LATE SEPTEMBER HEADPHONE MUSIC

Haven’t done one of these in awhile (and looking at my blog stats it seems that the Headphone Music posts were some of the most viewed, I guess because the artists and / or songs featured in the content came up in more Google searches than your typical obscure THAT REAL SCHITT post). Anyway, let’s get to it as I let y’all know what I’ve been rockin’ on my iPhone and iPad recently (the stuff I don’t mind mentioning, anyway… yeah, I’m still on my Secret Squirrel / Morocco Mole for real)-

Soundsci – Soundsational lp – fantastic concept featuring only samples from obscure soul man Mike James Kirkland‘s “Don’t Sell Your Soul” anthology (music from back when he was doin’ it as the frontman for Mike And The Censations) and certified real-schitt bars courtesy of super rappers Soundsci. Really good rhyming and production on pretty much every single song- no fast forwarding necessary.
FIrst Words – All Day Breakfast lp – another great project from the producer who must never sleep Jorun Bombay. Feel-good rap schitt, like eating bacon for every meal. Another one where every song is nice but my joints would be “Bamtronix” and especially “Norma Loves Her Gin”.
Seeds Of Fulfillment – self titled lp – One of those little obscure albums in my collection that’s damn good but doesn’t get mentioned by many people. 70’s jazz with a smooth sound (as opposed to “smooth jazz” – there’s a difference), I just put it in digital form before I sold it and gave it a good listen probably for the first time in all the fifteen years or so that I had it. Might not be everybody’s thing, but this is the kind of stuff I play while I’m cleaning the house on a Saturday.
Total Experience – Contradiction
Superior Elevation – Don’t Let Go Babe
Diddy’s featuring Paige Douglas -My Special Love
Rabbits & Carrots – Soul Latino lp
Peter Wolf – A Change In My Life lp
Ghettosocks – Everyday Apocalypse featuring Timbuktu – Two of my favorite emcees ripping an insane track by The Process (Jonny Cuba and Ollie Teeba 2/5’s of the aforementioned Soundsci) totally to shreds. And thanks for the instro Ollie!
Kanye West – Yeezus lp – Yeah, I’m sayin’ it. I know a lot of people, be they mainstream or underground rap fans, are NOT feelin’ Ye’s latest experiment. For various reasons. I’m gonna tell you, I really believe history is gonna look at this album differently than people are seeing it / hearing it right now. Maybe I just like it when people make music that screams “I don’t give a F*** what y’all think about it!”, which Kanye clearly did NOT when he put out an album like “Yeezus”. And I respect when people have the courage to take music to new uncharted territories, and I ABSOLUTELY feel that Ye, with the very important help of the legendary Rick Rubin, did that here. Is the result something that you really want to listen to? I don’t know, maybe not. But I like where this record is coming from- time will only tell where it ends up going as far as history is concerned.
DJ Format & Phill Most Chill – The Foremost lp – oops, probably not supposed to mention this yet. Yikes! Oh well, y’all better get ready for it because it’s gonna be caving your whole world in very soon. VERY soon. Get ready. And in case you didn’t know already- DJ Format is a BEAST.
Kendrick Lamar’s verse that everybody was talking about on whatever that song was – Actually, no, this wasn’t in my headphones in mid- September or any other time. Just thought I’d mention it since everybody else had something to say about it- I didn’t want to be left out of the party. No dis to Kendrick, he’s a very talented dude (no old man hate here).    

LOVE, OH LOVE

Soulman interview alert: I did a Q-n-A with the fine folks over at the Themes For Young Lovers blog a few weeks ago, so head over there when you’re done over here and check out what I had to say about my favorite music to get busy to (and then check out all the other interviews as well… very nice site indeed). Love is grand.

