In the aftershocks of the Black Radio release we felt we needed to put the spotlights on one of the greatest percussionist we've ever come across: Mr Chris Dave. We first heard about his magic touch when the secret Dilllude sessions started to leak from shows from around the world.
Robert Glasper & Chris Dave - Unreleased Dillaludes
On the production side Chris teamed up with New York DJ/MC Stimulus late 2011. The beats and production are of the hook and the featurings are top notch. Among others Bilal, Renee Neufville (Zhané), Stokley (Mind Condition), Casey Benjamin (Robert Glasper Experiment). Just check their dope rework of the Maxwell track Bad Habitz. Get it below.
If you want to know more check our interview with Chris and Robert Glasper from last summer: The Beathearts Robert Glasper Experiment sit-down. Featured below are some of our favourite live video sessions with the man. As a solo artist, with the Robert Glasper Experiment and most recent his amazing solo show during the interlude of Sh*t, Damn, Motherf***er taken from the recent D'Angelo European tour.Chris Dave - we salute you!
Chris Dave - Medley pt.1
Chris Dave ft Phonte @ Le Poisson Rouge, New York
Chris Dave - Fall in love @ New Morning, Paris
D'Angelo & Chris Dave - Sh*t, Damn, Motherf***er interlude @ Xtra Club, Zürich
The hype has peaked and finally here it is! Released today, February 28th, Robert Glasper Experiment new album is entitled Black Radio. Here's a track by track rundown of the new album taken from a preview session a couple of months ago in New York. The event took place at the legendary Electric Lady studio where another of 2012's most anticipated releases was recorded - the new album from D'Angelo. Coincidence? We think not. Album of the year? So far yes!
Robert Glasper speaks on the making of Black Radio
ROBERT GLASPER - BLACK RADIO TRACK-BY-TRACK RUNDOWN:
1. Lift Off (featuring Shafiq Husayn)
“A lot of people just came to hang out. Shafiq was one of those people. He wrote some
shit, went to the both and put it down. This is kind of like an intro to the album.”
2. Afro Blue (featuring Erykah Badu)
“Erykah loves flutes, so I arranged this song with flutes in it. This song was recorded
during the time she was on the Rock The Bells tour. Luckily she was able to come in and
do the song.”
Robert Glasper Experiment ft Erykah Badu - Afro blue
3. Cherish The Day (featuring Lalah Hathaway)
“I had never heard Lalah perform live. She had a gig the day before I was scheduled to
go in and produce an album on Gretchen Parlato, so I went to see her. I was floored. I
went backstage and asked her to sit in at one of my Blue Note jam sessions. Afterwards, I
asked her if she would sing on my album. This take was actually the first take. We didn’t
actually know the tape was rolling. It was done in one take when we were just rehearsing.”
Robert Glasper Experiment featuring Lalah Hathaway - Cherish The Day
4. Always Shine (featuring Lupe Fiasco & Bilal)
“Lupe randomly called me one day. After he heard my music on some in flight
programming, he found out that I played with Q-Tip and asked him for my number. From
then, we had been texting back and forth for about a year. He was one of the artists that
sat in at my Blue Note jam session. It was Wednesday. I was in Los Angeles at King’s
house writing a song. I told him to come through and he did. I gave him a CD of the song
so he could write his verses to it. When he came to the studio to record it, it was a whole
other song. He had to rewrite his verses, but it only took him like 30 minutes. Bilal was
there too, so I asked him to sing the hook. At the end, there’s an interlude with us at the
kitchen table playing forks and knives with Derrick on bass. Then my son Riley comes in
singing a little of the next song.”
Robert Glasper Experiment ft Lupe & Bilal - Always shine
5. Gonna Be Alright (F.T.B.) (featuring Ledisi)
“I’ve known Ledisi for years. I used to be in her band. I asked her to be on the record
and she agreed. I had sent her a song, but she wasn’t really feeling it. I was on tour and
couldn’t write anything. I couldn’t get my creative juices flowing. So she eventually
came to the studio at like 2 am and we didn’t know what we were going to do. There was
a song on my album In My Element called “F.T.B.” She liked it and asked me to keep
playing it. After a few plays, she finished the lyrics.”
