Posted on 04/22/2008 4:27 PM
Firstly, the context.  Tomas Young was in his early twenties when he enlisted in the U.S. Armed Forces, enraged by the attacks of September 11th, seeking justice, or revenge.  Five days after arriving in Iraq, on his way to Sadr City, his uncovered Vehicle was fired upon, a bullet paralyzing the young man.  Body of War is a collection of the songs that Tomas listened to as he, in his...

Posted on 04/22/2008 4:21 PM
Before marriage, divorce, child support, addiction, depression, diet plans, and high school reunions, music fans of the late 80's and early 90's could rely on new jack swing, a style of music that in the last year has been revisited, not only by those who remember it well but by those who only know of it as a sidebar in their or their parents musical history.  There was a time...

Posted on 04/22/2008 4:16 PM
To be fair, maybe if I was a sixteen-year-old girl, I would love Ray J's music. Maybe I would buy his ringtones, and beg my mother to buy me tickets to his concerts, where he would perform with Omarion and Bow Wow. But, I'm not. So to me, Ray J has produced an album as a weak attempt to capitalize on his newfound "fame." So though the project is...

Posted on 04/22/2008 4:12 PM
In the early/mid ‘90s, the Bay Area underground scene established itself as a breeding ground for lyrically minded MCs who shunned the cartoonish hyperbole of popular gangsta tales for relatable rhymes about everyday life. In 2008, the bay continues as a hotbed for alternative hip-hop, but the mass of every-man rappers now vying for attention on networking sites web-wide has led to a set of underground cliches every bit as...

Posted on 04/18/2008 4:04 PM
Jose James might come off as somewhat of an anomaly. At first glance of this young half Panamanian half Irish singer, with his fitted baseball cap, t-shirt, and jeans one might falsely label him as an R&B singer. On the radio one might hear his eerily refined baritone jazz voice and think mistake him for one of the greats of years past. But 28 year-old Jose James has managed to...

Posted on 04/18/2008 3:59 PM
Music documentaries are tricky things to get right.  The performances shown have to be of strong songs as opposed to popular fads of the time, while at the same time the peripheral images have to be striking as well.  It also operates as a time capsule, and so the documentary has to try to effortlessly show the disappeared or subsumed musical world as it once was.  Deep Roots Music 3...