A soulful musician and songwriter with a distinctive voice, built with obvious reggae influences in articulation and phrasing, Selah Sue offers her soulful, jazz-infused debut album. The self-titled LP went multi-platinum in her native country Belgium and peaked in the top ten of the Dutch and French albums chart, where she has been elevated as huge star, before embarking on worldwide release.
Let’s not get it twisted, Slaughterhouse is the squad. Flipmode may have said it but Slaughterhouse are it.
A deadly foursome, consisting of Joell Ortiz, Crooked I, Joe Budden and of course Royce Da 5’9, are all names not to be scoffed at as far as lyrical prowess is concerned. Successful entities within their own right, now a collective they are signed to Eminem’s Shady Records imprint, and the time has come for the underground to go overground.
F—k you, Cee Lo Green is writing a book about himself.
Grand Central Books has announced that they’ve signed the rapping, singing, songwriting, acting, talent-judging showstopper to write an as-yet-untitled memoir to be released next year.
It's become almost mandatory that every rapper, DJ and so forth claim that he or she is the best in their field. But when making it a slogan for your team or set, that's when the naysayers will multiply in abundance. Just ask Miami DJ Khaled, whose continuous hollering of 'We The Best' has put him under the firing line by many. But for every doubter, there's an abundance of supporters, including some heavyweight talent which goes from Miami all the way to NYC. So how will an album fare from a DJ who (fortunately) does very little rapping? This is the question that We The Best Forever will hope to answer.
A name which has brought some credibility and an edge to popular music is the electro production outfit Chase and Status. Composing outrageous breaks, beats and often teaming up with an array of underground (and the odd superstar) talents, the duo of Saul Milton and Will Kennard have up to this point destroyed many raves with their earth shattering compositions and off-the-wall anarchy which comes with their sound. The duo hope to build on their recent chart successes with a successful second album.
Cee Lo Green possesses the ability to present serious and even melancholy themes to audiences without depressing anyone; almost presenting a paradox as upbeat production and his emotive, raspy falsetto both belie the lyrical content and leave listeners elated. The starkly obvious example of this is 2003’s “Crazy”, which dealt with mental health by making you question “does that make me crazy?” and then shrug, “probably”.
The Lady Killer’s lead track “Fuck You” is this record’s “Crazy”, and it deals with rejection over an infectious, saccharine beat, and makes fans (well, me at least) want to cheerily chuck expletives at everyone while doing a shoulder bounce and foot shuffle.
In fact, The Lady Killer on a whole taps into
“When we’re in the studio what are our muses? Alcohol. Lot’s of it. And candy bars. And we like wild animals running around...” Bruno Mars jests with a straight face.
This, along with an awful imitation of a British accent, sets the tone for our hilarious interview.
By the time Bruno’s feature on B.o.B’s “Nothing On You” brought the singer/songwriter/producer into the public consciousness, he had co-written and produced Sugababes’ “Get Sexy”, Flo-Rida’s number 1 single “Right Round”, K’Naan’s breakout World Cup track “Wavin’ Flag” and Brandy’s “Long Distance” with his production comrades Phillip Lawrence and Ari Levine [better known as two thirds of The Smeezingtons].
The latest Bruno-assisted cuts capturing audience attention are Travie McCoy’s “Billionaire” and Cee Lo’s “Fuck You”.