6. Move Love (featuring KING)
“I’ve known Paris [Strother] for years, but didn’t know she was in a group. Then all of a
sudden, I hear all this buzz about a group called KING and find out she’s in it. I was on
tour in Europe and flew back to the States just to record this album. Then I had to go back
to Amsterdam to finish the tour. I went to KING’s house and I had all these dirty clothes
from being on tour. KING had a washer. So I left them in the room with the music and
went to do my laundry.”
“This one was co-produced by my good friend Brian Michael Cox. Musiq was in Atlanta,
so that’s where the vocals were recorded. After I sent him the track, a friend convinced
me to come down to check out a music festival that was going on. Chrisette Michele was
there. She told me that she was stranded in ATL because her flight to New York had been
cancelled. So I asked her if she wanted to come by the studio and sing on the song. That’s
how the song became a duet.”
8. The Consequences Of Jealousy (featuring Meshell Ndegeocello)
“This was actually the third song I sent Meshel. I sent her two songs before and luckily
she said yes to this one. You’ll hear some weird, random sounds in there. That’s Jahi
Sundance on the turntables.”
9. Why Do We Try (featuring Stokley Williams)
“This is a song Stokely recorded with his band [Mint Condition]. We just changed the vibe
up a little bit. Added a Fela [Kuti] vibe to it. Stokely’s also playing percussion on it.”
Robert Glasper Experiment ft Stokley Williams - Why do we try
10. Black Radio (featuring Yasiin Bey a.k.a. Mos Def)
“We’ve been doing this song for about two years. Mos’ concept was centered on the fact
that the black box is the only thing that survives a plane crash. He was like, “Why don’t
they just make the whole plane out of that?” Good music always survives, even amongst
all the bullshit. With everybody trying to sound like one another, we’ll always go back to
people like Donny Hathaway. That’s why we call it ‘Black Radio.’”
Robert Glasper Experiment ft Mos Def - Black Radio
11. Letter To Hermione (featuring Bilal)
“This is a David Bowie song. I’ve always loved this tune. Then one day, it came up on my
iTunes at random. But I couldn’t think of who could get on this. Then I thought of Bilal.
He’s a brilliant singer. He can interpret anything. This song was done in one take.”
Robert Glasper Experiment ft Bilal - Letter to Hermione
12. Smells Like Teen Spirit (featuring Lalah Hathaway)
“A song I’ve loved since high school. We did a new arrangement, the dopest ever. Lalah
was hanging in the studio when we were doing it, so I asked her to jump on it.”
Here's a live version of this last Lalah Hathaway track recorded at a session at the University of North Florida last year.
Robert Glasper Experiment - Smells like teen spirit (Live @ UNF)
13. Fever+/A Love supreme* (+CD bonus track/*mp3 bonus track)
As if that wasn't enough Robert and the crew added a few bonus tracks that differs between what format you purchase (CD, mp3 - the 180 g vinyl release came with two album cover slipmats). A Love Supreme is their vocoder funk cover of John Coltrane's classic track. The Fever track features the Franco-Maroccan singer Hindi Zahra. Check out the bonus tracks below:
Robert Glasper Experiment - Fever Ft. Hindi Zahra (CD bonus track)
Robert Glasper Experiment - A Love Supreme (MP3 bonus track)
Honoring Malcom X 42nd death day here's Yasiin Bey's (Mos Def) version of Niggas in Paris from Jay-Z and Kanye West's Watch the throne. Yasiin has been on fire lately among other appearances he featured on Robert Glasper Experiment's upcoming album on the titel track Black radio.
This tune, Niggas in poorest brings back the elements that we love with hiphop. Dirty, funky and with some next shit beats just the way we like it. This gives us high hopes for the upcoming Yasiin Bey and Black Star albums. And if that wasn't enough, the video is great as well. Get the track below.
