If Lil’ Wayne’s rap career ever goes down the tubes – and that seems highly unlikely considering his latest release became the fastest selling album on iTunes when it was released last week – he can always rest easy that his record label is in good shape. Wayne’s imprint Young Money has been riding high on the ongoing success of Nicki Minaj’s debut ‘Pink Friday’; but things are set to go stratospheric when Drake drops his long awaited sophomore record, ‘Take Care’.
The latest single, ‘Headlines’, hints at an electronic sounding production and introspective mood for the forthcoming album: one not far from Kanye West’s ‘808 ‘s And Heartbreaks’. Drake stays true to past form, concentrating his verses on the grand scale of his bank account. Yet many of the lyrics hint at uneasiness. “Money on my mind / then she wanna ask when it got so empty,” is just one example that shows Drake contemplating the spoils of the rap game. Like the previous single, ‘Marvin’s Room’, Drake’s latest work shows that he consciously self examines himself in a way that most rappers would never dream of.
With collaborations with Lil’ Wayne, Rick Ross and soul legend Stevie Wonder all confirmed, ‘Take Care’ is sure to be at worst a highly competent hip hop record. At best, it could be one of the albums of the year.
This Monday brought the sad news that Nick Ashford, of Ashford & Simpson, fame passed away in a New York hospital. Alongside his wife, Valerie Simpson, Nick penned some of the most successful soul songs ever put to paper. Motown classics such as ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ and ‘You’re All I Need To Get By’ put the duo on the map early on in their careers, making them among the most sought after song writers of the late 60’s and early 70’s. Later Ashford & Simpson developed their own solo careers where the interplay between the pair’s vocals gave their music an instantly recognisable calling card. A solid run of gospel tinged disco albums kept Ashford & Simpson in the charts until they delivered their mega hit ’Solid’ in 1984, a track which perhaps dwarfed some of their excellent early work.
All throughout the 70’s Nick Ashford continued to write superlative singles for the likes of Collins & Collins, Chaka Khan, Teddy Pendergrass and Marvin Gaye: his emotionally drenched songs and energetic harmonies defining early disco and ‘70’s R&B.
Nick Ashford’s music was highly influential throughout the 90’s and beyond. Frankie Knuckles, the DJ credited as the godfather of house music, has often referenced Ashford & Simpson as his most important influence. Added to this Ashford & Simpson’s music has constantly been used as a source of inspiration for modern soul singers such as Amy Winehouse who borrowed a section of ‘Ain’t No Mountain High Enough’ on her song ‘Tears Dry On Their Own’.
Lil Wayne is perhaps the only artist on the planet hotter than Drake, so it’s no surprise that the pair’s latest collaborative single has gone straight to of the Shazam New Release Chart USA.
Emeli Sande looks to be one of the most exciting artists to breakthrough in the UK this year. The Scottish singer first came to the public’s attention by providing the vocal punch on hit singles for British rappers like Chipmunk and Roll Deep. However, it’s the singer’s debut single that’s really getting music industry insiders excited.
The walls between pop, urban and dance music are now so blurred it’s difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. For example, who can say whether the heavy dance production on Britney Spears’ latest album is a bold musical move for a usually safe pop act, or simply an example of dubstep losing its edge? Timbaland, once the world’s foremost hip hop producer, now calls on dance king David Guetta for his beats. One thing’s for sure, if you’re trying to put popular music into pigeon holes you’re in for a hard time.
For that reason it’s hard to tell if producer AraabMuzik is subverting cheesy dance music with his latest work, or simply playing on current trends. Whatever the case, he seems to be doing a very good job of it. Known for making gritty, gun-toting rap tracks with Camron’s Dipset crew, AraabMuzik’s latest album see’s him reworking a bunch of twee house and trance tracks through his MPC drum machine. The result, ‘Electronic Dream’, is something totally unexpected.
On lead single ‘Streetz Tonight’ the over the top musical builds of Kaskade’s ‘4 AM’ are somehow muted by AraabMuzik’s emptied out beats: combining the euphoria of cheesy dance with a hip hop swing to create something all together more subtle. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it most certainly works – just don’t try to work out which genre you should file it under.
