Should Just Remember This...

Sia's performance of her single "Soon We'll Be Found" from her latest album "Some People Have Real Problems" was posted on Kanye West blog this morning. Her voice is so rich and mournful: I immediately felt a lump in my throat and tears sprang to my eyes. Music has a way of translating exactly how one feels without the messy business of actually articulating oneself. I should just play songs to explain myself.

Come along it is the break of day
Surely now, you'll have some things to say
It's not the time for telling tales on me

So come along, it wont be long
'Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of hurt
Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight
Don't Turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say
Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

Well it's been rough but we'll be just fine
Work it out yeah we'll survive
You mustn't let a few bad times dictate

So come along, it wont be long
'Til we return happy
Shut your eyes, there are no lies
In this world we call sleep
Let's desert this day of work
Tomorrow we'll be free

Let's not fight I'm tired can't we just sleep tonight
Don't turn away it's just there's nothing left here to say
Turn around I know we're lost but soon we'll be found

If You Like It Then You Shoulda Put A Ring On It

• Beyoncé
• New Music

1. I wish I could dance like that.
2. I wish I looked like that.
3. Damn, that's a big ring.
4. I can not get this song or its Fossy-esque dance moves out of my head. Pretty embarrassing, but I try to do them at my desk without the same flawless results.

Love Lock Down

Another rainy day in Chicago. I'm waiting for my boyfriend to get back home so we can head to the opera (more on that tomorrow), but here's Kanye West's video for the first single off his "808 and Heartbreak" album "Love Lock Down." The radio DJs on 103.5 didn't "get" the video and said he was trying to be deeper than the song calls for. I disagree, but then again 1- I think Kanye can do no wrong and 2- appreciate any break from the hip-hop video narrative of bling, bills, and bitches. What do you think?

"I Got Your Crazy"

Don't you just love the new Britney Spears single? I am all about Ms. Spears making a full comeback into pop stardom after dangling off the crazy cliff for over 2 years. Listen to it here:

Not Only For the Saditty and Pretty

Musically, Andre 3000's verse is by far the only thing good about the song, but these men are all about presentation, which makes this video a-mazing.

This [Explitive] Is Bananas...

(photo credit: The Village Voice)

At last year's Pitchfork Festival, the second biggest summer music festival in Chicago after Lollapalooza, everyone was a buzz about Girl Talk's performance. I had no clue who this Girl Talk (born Greg Gillis) was, but he was on the lips of every musically inclined hipster, editor, and friend I encountered a week after the performance.

Now I can see why. His latest album, Feed the Animals, is available for download here (jumping on the online pay-as-you-wish bandwagon Radiohead spearheaded). I can imagine dancing in Union Park to Girl Talk's furious mash of hip-hop, rap, R&B, juke, 70s and 80s rock/pop just from listening to one of the singles. Mixing Cool Kids, "Gold and Pager," Sinead O'Conner, Avril Lavigne's "Boyfriend," and Rod Stewart's "Young Turks" may sound strange on paper, but believe me, once you hear Girl Talk's mash ups, you wonder why no one has done it before. More divergent in style and genre than your average party DJ, Girl Talk is... bananas.

Coke Habit

N.E.R.D.'s new video for their single, "Everyone Nose" was posted up on Kanye West's blog today. Cocaine references, cameos galore (I wonder why Lindsay Lohan appears...), and a shout out to Merlin Bronques party photography website Last Night's Party. Enjoy.

Hip-Hopnoymous No More

Chicago hip-hop duo The Cool Kids will be releasing their debut album May 20th. Excitement! Below is the unedited version of my first UR Chicago article profiling the duo.




Writers profiling the next great hope for hip-hop should really send Nas a Hallmark card. Or maybe a dozen roses. Without his recent album's “Hip-hop is Dead” eponymous single, there would be one less thing to point to when contrasting hip-hop's much discussed decline against a new group or artist with the potential to resurrect the genre. Chuck Inglish, 22, and Mikey Reed, 19, of the Chicago based hip-hop duo the Cool Kids just might be that next great hope – with the potential not only to resurrect hip-hop but redefine it.

While the Cool Kids have a hip-hop sound, they don't consider themselves hip-hop artists. “We have a very different style of music,” Inglish explains. “Whatever we try to do will always be good...but I can't justify doing one style of music when I'm influenced by a lot of other stuff.”