LATE JULY HEADPHONE MUSIC

As I said in the previous post, haven’t been checking for much rap lately- mostly a lot of soul and R&B, both old and (gasp!) new. Anyway, this is what it is right here-
TWEET – Southern Hummingbird and It’s Me Again lps – highly underrated R&B from the mid 2000’s… Tweet is real dope IMO.
BEASTIE BOYS featuring NAS – Too Many Rappers – always like to hear the Beasties rock with other emcees that you might not expect them to collab with (see Q-Tip on “Get It Together”). Also must send a get well soon out to Adam Yauch.
MAZE FEATURING FRANKIE BEVERLY – One of those legendary groups that I heard all the time as a youth and kinda got away from as I delved into the deeper, more obscure musics of the world… sometimes you have to go back to those legends and rediscover their greatness. Songs I been rockin’ hard: “I Love You Too Much” (always one of my favorite Maze joints, for some reason I thought about this song when NFL QB Steve McNair got tragically murked by his young mistress a couple weeks ago… R.I.P.), “Ain’t It Strange”, “Woman Is A Wonder” and “While I’m Alone” (although the Raw Soul version on the Gregar 7″ outdoes the Maze version IMO).
BUDOS BAND EP – that little 30 second jawn on there is the BOMB.
MAYER HAWTHORNE – Green Eyed Love (Live) – still gotta hear the whole “A Strange Arrangement” album in it’s entirety (sounded good from what I heard), but it appears to me that this live version of “Green Eyed Love” is killing the studio version.

GEORGIA ANN MULDROW – Roses – boy, do I love me some Georgia Ann Muldrow. Sista is a star in the making IMO. A lot of people prefer her solo version of “Roses” to the one with Mos Def… I dunno, I kinda like Mos’ input on the song (maybe because I heard his version first). But with or without Dante, Georgia is the star of the story. I’m still trying to figure out what kind of pencil she says she’s drawing her roses with… if anybody knows please enlighten.
MAXWELL – BLACKsummer’s night lp – I don’t check for a lot of new music, but I’m definitely a Maxwell fan. I like almost everything on the album, especially “Bad Habits” and “Help Somebody”.
PHIL PERRY – In The Rain (Live) – okay, I just mentioned three current singers with new albums that are out or coming out. Now, let’s listen to one of the best soul sangers of our lifetimes that a lot of people probably have never even heard of (I got this clip via my step cousin Xanax Jenkins’ favorite web portal SOULSTRUT.COM). Man, whatever happened to the screamers? Just one of the many things missing in today’s music…

LONG DAY (a CD-R given to me by Dave Tompkins) – I really wish I could name some of the songs that Dave put on this homemade CD for me, but I am sworn to secrecy. I’ll just say that he hooked me up with some of the nicest soul, boogie etc. music that I have heard in a minute. Some bonafied rarities too, schitt you won’t find on Popsike (trust me on this). Thanks, Dave!

Plus, once again I have a trailerload of jawns that I will probably put on upcoming mixes, so I can’t divulge right now. Stay tuned for the mixes, though. Might do it SOULMAN RADIO stylee, we’ll see. PEACE.

THAT ODD SCHITT

If you’re bored at work sitting at your computer with nothing to do, tired of playing solitaire and mah jongg, the first thing you need to do is thank the Lord that your azz hasn’t yet been laid off. After that you may want to check out a spot that’s one of my favorite time wasters, the Oddee.com site. Those who know me know that I have a thing for lists- well, this site has a schittload of the most interesting yet bizarre lists that you will ever see. Keeping it music related, I posted a few selections from Oddee’s 15 Creepiest Album Covers (some of which were too creepy even for THAT REAL SCHITT). A few other favorites- 15 Extraordinary Sand Sculptures (that first one is amazingly the least impressive and yet also the most impressive at the same time), 20 Awesome 3-D Pavement Illusions and World’s Most Flexible Women. Those are barely the tip of the iceberg, though… check ’em out when you have absolutely nothing better to do.

