Random

Despite its backdrop sounding like The Urban Domino's Pizza Music™ ("Girlfriend, when I'm not dropping down to get my eagle on I'm sho nuff ordering three large, one-topping pizzas from Domino's!"), "Emergency" is goodington. (Kelis + Saadiq = the style you haven't done yet.)

Stop expecting shit, dun. Timbaland can no longer surprise us. Going to "Sexyback" for anything other than synths is like buying Snickers solely for the peanuts when, anyway, you hate chocolate. It's really not that deep; just pretend Storch produced it and chill—never mind.

Dear, VH1 Soul,

Neo soul is dead. This I know for Erykah Badu (via the cover of 2003’s Worldwide Underground) tells me so. Not that this, at the time was a surprise to me or anyone else—the genre, impossibly plodding and painfully pretentious, in fact, died (at the hands of its maker, Ms. Badu) in 2000, when enraged fans peered down the barrel of Mama’s Gun to discover nary a head-wrap in its tripped-out chamber. At which point, Erykah, erstwhile avatar of neo soul, let the black boho community tell it, abandoned the movement she birthed on her 1996 debut (the sorcerous Baduizm), leaving it in the less capable hands of poseurs who reduced it to a coffeehouse catchall for Sister 2 Sister subscribers everywhere. (Word to India dot Arie.)

Can I get a Wikipediaclap?

When substance takes a backseat to style

There’s actually this game my friends and I used to play in which we would try and come up with all the clichés one might find in the typical neo-soul music video. The usual suspects being: incense; cowrie shells; African art; a brownstone somewhere in the newly gentrified section of Fort Greene, Brooklyn (aka Come See All Your Neighbors from Akron Now Living on DeKalb!). At some point there’s bound to be a shot of some curly-haired, headphone-sporting sister surrounded by vinyl and some dudes on guitar (the revolution will, apparently, not be synchronized!). There’s also that scene where our beautifully human heroine, in an act of proletarian pride, joins in on a game of hopscotch with a group of smiling schoolgirls. (Sanaa Hamri: step your bourgie black peoplehood game the fuck up.)

Oh: to that thicky thick chick who sings backup for those boho douchebags that Kanye signed last year SA-RA Creative Partners: Your music makes me want to know what it means to experience child birth not for nothin', sis, if and when I see you, your ass is so getting…



I'm gonna go watch "The Cosby Show" now.