Bilal and his band recently took the A Love Surreal experience out to Fresno, California for this performance at Fulton 55. Watch Bilal (and Ebony Joi) put on a live performance of LP stand out track, “Astray” (love this song). Video by Akira Productions. A Love Surreal is out now [iTunes Amazon]. And speaking of Bilal live, I hear he killed it at that SOBs gig (as he’s known to do) last night.

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YOOOOOOO NEW YORK!   Cody ChesnuTT and Bilal are doing separate shows at SOB‘s this month and OKP wants to send one lucky New Yorker to both shows! Bilal and denitia and sene will deliver an unforgettable show on June 9th. Cody ChesnuTT will grace the SOB’s stage on June 13th along with Okayplayer Records’ own Jennah Bell!  Both shows start at 9pm, with doors opening at 7:30.

Tickets are available now via TicketWeb.  Buy yours now:  Bilal | Cody ChesnuTT

Or….

Enter to win a pair of tickets to both shows below!

This contest has ended!

The post NYC: Win Tix To See Cody ChesnuTT & Bilal! appeared first on Okayplayer.

Bilal joined The Roots onstage yesterday at Late Night With Jimmy Fallon to perform the Steely Dan classic “Black Cow” at the top of the show. Bilal’s performances with The Roots remain a homecoming of sorts, as the Philly natives team relatively often in the interest of shutting down a live performance or two. In this particular instance, Bilal flexes his proficiency for scatting toward the end of the performance. His voice darts around the ceiling of his bright tenor falsetto with ease as The Roots maintain a baseline of cooled out funk that only serves to accentuate the jam. The performance is also highlighted by a dope keyboard solo. Check the footage below. Purchase Bilal’s latest LP A Love Surreal via iTunes.

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Talib Kweli hit the stage at Late Night With Jimmy Fallon with Bilal and The Roots to perform “Come Here” – something new and fresh for the lovers from his forthcoming LP Prisoner Of Conscious. Kweli and Bilal pick up where they left off with “Talk To You (Lil’ Darlin)” and knock another one out of the park with this doo-wop inspired dose of grown folks music. Kweli takes to the speedy bpm – where he often shines as a lyricist – like water. His delivery is only buoyed by Bilal’s spotless falsetto against the soulful groove and sick pocket of percussion laid down by The Roots. The Roots also dropped a crazy performance with Toronto MC k-os to warm the audience up during the Fallon pre-show festivities a few nights ago. He performed “Try Again” – a track from his forthcoming LP Black On Blonde featuring Black Thought. Check both performances below. Purchase Prisoner Of Conscious via iTunes.

Spotted at MWP

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Okay players, it appears to be that time of year again. Instead of inundating you with clichés about summer in the city and the good things warm weather brings, we’ll get right to the good stuff: free music and arts series Summerstage NYC has announced its 2013 lineup, and lucky for the dwelling in the rotten apple (or passing through this summer) it’s action-packed with lots of free music and films to enjoy those oh-so-amazing summer evenings with. The best part is, most events are at 7:00PM or earlier, meaning beginning in June, you now have the perfect outdoor pregame situation lined up for your after-work / pre-party shenanigans.

The Underachievers, Yasiin Bey, Shuggie Otis, Femi Kuti are but a few of the names you’ll find listed on the following pages of our Summerstage selections and that’s not even mentioning the epic DJ Premier vs Pete Rock DJ Battle closing out the summer–in fact there are so many Okayplayer-friendly acts this year we had to make this listing a Top 20. More information on park locations and a full list of all activities and performances can be found here. To find out where and when Okayplayer will be doin’ it in the park this summer, check out our list below.

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Watching Bilal‘s new short film, an accompaniment to A Love Surreal’s neo-funk jam ”West Side Girl,” I couldn’t help but think of the movies of Prince, who is clearly some kind of guiding spirit to Bilal. The song gets a full narrative treatment with a storyline filled with romance and misconduct. The mini-movie, directed by Lee Davis, sees the soul singer flexing his acting chops with a hilarious Pulp Fiction-esque opening dialogue ala “Royale with Cheese,” et al.  Check the epic clip below and be sure to pick up A Love Surreal  if you haven’t yet.

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Everybody loves a good Prince story. Even when he didn’t just shut down SXDSW with a reunited ATCQ and kill “Bambi” live on Jimmy Fallon, people love to tell Prince stories. Hell, people love Prince stories so much they they even love made-up ones (remember that time Prince went on OKCupid under the screen-name BabyImAStar?–him neither). But nothing is as satisfying as a real-life TACKAP sighting complete with all the major sacraments of musical genius, royal arrogance and, preferably, a mysterious disappearance in a puff of purple smoke.

As it happens,the Okayplayer TV crew recently found itself at the epicenter of real-life Prince stories: backstage at Michael Dorf Presents Music of Prince Tribute at Carnegie Hall and the “rehearsal performances” (see Bilal murder “Sister” here) which took place all day the previous day at City Winery with The Roots + Special guests. “Special guests” in this case included Bilal, D’Angelo, Chris Rock, Elvis Costello, Booker T. Jones, Alice Smith & Citizen Cope, Talib Kweli, Maya Rudolph & Gretchen Lieberum AKA Princess, as well as The Family (now playing as fDeluxe) and members of The Revolution. With personages like Nelson George and Touré on hand–not to mention Wendy Melvoin (of The Revolution and Wendy & Lisa) her sister Susannah (of The Family) as well as saxophonist Eric Leeds and his older brother Alan Leeds (Prince’s longtime tour manager)–the tribute was in fact something like a 48-hour family reunion and convention of amazing Prince stories, as well as testimonials from the younger musicians whose musical worldview has been irrevocably shaped by the purple legacy. We’ve saved some of the best war stories for closer scrutiny at a later date, but for now get a feel for the vibe backstage with this sizzle reel of reminiscences and insights from ?uesto, D’Angelo, Wendy and Susannah, Bilal, Booker T, Eric Leeds, Talib Kweli, Princess, Elvis Costello, Alice Smith, Citizen Cope and Nelson George–all speaking on the artist formerly known as “Steve” (true story! watch below).