MID-JUNE HEADPHONE MUSIC

Mos Def – The Ecstatic – IMO this is the best Mos album since Black On Both Sides, maybe even better. Not perfect, but damn good. I hear a lot of folks saying they ain’t feelin’ Dante’s singing, but I like it a lot when he does it like he does it on this album (as in just to accent the rhyming, not trying to be a real full-time this-is-my-day-job singer). Highlights: “Pistola” (love the nod to the Intruders), “Worker’s Comp”, “Supermagic”, “Roses” (featuring Georgia Anne Muldrow), “Casa Bey”, “History” (with Mos’ Blackstar compadre Talib Kweli) and “Auditorium”, which features a GREAT guest appearance by The Patch, better known as Slick Rick – check it out below.

Drew Nice – People Music II Enchanted Soul – this may be one of my all time favorite mixes, and I’ve heard a lot of good ones.
Dr. York – New lp
Laura Izibor – From My Heart To Yours (Primo Remix)
Jay-Z – D.O.A. The Death Of Autotune
Tomorrow’s People – Open Soul lp
The Sequins – various
Little Milton – Driftin’ Drifter – I need to get into some more of Little Milton’s catalog, he’s one of those dudes I always knew about but never really checked for.
James Brown – Goodbye My Love / JB’s – King Heroin (instrumental) – gotta love those Godfather slow jams
Pirimas 3 – I Don’t Know
Jimmy Bo Horne – Get Happy
The Bionic Woman – The Return Of Bigfoot Pt. 2 (soundtrack from the tv show)
Jimmy Spicer – This Is It – one of my favorite purple label era Def Jam joints
Snap aka Red Clay – Snappage Vol. 1 mixtape – for anybody who thinks I don’t like any southern rap just because it’s from down south… wrong. Snap is one of the nastiest emcees alive IMO… I don’t know how many people are familiar with him, but if you’re not you need to get familiar. This schitt is extremely dope to me.
A lot of stuff off of my guy Matthew Africa‘s blog – stayed up til the sun came up one morning just listening to and downloading schitt… great music
A lot of 60’s-style soul that I can’t mention yet because they’ll be on my new mix (coming soon!).

MID-MARCH HEADPHONE MUSIC

Gangstarr – The Ownerz lp – I remember being fairly disappointed with this record when it first dropped, but it seems to have aged pretty nicely IMO. If you’re like me and weren’t really feelin’ this back when it came out, I’d recommend revisiting it. Some of this schitt is straight bangin’, like WTF was I thinkin’ back in 2003 or whenever.
Sparkle Motion – Flight School Vol. 1 – 80’s R&B breaks mix by DJ Yoda and my man Tobes from Spinemagazine… real innovative idea and lots of hot Jheri curl juice beats! Download that schitt, it’s dope.
Slick Rick & Dougie Fresh at Lincoln Projects, 1984 – this was one of my favorite tapes back in the days… “Vanessa Williams” ftw! Now if I could just get a copy of the Davy Crockett schitt my life would be complete.
Treacherous Three – 1978 (live tape)- Troy L. Smith (the old school tape G.O.A.T.) does it again! Kool Moe Dee & LA Sunshine sound like kids on this (I guess because they pretty much were kids). You can d/l that and other old school live joints that Troy was nice enough to bestow on the populace over at the Old School Hip Hop forum – most definitely the place to be (you have to be registered to get to the trading section, which is where the magic happens).
Menahan Street Band – Home Again
KRS-One – Adventures In Emceeing lp – Kris has recorded a lot of stuff in the 2000’s that most people probably don’t even know about, but I like a lot of the latter day KRS material. He still can rap circles around damn near everybody, and whether you agree with what he’s saying or not you gotta respect a man who tries to put out thought provoking music (but, of course, this is teh ringtone rap age where thought provoking music seems to be the LAST thing that people want… oops, let me stop before somebody calls me old lololol lulllz lmfao smh).
Mobb Deep – The Infamous – I been deep on some ’95 era NYC grimey rap schitt lately
Ghostface Killah – Iron Man – I have yet to tire of Starks in his prime.
V.A. – Walk On By and Look Of Love comps by Raymun – I downloaded this schitt off of Soulseek, two homemade comps with a lot of versions of these two songs that I guess were put together by this dude Raymun. Well, I got STARTED downloading them- about four songs into the Look Of Love folder this muthaf***a decided to ban me! For no good reason! So I’m puttin’ you on blast just to strike a blow for all Soulseekers who have been banned from downloading without cause- that’s that wack schitt, homie.