Arranged by Roy Ayers, the 1977 masterpiece Daylight from American soul/jazz crew RAMP (Roy Ayers Music Project) from Cincinatti will always bring a smile to my face. Taken off their only album Come into knowledge the first time I heard Daylight was as sampled by A Tribe Called Quest on one of the greatest hiphop love songs of all time Bonita Appelbum. Following Tribe, the moody vibes from the Daylight track has been used on several tunes including the remix of Common's Come close ft Pharell, Q-tip and Erykah Badu.
Another secret lil' re-edit from Onra. This time it's an updated version of his Perfect Match track off Lefto & Simbad's Worldwide Family Vol.1 released last year on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood Recordings.
We've waited a while to post this since we often like to ID the samples/originals behind the tunes we post. But so far it's been a dead-end and we wanted to share this while it's still available as a free download.
Best guess so far is that it's an old track from bassist Larry Graham from Sly & the family stone. If you have any idea we'd love to hear from you!
Fresh off the newsstand is the 10 year anniversary 50th issue of Wax Poetic. As always packed with knowledge, inspiration and history lessons. This time it's an excellent double top feature of Prince and Frank Ocean. Who else would pull that off?
To top it off and to keep your head nodding all the way to the newsstand here's an exclusive Dâm-Funk mixtape put together to honor and celebrate one of the greatest music publications still available on paper. Wax Poetic staff we salute you!
Track List:
1. Prince & the Revolution – 17 Days (original version)
2. DāM-FunK – 17 Days (D-F Re-Freak)
3. Prince – Irresistible Bitch (Props Re-Edit)
4. Prince (featuring Andre Cymone & Pepe Willie) – One Man Jam
5. Prince – Wet Dream Cousin
6. Prince – Dirty Mind (1981 Live Version)
7. Prince – Soft & Wet (original version)
8. Prince – Ballad Of Dorothy Parker (D-F Extended Re-Edit)
9. Prince – Sticky Like Glue (Props Re-Edit)
10. Prince & the Revolution – All My Dreams
In memory of J Dilla comes a project for the second year from Do The Right Print, Food for ya Soul
& Feelin’ Music, bringing different beatmakers from around the world
who worked for free to create a record containing Dilla's classics remixed, in order to give to the audience a new
vision of his creations. Free download over at bandcamp where the 2011 tribute compilation is available as well.
Our favorite tracks comes from Ta-Ku, Quiet Dawn, Moka Only, Oogo, BoomBaptist and Mr. Dibiase.
Friday night and it has become somewhat of a tradition to pull out tunes from the past to get the weekend started.
As a spin-off to our post on K-Def's brilliant album Night Shift here's the original to one of the tunes off the album: Smilin' Billy Suite 1-4. Brilliantly spotted, sampled and rearranged by Q-Tip on Nas One love.
Taken from Jimmy, Percy and Albert Heath's 1976 Strata album Marchin' on recorded in Oslo, Norway (!). The original vinyl has been deleted for ages and is in high demand by crate diggers around the globe. There was a very limited japanese vinyl/CD reissue in 2003 but since that batch is also deleted this amazing piece of music deserves more recognition. Check it below.
Remember Real Live's Real Live Sh*t? Or Funky Child and Chief Rocka from Lords Of The Underground? It's been a while but here's new material from Marley Marl's right-hand man K-Def a.k.a. Kevin Hansford.
13 tracks deep this album is (almost) an instrumental album in the vein of Dilla's Welcome to Detroit and Pete Rock's Petestrumentals. It was released right around christmas last year on Redefinition Records. If BBE would've picked it up before it would definitely have a rightful place next to the before mentioned masterpieces in the Beat Generation series.
