Haven't had a lot of time yet but I know that there's...

Prince - Welcome to America

Isaiah Rashad - The House is Burning

and Silk Sonic (A Paak and Bruno Mars) finally dropped a follow-up to Leave the Door Open, "Skate":
https://youtu.be/CEw-7cMnBDY

Honestly not very excited about the Prince release (low expectations) and Rashad's cool but not really where my head's at right now. But looking forward to poking around for other stuff later --- what's everyone looking for/excited about? If nothing, what are you catching up on?

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

Boldy James/Alchemist
Tanya Morgan
Nas
Westside Gunn
Roc Marciano

All on my radar for August.

https://youtu.be/hMsNtmmrGe4

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

I saw the album on Spotify and I must have been thinking about Durand Bernarr. Kaytranda and Bernarr had the song "Freefall" on BUBBA that I really like.

Anyway, I checked out the new album by Durand Jones & the Indications and I enjoyed it a lot. It's got a strong, throwback disco feel. I really dig this album. It'll get several more spins form me.

They got on my radar after that solo Aaron Frazer album earlier this year. I can see why he's not really the lead singer but he really does add a nice dimension. I need to check out their older work.

1. Every Silk Sonic single continues to tell me this album won't be for me. And that's OK. I hope people enjoy it.

2. Emmavie's new EP dropped today. Just now noticed she's not on Fresh Selects. Either way, excited to hear her new music, ESPECIALLY with Phonte and Carrtoons? What?! Been a fan since Phonte mentioned her 2019 Honeymoon album (which maaaaaan, goes!).

3. Eddie Moore & The Outer Circle "Kings & Queens" (2016)
I've been playing his Live In Kansas City live album (2015) forever.
Kings & Queens has been in my bandcamp wishlist, and I needed to pull the trigger.

>1. Every Silk Sonic single continues to tell me this album
>won't be for me. And that's OK. I hope people enjoy it.

I liked Leave the Door Open well enough but then it really grew on me. Then it was everywhere and I could do without hearing it for a while...

This new one, on first listen, I'm feeling too. I'm not expecting this album to be a straight-up masterpiece, and it might be a bit too clean, but I feel like they've thrown a nice twist in every song so far that speaks to their talents (especially Paak's) and elevates it a bit.

>2. Emmavie's new EP dropped today. Just now noticed she's not
>on Fresh Selects. Either way, excited to hear her new music,
>ESPECIALLY with Phonte and Carrtoons? What?! Been a fan
>since Phonte mentioned her 2019 Honeymoon album (which
>maaaaaan, goes!).

Nice - thanks for this!

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~

Drops today, curious about this one

>
>Prince - Welcome to America
>

I had pretty low expectations for this: it's not an especially great period and all the press made it sound like it was a politically-geared record, and P and intentional political commentary generally do not make for good lyrics. So I expected some grooves ranging from bad to mediocre, maybe two or three stronger ones, but all of them weighed down by cringey pseudo-woke one-liners.

I was right. This is mostly skippable.

I will say the music itself is better than I expected. If these were instrumentals, I might go back to them more. Hot Summer's actually kind of cool. 1000 Light Years From Here, too, but all I could think was that Stevie wrote that lyric forty years earlier and it came off more memorably. (Also, is that a blatant rip of the "Make my funk the p-funk" chant on the title track?)

"When She Comes" was good but he'd kind of mined that musical space a lot in the '00s...

Worst track: 1010 (Rin Tin Tin), wtf was that?

Any theories as to why Prince was often so bad at covers ?(Stand Up and Be Strong is a Soul Asylum tune ... it's not even straight-up bad, it might even grow on me, but whenever he reached for a cover he seemed to lose imagination and try to go as straight alt-rock as possible... although I think one of the press pieces on this they suggested it was unfinished)

I'll go back a few times but this has all of the tact of the Rainbow Children (i.e. very little) with much less of the musical inspiration (RC is still probably my fav post-TGE Prince album, I think, although he had more winners than people remember).

-thebigfunk

~ i could still snort you under the table ~