BEST MUSIC OF 2002
[31 December 2002]
by Mark Anthony Neal
Gettin' Grown, A New-Black Mix-Tape and the Loveland Sessions: 2002 Year-End Review
Cee-Lo: Sermon from the Church of NewBlackness
Imagine a hybrid of Rev. Al Green, Bobby Womack, Rev. CL Franklin, Buddha, Sugar Foot (of the Ohio Players) chillin' some place in the ATL which his shirt off and smokin' a blunt, and singing Funkadelic riffs and you get the
Cee-Lo Green aesthetic. Where Dungeon Family members like Goodie, Outkast (especially Dre) and others have consistently pushed the boundaries of
blackness, no one has been more comfortable and soulful at it as Cee-Lo.
Cee-Lo was always the reminder that even in the world of alternative-hip-hop
(whatever the hell that means) that it is always about the "chu'ch" and don'
t nobody do "chu'ch" in hip-hop better than Cee-Lo. Cee-Lo Green and His
Perfect Imperfections (Arista), the long-awaited solo disc by Cee-Lo, is
straight-up "Church Music" for the folks they don't often let up in the
church. The breakdown on "Closet Freak" is pure brilliance, while joints
like "El Dorado", "One for the Road", "Under the Influence (Follow Me)", and
the anthem-like "Getting Grown" were slept-on genius in their right.
Remixing the Stacks: Verve//Remixed
First you get Verve to unlock the vaults, start diggin' in the crates of
time-tested classics from the likes of Billie Holliday, Carmen McRae, Dinah
Washington, Ella Fitzgerald and of course Ms. Nina, and then feel the
freedom to do the "voodoo, you do" and what you get is Verve//Remixed. So
King Britt gets his hands on Tony Scott and the fruit gets no stranger, when
its Tricky behind the boards updating Ms. Holiday's "Strange Fruit" for a
post-9/11 reality. But the stars of this joint are MJ Cole, whose
speed-bumped take on Ms. McRae's "How Long has This Been Going On" was good
enough for Starbucks and MAW (Masters at Work), whose freak of "See-Line
Woman" confirmed Nina Simone as the Dance floor Diva we always knew she
was.
"Game Recognize Game and You Lookin' Familiar": Scarface
You always had to respect his work ethic, but it ain't Scarface's fault that
he been representin' Houston-if the cat had hailed from Cali or NYC, you
know we'd always be talkin' 'bout him as a Top-10. Been as steady as they
come, and steady for 'Face has always been damn-near genius and in that
regard Scarface (Def Jam South) is classic 'Face all grown up. He digs
deep in the crates for Donny and Roberta's "Be Real Black" to give love to
the 'hood that made him with "On My Block." "Guess Who's Back" is yet
another ditty with Young 'Hove and Beans (they hit up a third ditty on The
Blueprint 2) suggesting that the trio needs to get in the studio to a
E-double, Keith and Redman-like thing. If folks don't think the 'Face of
hip-hop is "getting' grown" just check "What Can I Do?", "Someday" and
"Heaven" and find playa contemplating middle-age and the afterlife.
More than Sexual Healing: A Southern Hummingbird Sings
So word has it that Elektra's Sylvia Rhone and Island/Def Jam's "bigga
nigga" Lyor Cohen, stared each other down over who would get sole control
of that April 11th drop date, Rhone's Tweet or Cohen's Ashanti. We know who
won, as Ashanti got saturated all over the world moving some 500,000 units
in the first week (I ain't sayin' there was payola, but?) and later getting
dissed (unfairly, though it was a legitimate gripe) at the Soul Train
Awards. When Tweet's hypnotic "Oops (Oh My)" began to hit the airwaves last
December, it seemed certain that she was gonna be the one in 2002. Alas,
much of Southern Hummingbird fit more nicely into the world of
grown-folks than teeny-boppers, who think that Ashanti's "Foolish" sampled
Biggie, as opposed to the original Debarge (who?) that Biggie and Puff got
it from in the first place. No Tweet didn't move gazillions of units, but
Tweet produced a finely crafted recording that she largely wrote and
produced. The sweet and tender grooves of "My Place", "Smoking Cigarettes",
and "Heaven" sound like they should be on a Dexter Wansel (who?) or Norman
Connors (who?) compilation, which is high praise in my mind. The high point
of Southern Hummingbird is "Best Friend", her oh so sexy duet with Bilal.