FEBRUARY HEADPHONE MUSIC

Yeah, I know… I’m slackin’ with the content. Sheeeeiit… like y’all payin’ for this real schitt. Until I find the time to post something else of interest, here’s what I’ve been listening to–

Oh No – Heavy / Bouncers
The Juice Crew EP (DWG) – UNBELIEVABLY great stuff here. The Kool G Rap cuts are better than a lot of the stuff that he actually released back when these were recorded.
Soma Candelaria – I Lost My Way (produced by Willie Evans) – SONG OF THE YEAR. That’s how I feel about it, and not just because these are my dudes. For all the people who are waiting for Nas to drop another “Illmatic”, it’s never gonna happen so stop waiting and get with that new SOMA CANDELARIA album when it comes out later this year, in whatever format(s) it comes out in.
Sixto Rodriguez – Sugar Man / Crucify Your Mind – It’s killin’ me that I can’t think of who sampled that “Crucify…” schitt… I know somebody did.
Steve Howe – Will O The Wisp
Starsky & Hutch OST
Taana Gardner – When You Touch Me
Gwen McCrae – All This Love That I’m Givin’
Stairsteps – Throwin’ Stones Atcha / Pasado / In The Beginning – been diggin’ this “2nd Resurrection” album for a minute now.
Edwin Starr & Blinky – We’ll Find a Way
The Valentinos – The Death Of Love
Bessie Banks – Try To Leave Me If You Can (I Bet You Can’t Do It)
First Love – The Love I Had
Greyboy – Love (featuring Nino Moschella)
Pauline Croze – self titled lp & Un Bruit Qui Court lp – This was a nice “Shazam” moment for me… heard some music playing as I passed an outdoor bistro on South Street, whipped out my iPhone, utilized the Shazam app and just like that I discovered French chanteuse Pauline Croze. Real nice stuff for me, although I’m sure a lot of y’all rugged azz internetters would consider this “Starbucks music”… well, if that’s so then I guess I like Starbucks music as well as THAT REAL SCHITT.
Mayer Hawthorne – Maybe So, Maybe No / The New Holidays – Maybe So, Maybe No – I like BOTH versions, original and Haircut’s remake. I am still a real Soulman, though… y’all can’t fade me.
Blowfly – his first 5 or 6 albums – All the old ones, like “On Tour” and “Butterfly” and “On TV”, all that schitt… rocked those on the iPod while prepping and painting one of the bathrooms in my house last weekend. I hate engaging in menial labor, but Blowfly helped.

MID-JANUARY HEADPHONE MUSIC

King Pleasure- I’m In The Mood For Love
Milt Jackson – Enchanted Lady
Miracles – I Don’t Need No Reason
William Bell – I Forgot To Be Your Lover
Wish – Touch Me (All Night Long)
Princess – Say I’m Your #1
Aquarius – self titled lp
Rob X (aka Scratchmaster Rob) beat tape
Freddie Hubbard – all albums (R.I.P.)
Jay-Z and Ghostface Killah – American Ironman mixtape
Barbara Acklin – Please Sunrise Please / Come And See Me Baby / I Can’t Do My Thing
Timothy Wilson – My Queen Of Hearts
Sam Dees – Child Of The Streets
First Love – It’s A Mystery To Me
Troy L. Smith tape #126 – L Brothers 1978 b/w Grandmaster Caz & JDL aka the Notorious 2 1979
Jake One – White Van Music
DWG – Lungbutters cd mixed by DJ Format (damn, how’d I almost forget THAT one?)