Let’s talk about Prince:

The post Let’s Talk About Prince: D’Angelo, Questlove, Princess + More On ‘The Music Of Prince’ [OKP TV] appeared first on Okayplayer.

As promised the music of Prince was celebrated last night at Carnegie Hall by The Roots and special guests comprising an assemblage of such talent that, as drummer/bandleader/mastermind Ahmir ?uestlove Thompson pointed out: “maybe once in 5 or 6 years you get a collection of musicians of this caliber all in one place.” The assemblage included Talib Kweli, Bilal, The Water Boys, Chris Rock, fDeluxe (fka The Family), Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum (collectively known as Princess), Alice Smith & Citizen Cope,  Bhi Bhiman, Booker T. Jones, Elvis Costello, Bettye Lavette, Blind Boys of Alabama, Sandra Bernhard, Fred Armisen, Devoshka, D’Angelo and (whew) probably some people we forgot.

Not surprisingly the backstage was a veritable meatlocker of celebrity flesh as performers who’d came through one by one to rehearse during the day all shared the wings at once, roughly as many stars per square foot as commuters on a Tokyo subway car. The funny exchanges and cries of recognition were enough to make you realize that people at a certain level of talent and fame really do all live together on a planet (or island, as the case maybe) apart from the rest of us. Favorite moment: Chris Rock shuffling through the throng to the beat of “Little Red Corvette” only to stop short and exclaim in recognition: “Elvis. Motherfuckin. Costello.”

Onstage, Rock’s delivery of the monologue from “If I Was Your Girlfriend” was a moment on par with the infamous “Yeezy Taught Me” skit. Another high point was Bilal’s rendition of  ”Sister” – achieving the same rock-out intensity as his City Winery performance but amplified by the cathedral-like acoustics of Carnegie–prompting an almost frightened look on faces of the older white people sitting in the front row– as was Talib Kweli shouting out Sandy Hook, Trayvon Martin, 2pac, Biggie, MLK & Malcolm X during the gun control verse on ”Annie Christian.”

D’Angelo’s “It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night” was almost an ad-lib for ad-lib recreation of the version performed on Prince’s ‘Sign O’ The Times’ tour. We were almost hoping they’d go as far as D’Angelo getting behind the drum kit and ?uestlove going center stage to do Sheila E’s rap like in the “Sign O’ The TImes’ concert film–and while we’re on the subject of shouldas, in the Prince tribute of our dreams the beat from “When Doves Cry” will be played on an actual lunchroom table. Nevertheless, Bhi Bhiman‘s almost atonal voice-and-guitar version based on Prince’s original blues demo truly made the listener appreciate the purple one as a composer (as well as a rock star/showman/sex symbol). Besides Bilal, Princess‘ “Darling Nikki,”  and Bettye Lavette‘s “Kiss” got great crowd responses. The “1999″ finale was absolutely amazing with the entire line-up returning to the stage (never, NEVER thought we’d see D’Angelo dance with Sandra Bernhard) for a rousing group hug of a sing-along.

Much of the night’s reverence was focused on Wendy and Susannah Malvoin of The Revolution and The Family (performing as the revamped fDeluxe) with all the repressed emotion of recognizing largely unsung heroes–making the absence of the night’s nominal guest of honor a weird blessing since ironically he surely would have upstaged much of the musical greatness that unfolded. In perhaps the most fitting tribute to the genius and caprice of the purple sprite, Captain Kirk Douglas of The Roots played the soul out of the very same guitar Prince smashed on the set of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon last week–and then paid to repair.

The post ‘The Music Of Prince’ At Carnegie Hall w/ The Roots & More [Recap] appeared first on Okayplayer.

Bilal stopped by Sway In The Morning to chat with Sway and Heather B about soul and his fourth studio album A Love Surreal on February 26th – the date of it’s release. The visit was capped by an acoustic performance of “Never Be The Same” – one of a handful of tracks that make up the stellar body of work Bilal intended to convey sound with the three-dimensionality of visual art. What you get is a sonic package that plays like an in-depth, enveloping and extremely personal examination of love. The promo stop in support of the album came ahead of Bilal’s more recent performance of Prince’s “Sister” with The Roots and Wendy Melvoin during an open rehearsal at City Winery ahead of The Music Of Prince – a tribute to the singer at Carnegie Hall last night.

Spotted at HHNM

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As we mentioned earlier today, many of the participants in tonight’s “The Music Of Prince” tribute at Carnegie Hall held an open “rehearsal” in front of a packed crowd at City Winery in New York City last night, March 6th.  Our favorite performance of the night was Bilal‘s intense reading of Prince’s still-shocking “Sister” from 1980′s Dirty Mind.  With former Prince guitarist Wendy Melvoin sitting in with The Roots, Bilal transformed Prince’s original punk-influenced song into a genre-hopping and wonderfully disorienting lament on an incestuous tryst.

Side note: Does anyone have video of Bilal & The Roots covering Prince’s “International Lover” at BAM back in 1999?  If so, let us know in the comments!!!!

Producer + Editor: Allison Swank
Videographers: Chinisha Scott + Jay Sprogell

The post Bilal & The Roots “Sister” (Live At City Winery, March 6, 2013) appeared first on Okayplayer.