Like Bilal's own First Born Second, Tweet's Southern Hummingbird
deserved a better fate.
We Got Love for Y'all, But Y'all Don't Love Us: Still Ghetto
Word is that Teddy P don't think the brotha can sing, which I guess is a
natural response when you hear somebody on the radio that sound like you did
in your prime. Thing is Jaheim ain't in his prime yet, which makes Still Ghetto (Warner Bros.) all the more inspiring. The new poster-boy for Thug Soul,
Jaheim is anything but a thug on the fabulous "Fabulous", which is as
inspiring a track done on the corporate Soul scene since McFadden and
Whitehead's "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now". Yeah bruh hem and haws about the
crack game, the hood and other ghetto specifics on tracks like "Let's Talk
About It", "Me and My Bitch" and "Diamond in the Rough", but damn if those
ghetto chronicles never sounded so good. The treats though come when Ja Ja
slows his roll making "Put That Woman First" (his update of William Bell's
"I Forgot to be You Lover"), "Everywhere I Am" and "Special Day" the best
evidence of what Jaheim can become when he does in fact reach his prime and
Teddy P won't be able to hate on that.
When Did You First Fall In Love with Hip-hop: Electric Circus
Hip-hop ain't supposed to make you cry, but I cried several times during my
first listen of Common's Electric Circus (MCA). Yes, I mean I was literally
in tears (all up in Starbucks) and it was not about tears of sadness, but
tears of joy and satisfaction that somebody had finally forged an artistic
vision of hip-hop that simply transcended any attempt to label it. Hip-hop's Purple Haze? Common's Bitches Brew? All too confining. In short this
is the shit we been waitin' for-been waitin' for. And it was a collective
effort, from the sweet love of Common and Mary's "Come Close" to the closing
sermon "Heaven Somewhere" in which Omar, Cee-lo, Bilal, Jilly, Mary, Badu
and Common's pop (who's cameoed on all of his son's discs ) all take turns
at lead on a track that clocks in at over 10 minutes. The Common /Badu
tribute to Jimi ("Jimi was Rock Star") is worth the price of admission
alone. When did I fall in love with hip-hop? When I sat down and first
heard Electric Circus.
A Cookie for the Soul: Ndegeocello's NewBlack Mix-tape
Cookie: the Autobiographical Mix-Tape is N'degeocello at her funkiest and
most complete since 1996's Peace Before Passion. Madonna may be a maverick,
but her imprint has been anything but in their efforts to promote N'
degeocello. But that ain't all on them; How exactly do you promote someone
who simply collapses labels, boundaries, genres and ideological viewpoints
the way that Ms. Meshell do? And then there's the music, like the
sophisticated funk of "Dead Nigga Blvd." and "Jabril", the jazzed out groove
of "Criterion", and the post-coital swing of "Priorities 1-6" and "Earth".
Ms. Meshell is at her best though when she lives up to the mix-tape praxis
that Cookie's provocative title suggest bringing folks like Angela Davis
and Talib Kweli ("Hot Night") and June Jordan ("we love you!"), Countee
Cullen and Etheridge Knight ("6 Legged Griot Trio") in conversation with
each other. Like Common's Electric Circus, this is music for a NewBlack
world.
The Colored Section: Donnie
Got to give props to fellow critic Kandia Krazy Horse for initially piquing
my interest in Donnie. Though the vocal familiarity to another Donny is
clear, it gets forgotten when ears connect to the strident political
messages contained throughout The Colored Section (Giant Step). "Big
Black Buck" is lyrical genius as Donnie takes the metaphor of the proverbial
big black buck (think Jimmy "the Greek" Snyder) and recasts it in the name
of late stage capitalism and niche marketing. Those who bought Saadiq's
concept of "Gospeldelic" would be urged to take a gander at "Masterplan" and
then contemplate why homie is on a major and Donnie had to go it the indie
way. The lyric "I'm not a nigger, I'm a Negro/When I become a nigger, I'll
let you know" (from "Beautiful Me") should become the anthem for the next
generation of NewBoHos. And speaking of anthems, damn if "The Colored
Section" can't be the new "Negro National Anthem". The Colored Section
represents Donnie thinking out loud and truth to power ain't been this
soulful since that other Donny walked the earth.
