. It’s the sort of song you’d want to play while dancing with that pretty young thing, you’ve wanted to get with for an entire summer or however long it’s been for you. Completing the three song set, “July” is a slow-burning and silky smooth, Quiet Storm-like track about unexpectedly, stupidly and desperately in love and that love changing the narrator’s life for the better — and of course, its underpinned by Hawthorne expressing a vulnerable, urgent and plaintive need that gives the song an irresistible sensuality.

 

 

If there’s one thing that listeners will instantly gleam from this new EP is that Hawthorne and Jake One have further cemented their reputation for crafting dance floor friendly, two-step, 80s-inspired synth funk and sexy, slow-burning ballads with a subtly modern take.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Remi is a 23 year-old Melbourne, Australia-based emcee and along with collaborator and producer Sensible J have quickly risen to national and international prominence with 2014 being the duo’s breakthrough year as their Raw X Infinity was critically and commercially successful. The album was named Triple J‘s Album of the Week, the Independent Hip Hop Album of the Year by the Australian Independent Record Association and received praise from internationally recognized media outlets and tastemakers including OkayAfrica, JUICE and laut.de, NPR‘s All Things Considered, and others. Adding to a rapidly growing national and international profile, the duo were named “Australian Breakthrough Artist of the Year,” toured nationally and across both the UK and Continental Europe and have shared stages with the likes of Danny Brown, Vic Mensa, De La Soul, Joey Bada$$ and Damon Albarn.

Divas and Demons is the Australian duo’s forthcoming full-length effort, and the album’s first single “For Good” is a collaboration that features Sydney, Australia-based poet, visual artist and singer/songwriter Sampa The Great adding soulful backing vocals to the song’s infectious hook and spitting a few bars herself during the song’s shimmering and cosmic bridge. Now, if you were frequenting this site over the the last half of 2015, Sampa The Great might be familiar to you, as she collaborated with a fellow Sydney-based singer/songwriter Wallace on the skittering and jazzy single “Beauty” and interestingly enough, this particular track has Sampa The Great channeling both Macy Gray and Lauryn Hill. Remi’s husky vocals and cool, effortless flow is reminiscent of LL Cool J, Q-Tip and Snoop Dogg with a distinctly Australian accent. Lyrically speaking, the song is a charming and coquettish love song in which its male and female narrators finally committing to each other after a childish and dysfunctional relationship in which they fuss and fight, cheat and drive each other nuts — and yet they both realize that they can’t possible dream of a life apart. This back and forth duet is paired with a buoyant and swooningly soulful Sensible J. production consisting of Nile Rodgers-like funk guitar and boom bap drum programming and Simon Mavin’s cosmically shimmering and jazzy keyboard chords. Although incredibly contemporary, the song sounds as though it could have been released sometime between 1997 and 2002 — and in some way sounds as though it draws from The Roots and Erykah Badu‘s “You Got Me,” and others.

Certainly, much like Monikker‘s debut single “Heaven on Earth (Gotta Go),” Remi’s latest track is a testament to the power and influence of hip-hop’s beloved golden era while reminding the listener of two things — that hip-hop truly is the linga franca of anyone under about 45 or so and that in the age of mainstream, conglomerate radio stations shilling soulless and prepackaged bullshit that you can find meaningful and thoughtful music if you’re willing to put in some work.

 

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Single Review by William Ruben Helms

F.Y.I,’s musical career began in the middle part of this past decade as the co-founder of Los Angeles-based rap act Those Chosen, with whom he recorded over 100 songs, a number of mixtapes and a critically praised EP, 5IVE, which was produced by Grammy winner IZ Avila best known for his work with Usher, Janet Jackson, and Gwen Stefani. And with the release of his debut solo effort, Yo! The Places You’ll Go, which featured a collaboration with Rass Kass and Ab-Soul, the Los Angeles-based emcee’s album landed at #1 on WPTS, which won an MTVu Woodie Award for Best College Radio Station. And as a result of sharing stages with renowned artists including The Game, B.O.B., Big Sean, Curren$y, Slick Rick, De La Soul, Pac Div, Dead Prez, Little Brother, Black Milk, Pete Rock and CL Smooth and Boot Camp Clik and playing at music festivals such as CMJ, A3C and the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival, F.Y.I. has quietly developed a national reputation as an emcee to pay attention to.

The Los Angeles-based emcee’s debut sophomore effort, Age/Sex/Location was released earlier today and the EP’s latest single, EP opening track “One Thang” pairs F.Y.I.’s confident and dexterous flow, rhyming lyrics about looking bravely forward and striving and accomplishing your goals without fear and without doubt. And he does so over
over a glitchy and soulful production consisting of boom bap beats, distorted vocal samples, whirring electronics. It’s swaggering yet upbeat hip-hop which shows how influential Kanye West, Outkast and Common have been to contemporary hip-hop.

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Rhythm Scholar’s Psychedelic and Funky Take on De La Soul’s “Breakadawn.”

If you’ve come of age during hip-hop’s golden era, De La Soul holds a rather important position to you, as they released some of that period’s best and most memorable material.  Now, if you were […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

As a hip-hop fan going back to the early 80s, it seems to me that at times the genre and its fans can frequently be incredibly fickle, and as the genre goes through its inevitable […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

The founding members of Kraftwerk, Florian Schneider and Ralf Hutler met as students Robert Schumann Hochschule in Dusseldorf in the late 1960s and had taken part of the German experimental music art scene that has […]

Uncategorized by William Ruben Helms

Yesterday, I had left work early to watch what turned out to be the disastrous last innings of the Yankee season at a bar near my office. And afterward, I stopped at a McDonald’s for […]