The Funky Soul Dance Craze

March 6, 2017March 25, 2017 by mreeves | Leave a comment

Herein lies the “Land of the 1000 Dances,” a Shangri-la of popcorn grooves and sock-hop fun. Everybody knows how to “Twist & Shout,” but can you do the “Mashed Potatoes?” Yeah? Well, how about the “Harlem Shuffle?” You move it to the left, yeah, ‘til you go for yourself. You move it to the right, yeah, if it takes all night. Hey, I think you got it! Now “Walk the Dog,” “Shake a Tail Feather,” and do the “Loco-Motion.” C’mon, don’t let it up now! We’re “Barefootin’!” “Shake” it honey, and do the “Wah Watusi!” Look at you go! You’re lookin’ good, baby.

The World of LA BTS

February 26, 2017March 25, 2017 by mreeves | Leave a comment

The Los Angeles electronic music scene is unlike any other in the world. For one thing, it is closely-knit – its main participants have usually worked together, cross-pollinating at avenues like underground radio broadcaster Dublab.com or the weekly club showcase Low End Theory. Their proximity to one another results in a sound that listeners have struggled to name ever since. Some just call it “beats,” which might partly be a legacy of a podcast called BTS Radio that helped spread the sound during its early years.

The beats sound emerged from instrumental hip-hop and downtempo. Instrumental hip-hop in particular has a curious history. Back in the late 1990s, it essentially died in the mainstream when club DJs stopped blending rap and R&B with instrumental “breaks” made by Frankie Cutlass, DJ Spinna, Mark the 45 King and others; and started mashing the latest hits together. (It was also when mainstream rap DJs stopped cutting and mixing and devolved into carnival barkers. But that’s another story.) While virtually ignored by radio rap fans, it continued to flourish in the underground, thanks to DJ Shadow’s elaborate sample pastiches, Madlib’s dusty beat loops, and others.

In the early 2000s, major developments elsewhere inspired LA beat producers to push into deeper waters. There was the glitch-hop trend, personified by Prefuse 73 and Dabrye, as well as groundbreaking UK imprints such as Ninja Tune and Warp Records. Detroit’s J Dilla and Waajeed mixed swaggering rap beats with electronic funk. Back in LA, Daedelus made an eccentric swirl of modern classical techniques and dance rhythms. There were the electronic duo Ammoncontact, the downtempo producer Nobody, the soul-jazz orchestra Build An Ark, and beat makers like Omid, Take and Ras G. In 2003, there was the landmark compilation Mu.sic, which debuted producers like GB (Gifted and Blessed) and DJ Exile.

2006 was a watershed year. J Dilla, who by then had relocated to L.A., finished his Donuts masterpiece before he passed away. Producer, mastering engineer, Alpha Pup Records owner and scene godfather Daddy Kev launched Low End Theory. And Flying Lotus, a former Stones Throw intern who cut his teeth spinning tracks on Dublab.com, released 1983 on local label Plug Research. When Warp signed him the following year, his subsequent string of works like 2010’s Cosmogramma turned LA into a global mecca for beats music.

Today, the LA beats scene cuts wide and deep. There is the “lazer bass” of the Glitch Mob; MPC-smacking, head-nod-inducing “blappers” like Samiyam, Jonwayne and Dibia$e; the atmospheric ambience of Teebs and Mono/Poly; the folk-inflected, electronics-infused indie-pop of Baths and Matthewdavid; and the baroque psychedelics of the Gaslamp Killer. Leading lights such as Nosaj Thing, Shlohmo and Tokimonsta evolve in new ways as they flirt with R&B, radio pop, and sundry post-millennial trends. Despite the eclecticism of these various artists, they share a common lineage that’s regional and wholly distinctive in sound.

(Rhapsody – October 9, 2014)

R&B’s Doo-Wop Revival

January 28, 2017March 25, 2017 by mreeves | Leave a comment

During the second installment of The New Edition Story mini-series, one of the characters makes a derisive comment about the group’s doo-wop misadventure, Under the Blue Moon. The album is so poorly regarded that the one-sentence dismissal is all the coverage it gets.

It’s easy to set aside New Edition’s misguided and overly saccharine attempt at reaching the same oldies-loving audience that turned Dirty Dancing into the biggest summer hit of 1986. But Under the Blue Moon was also part of a oft-forgotten movement that flourished throughout the 80s and into the 90s. While R&B never experienced a full-scale old-school doo-wop revival, it lasted as a minor trend, thanks to Force M.D.’s, Take 6, and New Edition’s greatest protégés, Boyz II Men.

Below is a short post and playlist on the subject I wrote for Rhapsody.com in 2013.