A Charmed Life: J-Live
J-Live has always gotten love from the underground cats, a bunch of whom
were name dropping him to me some three years before All of the Above
dropped. Somethin' about this SUNY-Albany cat, who got his degree, now
teaching the younguns in the NYC educational system, while representin'
hip-hop on the real. His debut The Best Part got disappeared in some label
take-over drama, but J-Live went back to lab and All of the Above is the
product. Major props for the brilliant "One for the Griot" which gets the
messenger at the crossroads, Signifyin' Monkey thing right (somebody send
Skip a copy in case he preparing a 15th anniversary edition of The Signifying Monkey). Jazzy Jeff gets in the mix on the ethereal "A Charmed
Life" (also included on Jeff's disc), J-Live's spin on hip-hop "you the love
of my life"-"Brooklyn, NY to wherever you at, this is autobiographical,
taking you back/with no time for refrains, I barely got enough time to
explain how hip-hop captivated my brain". True dat.
The Loveland Sessions
So this last choice is a bit controversial as it is a project that has yet
to see the light of the legitimate marketplace and likely will never be
available at your local CD supermarket. While that alone would make this
choice untouchable, the fact that it's a project from the now notorious
Robert Kelly makes it even more so. Understand that I don't condone the
bootlegging of music nor the purchasing of bootlegged material, nor do I
condone child sodomy. R. Kelly's Loveland Sessions have been available on
the streets for close to a year. But those who know me and my work, know
that I got an R. Kelly jones, largely because his best stuff is world's
beyond that of his generational peers (can't even think of a 30-somethin R&B
performer who matches Kelly's skill at song writing, producing, arranging
and bringing the flow save N'degeocello and she ain't really an R&B singer)
and also because, like the best of the Soul Man tradition, Kelly wears his
contradictions, especially the most demonic ones, on the proverbial album
sleeve. Though the "Loveland" sessions begin to surface around the time
that Kelly was indicted, every indication is that this is material that was
completed before the indictment ("Heaven I Need a Hug" for instance was
recorded after the charges came down). Anybody who was surprised by the
criminal charges aimed at Kelly ain't really been listening to his music as
bruh been tellin' us for years that he been into some shit. I have little
doubt the charges against Robert are true, but I also believe they were part
of a past that Kelly has been slowly divorcing himself from. The Loveland Sessions is simply the most brilliant and sophisticated music that Kelly
has ever recorded and the best indication that the drama of the pre-TP-2
era is in fact part of a difficult and yes criminal, maturation process.
The Loveland Sessions find Kelly in love with his wife, in love with his
life and owning up to his sins. Given this, it is lamentable that Kelly and
his label have decided against releasing The Loveland Sessions (because of
bootlegging) and have chosen instead to release the forthcoming Chocolate Factory, which if the lead single "Ignition" is any indication, won't be
worthy of purchasing, let alone bootlegging.
Extended Riffs
Slum Village's "Tainted" -- at their slum beautiful best.
Camron's "Oh Boy" -- the best Roc-a-fella single since "Hard Knock Life"
Public Enemy's "Gotta Give the Peep What the Need" -- simply the best PE since
"Fight the Power"
Laura Nyro's Gonna Take a Miracle, New York Tendaberry, Eli and the
Thirteenth Confession (Re-issues) -- time to give the genius her due.
Jay Z's The Blueprint 2 -- contains some of Jigga's worst excesses. Always
got to respect Jigga's work ethic, but brotha needs to be leaner next time
around. Even still "All Around the World" and "Poppin' Tags" (with Big Boi,
Killer Mike and Twista) is young Hove at his best.
Nas's "Made You Look" -- the Nas we all thought we heard when we popped in
Illmatic like we hearing him for the first time.
— 31 December 2002