The two MCs “came across each other [through] making beats, doing the Myspace thing, being in Chicago and all of that,” Inglish begins. The two met to listen to each others' beats, bringing out Mikey's talent for rapping and Inglish soon began producing tracks for him. “I took a dip at rapping too and figured out that I wasn't too bad,” Inglish says. “We figured out the majority of our songs had the both of us on it, so we decided to [form] a group, to keep the same formula but [with the both of us] together.”

The formula? Think N.E.R.D., Slick Rick, and EMPD. A slow, deliberate flow, chopped and screwed hooks, and simple drum patterns. The Cool Kids exude the machismo swagger typical of hip-hop lyrics with a tongue in cheek goofiness and decidedly non-bling references (i.e. Sega Genesis, bike kickstands, pagers).

With their arms flung over their chests in true “yes, yes y'all” fashion, sporting thick gold ropes and Spike Lee circa “She's Gotta Have It” glasses, Mikey and Inglish may have one foot planted in the '80s and early '90s, but don't call them a throwback group. Or worse yet, hipster hop.

“We're not a throwback at all,” Inglish says. “A lot of people are drawing that up, like, 'Hey, these kids got gold ropes on and they have 808 kicks.' [That's] just us being us.”

As for hipster hop, it's “kinda of an attempt to try to figure out how to categorize what we're doing,” Inglish continues. Mikey agrees, saying that the term hipster has “whack connotations.” “It's always the next new thing that never actually comes to fruition...and then its gone and [hipsters] go off to the next new thing.”

The Cool Kids are definitely the next new thing, but they won't be going anywhere anytime soon. With a new CD coming out (“It's not a mixtape, and it's not an album, so we're gonna call it a CD with a whole bunch of shit on it you can listen to,” Mikey laughs. “The first rap album with no guest features,” Inglish chimes in), gigs across the country, and a buzz growing by the day, the Cool Kids prove hip-hop isn't dead. It was just taking a blinged out nap.

Please Don't Mess This One Up, Diddy

Oh, Diddy. He's the black male version of Madonna, "reinventing" himself to keep the masses interested/unaware of how untalented he is as a performer. Constant sampling of better artists from eras past became "inventing the remix." He's made the leap from A&R scout to record company founder and owner (Bad Boy), wearer of shiny metallic track suits to a Council of Fashion Design of America award winning designer, Broadway actor (taking on the role Sidney Poitier made famous in the movie version of "A Raisin In The Sun"), and a reality television personality with his takes on the Making the Band series. Don't even get me started on the name changes.

So when one of my best friends from home told me about a new performer signed to Bad Boy, I was a little weary; his two new boy and girl groups leave much to be desired. But signing Janelle Monae—a Kansas City, KS native making waves in Atlanta with her blend of funk, soul, R&B, and futuristic imaginings of the world—is a step in the right direction for the multimedia mogul. Based on the power of her single on her MySpace page, Janelle Monae has many anxious for her star to rise; numerous publications, Andre 3000 and Big Boi of Outkast and even Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama have all sang her praises:



Janelle Monae's sound and style makes her stand out in a sea of record company manufactured and derivative pop princesses, and she's bringing the concept album to R&B (which, correct me if I'm wrong, is very unusual). Her android alter ego, Cindi Mayweather, has fallen in love with a human despite her computer programming and has to run away for fear of being disassembled.

Amazing.

Her debut album is slated for release in September, with an EP out in June. Listen to her single "Violet Star Happy Hunting" and its remix (sans Diddy) on her Myspace page.

I Vant To Suck Your Blood

Or, just have you enjoy the latest buzz band Vampire Weekend.

"Who's the Hottest In The World Right Now?"

Estelle Swaray, a British singer, rapper, and songwriter, will be releasing her second album "Shine" on John Legend's new label, HomeSchool Records April 29. With her soulful and light-hearted lyrics (plus music mavens like Legend and Chicago's native son Kanye West singing her praises), I'm sure Estelle will make a big splash this side of the pond. She's made appearances on Hot 97 (NY's premiere hip-hop radio station), TRL, mtvU, and BET's low-rent version of TRL, 106 & Park and her videos for the songs "Wait a Minute (Just One Touch)" and "American Boy" are winning new fans everywhere.

Want to hear more Estelle? Go to her Myspace page and give a listen.

Already a fan? You can pre-order her new album for your iPod or the CD from her Myspace blog.