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It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment: The emergence of doo-wop in modern-day R&B. Actually, it wasn’t all that brief. The pioneering Staten Island group Force M.D.’s used doo-wop harmonies on their 1984 hit “Tears,” and New Edition nearly made it an official trend with their 1986 album Under the Blue Moon, a collection of doo-wop covers on which they generously invited Little Anthony of the Imperials to guest on “Tears on My Pillow.” And when Christian vocal jazz quintet Take 6 landed a surprise hit with their 1988 self-titled debut and “Spread Love,” it seemed like numerous groups absorbed their remarkable a cappella melodies, including Troop, who added a Take 6-like “Spread!” to “Spread My Wings.” Bobby McFerrin was a vocal jazz artist, too, but his Grammy-winning Simple Pleasures captured the mood as well.

So it was one of those inspirations that persisted for several years until around 1991 and the arrival of Jodeci, whose rough harmonies on Forever My Lady were decidedly more hip-hop than the angelic sounds of doo-wop. While doo-wop was easy to miss amidst other trends like New Jack, gospel, hip-house, and freestyle, the evidence is there, including After 7’s vocal interplay on “Can’t Stop,” Color Me Badd’s “la-la-la-la” bridge near the end of “I Wanna Sex You Up,” Boyz II Men’s cover of the Five Satins’ “In The Still Of the Night,” and finally, Shai’s 1992 a capella smash “If I Ever Fall In Love,” which closed the chapter on this wonderfully underrated period in soul music.

Recommended:

Take 6, “Spread Love”
Force M.D.’s, “Tears”
New Edition, “Earth Angel”
Force M.D.’s, “Tender Love”
New Edition, “Tears on My Pillow”
Troop, “Spread My Wings”
Special Generation, “Love Me Just For Me”
Troop, “All I Do is Think Of You”
Miles Davis, “The Doo Bop Song”
Bobby McFerrin, “Good Lovin'”
After 7, “Can’t Stop”
Special Generation, “Spark of Love”
After 7, “Ready or Not”
Color Me Badd, “I Wanna Sex You Up”
Take 6, “I L-O-V-E You”
Boyz II Men, “Motownphilly”
Force One Network, “Spirit (Does Anybody Care?)”
Boyz II Men, “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye To Yesterday”
Quincy Jones, “Septembro”
Boyz II Men, “In The Still of the Nite (I’ll Remember)”
Shai, “If I Ever Fall In Love”

(Rhapsody – May 8, 2013)

R&B Nostalgia

November 30, 2016March 25, 2017 by mreeves | Leave a comment

Surf the nooks and crannies of YouTube and SoundCloud, and you’ll find plenty of homage to vintage contemporary R&B – that golden period in the late 80s and 90s when the urban music industry embraced technology, struggled to escape hip-hop’s long shadow, and forged a sound of its own. Thanks to copyright issues, those viral covers usually don’t make it past the blogosphere. But a few examples of this nascent trend can be found on retail R&B releases, like Sebastian Mikael’s “Last Night” and its thinly-veiled homage to Al B Sure’s “Nite and Day,” Anthony Lewis’ version of Soul For Real’s “Candy Rain,” Trey Songz’ use of Teena Marie’s “Ooh La La La” chorus for “Na Na,” and Beyoncé’s construction of “1+1” around the opening medley of Boyz II Men’s “Uhh Ahh.” Kendrick Lamar’s “Poetic Justice” is a rap song, but its faithfulness to Janet Jackson’s movie and her “Any Time, Any Place” seems appropriate here. So does Netta Brielle’s swipe of the sung chorus from Oakland rap group 3 X Krazy’s “Keep It on the Real” for “3XKrazy.” All are evidence of a throwback movement that’s poised to grow in the years to come.

Southern Underground

November 29, 2016March 25, 2017 by mreeves | Leave a comment

When the indie-rap movement swept through hip-hop culture in the mid-to-late 90s, it seemed to completely skip over the South. Sure, there were subterranean groups in Atlanta like Mass Influence (formerly known as Y’all So Stupid) and Binkis Recs; Nashville’s Count Bass D; Houston’s K-Otix; and others. But they were like footnotes to the thriving scenes in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and New York. It wasn’t until North Carolina’s Little Brother released its 2003 classic The Listening that the majority of rap fans realized that there were indie groups in the South similar to the ones they heard elsewhere.

In recent years, critics have argued that street rap artists that release their music independently deserve the “underground” label as much as artists whom fans perceive as more traditionally hip-hop or “conscious.” There is some truth to this, particularly in the South. Here, there is less separation between the “backpack” and “street” scenes. Artists like Big K.R.I.T. and Curren$y (the latter who was briefly signed to Lil Wayne’s Young Money label) clearly value the South’s rich tradition of rap gangsters and funky bluesmen. The history of Southern hip-hop is very different from the two coasts, and its underground is a reflection of that legacy. You can trace a line from OutKast to G-Side, and from Three 6 Mafia to SpaceGhostPurpp.

Today, the Southern underground is more vibrant, and that’s entirely due to the fragmented nature of hip-hop in the aughts. Influences, and the music on your hard drive that inspires you, may be more important than your physical location. As a result, the artists on this cheat sheet can only be pigeonholed by the cities where they’re from, not their sounds. As Rakim once said, it ain’t where you from, it’s where you’re at.