The whole album is a keeper but here are two of our favourite tracks. First off is Supa Heath which is a reinterpretation of Heath Brother's Smiling Billy Suite pt.2 as used by Nas on One Love. Our second pick is one of the few vocal tracks entitled Night owls. It's such a classic piece of hiphop. The perfect soundtrack for a 2 A.M. drive through an empty city centre.
K-Def - Supa Heath (LP Version)
K-Def featuring Raw Poetic - Night Owls
As a bonus, here's some of K-Def's classic tracks smoothly blended on his The most underrated mixtape.
The french duo Union just released their LP 'Analogtronics' Jan.27 on Fatbeats. We mentioned them briefly in our 2011 top selection earlier, and we have been waiting for this to drop since we heard the smashing track 'Wings' featuring Elzhi earlier this fall. Fatbeats is releasing this on a cool double neon vinyl as well as CD. If you have a spotify account you can play it there.
Union consists of the two parisian producers OJ & GOLD. The album features a dream team of MC's such as Talib Kweli, Elzhi, MF DOOM, Sly Johnson, Roc Marciano, Rapper Big Pooh, Guilty Simpson, Moka Only and more.
There's been three tracks issued so far, Digital Delight, Wings and Time Leak, first two are free downloads over at bandcamp, click the info buttons to get over there. The Time Leak single (get the triangle vinyl over at Fatbeats) also features two blasting remixes from Damu the Fudgemunk and fLako. The track got a dope music video as well.
Union - Digital Delight feat. Guilty Simpson
Union - Wings feat. Elzhi
Union - Time Leak feat. Talib Kweli and Sly Johnson
In the vein of the Scar track from Wiley and Mark Pritchard (featured here) here's a track from London based post-dubstep producer Actress. From last years working on Damon Albarn's new album recorded in the Democratic Republic of Congo to this very experimental warm up for the upcoming album. Can't pinpoint why but this crazy lil' loop has been on repeat all week in my headphones. #nextsh*t
Actress - Rainy Dub
The Rainy Dub EP is out now on Honest Jon's via Boomkat.
In a week 6 years has passed since J Dilla aka. Jay Dee left us, seems like yesterday we woke up to the sad and tragic news of his passing. We feel we lost the most gifted musician of all time. February is Dilla Month to commemorate J Dilla, and all over the globe people makes new mixes, DJ's having Dilla nights to celebrate his memory.
Waajeed of Platinum Pied Pipers and also around/part time member of Slum Village when all went down, relaunches his site bling47.com which has been down for a couple of years now. He unveils three Dilla treasures listed below, and some beautiful short storys to go with them, fantastic stuff!
“I got this one on a cassette from T3 circa 1997. I’m not sure what it
was for, or why Dilla had this on tape, but I thought it was hilarious.
“Shut the F*ck Up and listen to this… this.” This kind of style was
typical for our crew at this time – we were just finishing up the
Fantastic Vol 1 album. It was never about what they said – but instead
how they said it. We called it “R.A.W.” – Rugged And wild. And that
is exactly what this one is – tape hiss and all. -Enjoy, Jeedo”
"There are plenty of music collectors that claim to have “All Things
Dilla.” Maybe that’s true, if there is such a thing. With that said, I
can honestly say that I’m fortunate enough to be amongst this breed. And it’s not because I am the most internet savvy or because I belong
to some special group of music nerds that have the rarest shit. In
fact, I only have possession of this rareness because I happened to be
there when it all happened! And for whatever reason, call it divine
intuition, I kept every cassette tape I was able to get my hands on. I
tried to collect every beattape, remix or freestyle possible. Even
when we were just hanging out in Dilla’s basement in Conant Gardens, I’d
often bring my hand held recorder and just tape us talking shit about
any & everything.
Dilla was never the type to hoard music. Very often he’d make
mixtapes for us to listen to while we drove around in his sparkling
green Beamer. Those leather terracotta seats were the place to hear
tracks that would never see the light of day to anyone outside of our
small circle! I remember it was a fall afternoon in 1996 and he and I
were driving to a record store when he first played me the Ray J “Let It
Go Remix” Version 1. I loved it then just as much as I do now.
