Posted on 05/27/2008

Some four years after a rough version of Jean Grae's Jeanius album produced by 9th Wonder leaked to the internet, an official version has been released today by Blacksmith Music on iTunes.  We caught up with Jean yesterday who is quoted as saying "someone please send me a copy of my album, I want to hear it."

Posted on 05/22/2008

The first time I really checked for Janelle Monáe was, like many other 'players, when Ms. Erykah Badu popped into The Lesson and made a post co-signing Monáe's talent.  It's not everyday that analoguegirl feels compelled to big-up another artist, so I wiped off my ear-buds and I gave her a listen.  I had heard her before, first on the Purple Ribbon All-Star's Compilation Got Purp? Volume 2 in 2005 with her song "Lettin' Go," and then again on Outkast's Idlewild.  After dropping the first "suite" of Metropolis (her proposed series of 4 album releases) The Chase, which was released in August of 2007 via her label, the Wondaland Arts Society, Monáe made a big leap and signed with Diddy's Bad Boy Records.  Needless to say the album is now in my regular rotation, filled with her quirky sensibility which somehow does not detract from her songs or her powerfully beautiful voice, but only adds to her charm.

 

Posted on 05/20/2008
A powerful vortex touched down in D.C. a mere 4 bocks from the White House Thursday night (May 15). Performing on the second night of a two-night stint, (both shows were sold out), Low Down Loretta Brown swung through Constitution Hall with thunder of epic proportions! Digital City was not ready for all of that analog. You feel me?

Posted on 05/16/2008
Biased as it is, I have a soft spot for Black art that hits the big time. Suddenly, poetry I wouldn’t have paid twelve bucks for at Nuyorican Poets Café becomes wildly entertaining as Def Poetry on Broadway. Even A Raisin in the Sun starring Diddy touched me (once I stopped vomiting) because it’s so rare to see any Black people on Broadway anymore, much less all Black casts. So needless to say, this theatre season I’m more than a little excited to see two all-Black shows on the Great White Way, namely, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Passing Strange, just nominated for seven Tony awards. The latter has me all a-twitter, though, because the only appealing thing about paying $100 for the former is seeing James Earl Jones before he punches it. Passing Strange, however, may be the dark horse in the shadow of the top-billed, widely adored classic Cat, as it touts no marquis names, just a multi-talented cast of misfits in a soulful rock musical.