Saturday, August 23, 2008 |
Solange, who, before, was largely known as just Beyonce’s little sister, releases her sophmore album, SoL-Angel & the Hadley Street Dreams on August 26th. This time around she’s taking the reigns, staking her own claim and doing it the right way: the way she wants to do it.
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Solange put out her debut album, Solo Star back in 2003, with moderate success with the single, “Feelin’ You”. Although people didn’t fully flock to the project, Solange stuck to her guns and did a couple of films and stayed behind the scenes to give attention to her young son. After a short break from the industry, she began working on the album, SoL-Angel & the Hadley Street Dreams, as well as penning tracks for big sis, Beyonce, and labelmate/friend Michelle Williams.
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008 |
Today, the young prodigy Karina Pasian releases her debut album, First Love. On her first album, she wants to prove that she’s not just another young girl who can sing, trying to break her way through the industry.
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Raised in the Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights, the New York native was a music and vocal student at world renown Professional Performing Arts School in Hell’s Kitchen. Since kindergarten, Karina had been singing and playing piano at the Special Music School situated in Lincoln Center. Not only did she graduate after 9 years, with a pre-conservatory music degree, she has been privately coached and trained in classical and modern piano by Dr. Burkhom Buriev from Russia and renowned American jazz pianist George Caldwell.
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Tuesday, August 5, 2008 |
Lloyd released his new album, Lessons In Love today, August 5th. The R&B crooner had a great round last time with his sophomore album, Street Love, so I’m glad that he kept going and got this album out.
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Lloyd made his first splash onto the scene with his single, “Southside,” featuring Ashanti. His first album, of the same title, dropped in 2004 and released two singles. Although it was an impressive effort, Lloyd left his real imprint in 2007, with the singles “You,” featuring fan favorite Lil’ Wayne and the hugely infectious “Get It Shawty!” produced by Usher’s little brother, James Lackey. This is when Lloyd proved his staying power. He needed a new single for his new album that was really going to match that song’s intensity. When “How We Do It In the A,” featuring Ludacris dropped as a buzz single, I was little disappointed. But Lloyd gained my confidence back when he dropped the Lil’ Wayne featured “♫ Girls Around the World.” I knew he was onto something.
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Tuesday, June 17, 2008 |
Album Review: Sean Garrett - Turbo 919
Sean Garrett, who is often referred to as “The Pen” is releasing his debut album. Even though you may not be familiar with him as an artist, you definitely know his music, having written countless hits for Britney Spears, Beyonce, Chris Brown, Fantasia and Gwen Stefani. And with his debut album, Turbo 919 he plans to solidify why he can say “Ya hear a smash on the radio, bet I penned it…” at the beginning of every track he writes…
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I admit, I have been growing tired of producers and writers dropping albums. I don’t understand what they have to prove - they’ve already made it known that they can write the heck out of a song. And from being around a lot of writers and producers, I always have found that they have the gift of singing as well. In some cases, that’s the truth - whereas in others, well, it just isn’t. I didn’t mind The Dream’s album - it was a great effort. I really don’t mind Keri Hilson, because I was familiar with her as an artist before I really familiarized myself with her writing. But something about Sean Garrett got under my skin because he was always singing, rapping or shouting on someone else’s song that he’d written. I knew that an album was coming sooner or later. I always got the feeling that he wanted to be an artist.
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Monday, June 9, 2008 |
♫ Album Review: N.E.R.D. - Seeing Sounds ♫
N.E.R.D. releases their third studio album this week, the follow-up to 2004’s Fly Or Die, entitled Seeing Sounds. Shae Haley, Pharrell Williams, Chad Hugo and are definitely back for the revenge of the nerds…
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Since N*E*R*D came on the scene with their debut album, In Search Of… (back in ‘02) I’ve been a fan of theirs. Lyrically, melodically and musically, I was super impressed by them, even in high school. And in 2004, they dropped the classically retro, but still fresh Fly Or Die, I feared that N*E*R*D would suffer from never releasing another album, nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised with the release of Seeing Sounds. Continue Reading »
Tuesday, June 3, 2008 |
Album Review: Ashanti - The Declaration
This week, Ashanti releases her new album, The Declaration, after a 4 year hiatus. The follow-up album to her last effort, Concrete Rose has been a long time coming. After a couple of failed buzz singles (the Nelly-featured “Switch,” and the “Last Night”-esque “Hey Baby (After the Club)”) and a lot of push backs, Ashanti is finally ready to come back.
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Ashanti sprang back onto the scene with the official first single, “♫ The Way That I Love You,” which I thought was a great way to reintroduce herself to the public. It got a lot of great feedback across blogs, great radio play, and when the video dropped, it blazed countdowns. It seemed as though Ashanti finally found a single that was being embraced pretty positively. On The Declaration it seems as though Ashanti took a step out from the Inc. family and tapped a couple different producers to experiment with her sound a bit. And I won’t lie, even with the excessive amount of times Ashanti used to use the word “baby” in her songs, I’ve always had respect for her writing ability - especially after her debut album.
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Monday, May 26, 2008 |
♫ Album Review: Usher - Here I Stand ♫
After 4 years, Usher finally emerges from the success of Confessions, as well as a new marriage and his first born child, to release a brand new album, titled Here I Stand, which hits stores this Tuesday.
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I have to admit, there had been a few tracks to leak, but not to severely peek my interest. My initial thoughts were that Usher and his label were stalling because he was unable to come up with some material that could trump the hugely successful Confessions, which was covered in controversy (he and Chilli had a very public relationship, not to mention break-up) and littered with bunches of wonderful material. Then, a Rich Harrison-produced track, featuring one of Usher’s favorite collaborators, Ludacris surfaced and my confidence was restored, however I was let down when I found out the song would not be the first single, and later that it wouldn’t even appear on the album.
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