Excuse how quiet the recording is, I beat this tape up playing it over
and over. The track was never released and only a very, very small hand
full of people on this planet have even heard it. And now you will be
among them… -Enjoy, Jeedo"
"On that fall afternoon in 1996, my jaw hit the floor as Dilla played
the “Let It Go” Remix Version 1. I looked at him as he turned the
volume down half way and said in his soft stutter, “It’s — It’s cool,
but I like this one better.” He turned the volume up to ten and my ears
stood up anxiously waiting. I wondered how could he out do the first
remix!?! The vocal played and all the elements slowly creeped in…
WOW!!! He only played it through to a little more than half of the
track when he turned it down. Laughing and covering his mouth, he said “That’s the one.” I told him to turn it back up. Version 2 was never
released either. Its directly from the cassette I demanded to have
when I got out of the car that afternoon. I’m still not sure which one I
like better. Hit me on twitter at @jeedo47 to let me know which one
you like better. -Enjoy, Jeedo"
Following our throwback of Innocence Let's push it a couple of weeks ago I've been going through my crates of UK soul from the early nineties. For the last decade there's been so much new music to listen to every week it's been a quite a while since I went back but man they put out some tunes!
One classic group from that time was Loose Ends. The group was originally made up by Carl McIntosh, Jane Eugene and Steve Nichol. They released five studio albums and as far as I know ended their recording career with the epic remix album Tighten up Vol.1.
One of my favourite tracks was and still is Don't be a fool (1990). It was around this time my own crate digging started getting serious so I might not be objective, but to me this song is timeless. It combined the Soul II Soul inspired harmonies but with a dirtier bassline/breakbeat that blew us away when it dropped.
While on the topic of KRS-One's 1994 productions we've got to mention Mad Lion Take it easy. It's one of my favourite joints from that year and I'm not sure everyone's aware that Kris Parker was behind this track. Furiously cut up by Funkmaster Flex on Hot*97, Take it easy was (and still is) such a great summer jam.
I don't think we've credited KRS-One skills as a producer here on Beathearts before. 1994 was a great year for hiphop and an amazing year for KRS-One. One of the perhaps lesser know releases he put out that year was the combined comic, animated video and cassette release of Big Joe Krash Break the chain.
Typical '94 hard dirty boom-bap beat to make your head nod but what made it different was the packaging. The slow-pitched voice of the Big Joe Krash character combined with the video story telling that at least I had never seen before. Maybe I'm a sucker for concept records but I just love when artists put in that little extra thought into the story and/or the packaging around a tune. Kris Parker we salute you!
Re:Generation is a documentary film project backed by Hyundai that followed DJ Premier, Pretty Lights, The Crystal Method, Mark Ronson, and Skrillex as they remixed, recreated and re-imagined five traditional styles of music.
Producer Mark Ronson got Jazz as his assignment and took on A La Modeliste together with Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Zigaboo Modeliste and Members of The Dap Kings. The outcome was this great video clip and an amazing tune.
The whole project will be put out as a feature film on February 16th but the soundtrack with all the tunes is available for free below.
What can we say. We promised you to stay off the D topic for a while but there's been so much buzz around the man that we just had to surrender. Here's a great tribute to the D'Angelo live experience from Sam Champ brought to you as a free download courtesy of Okayplayer.
"We asked super-thorough DJ/producer and Soulquarian obsessive Sam Champ (you may remember the tough remix of “Left & Right” from his remix LP) to cut together this official OKP D’Angelo Live mix for us. Most of these amazing live renditions of classic D’Angelo material have surfaced online in one form or the other before but Sam Champ has skillfully compiled them into one seamless blend to create the ultimate OKP fantasy concert for those of us not blessed enough to have been born Scandinavian. So without further ado, please find below one hour and twelve minutes (and some seconds) of streamable D’Angelo, recorded live on various stages across the world"
Download: Sam Champ - D'Angelo live mixtape
